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[gexern]

Thanks for the amazing help! And I think that I will now be able to master the brilliantly difficult military. Even though they almost always die, or loose both legs. Or discover and ancient city of undead underground and get killed alive. So much fun and so little time.

[WCG]

If you want to maximize training speed, without using danger rooms or live-opponent exercises, then it's really this simple:

1) Make a squad with 2 dwarves in it.  Give them a uniform that includes a weapon, shield and some armor.
2) Make a barracks.
3) Assign the squad to the barracks.
4) Change the squad's alert (passive orders) to "Active/Training".
5) Optionally, put their bedrooms, a booze stockpile, food stockpile, and dining room very close to the barracks.

That's it.  Do not mess with anything else.  They'll demonstrate some, and they'll spar some.

I keep hearing this, but it certainly doesn't seem to work for me. Even with 2 dwarves per squad, they almost NEVER spar, and then only very briefly. After two years, they're no better than they were at the start. (But they're getting increasingly unhappy.)

I guess I've just got classroom dwarves, huh? They sit around all day giving each other lessons, never getting off their butts. 

[Xen0n]

If you want to maximize training speed, without using danger rooms or live-opponent exercises, then it's really this simple:

1) Make a squad with 2 dwarves in it.  Give them a uniform that includes a weapon, shield and some armor.
2) Make a barracks.
3) Assign the squad to the barracks.
4) Change the squad's alert (passive orders) to "Active/Training".
5) Optionally, put their bedrooms, a booze stockpile, food stockpile, and dining room very close to the barracks.

That's it.  Do not mess with anything else.  They'll demonstrate some, and they'll spar some.

I keep hearing this, but it certainly doesn't seem to work for me. Even with 2 dwarves per squad, they almost NEVER spar, and then only very briefly. After two years, they're no better than they were at the start. (But they're getting increasingly unhappy.)

I guess I've just got classroom dwarves, huh? They sit around all day giving each other lessons, never getting off their butts. 

Dwarves give each other lessons when one of them has a higher level in some combat skill than the other.  So if you have a Grand Master Dodger in a squad with a dabbling dodger, they won't spar until they are close to equal levels in Dodging... which will take years at the rate that demonstrations go. 

For best results, have the 2 dwarves in the squad have near-identical combat skills (Biting, Fighting, Dodging, Armor User etc.) so they get straight to Sparring.

[greycat]

Why are they becoming unhappy?  If anything, they should start out unhappy about being drafted (when they have less than Novice weapon skill, and have the title "Recruit"), but that should stop when they get a bit of skill.

If they're still unhappy after 2 years of training -- or worse, if they're still Recruits -- then you need to figure out what's going wrong that's preventing them from making progress.  Maybe they're spending half their time walking from the barracks to the booze stockpile because it's too far away.  Maybe they're getting bad thoughts from lack of clothing and then spending a month trying to track down the mayor for a meeting.

[WCG]

Why are they becoming unhappy?

Mostly, they're enraged at long patrol duty. Originally, I had them set to train a month, then take a month off, but that didn't keep them from being unhappy at long patrol duty (I heard that was because of a bug), so I just set them to train permanently. They're pretty mad about it, though.

The recruits are also unhappy about being drafted. And every month, it seems, they become civilians again briefly, before being drafted again, even though they're set to train permanently. (Another bug?)

And they're unhappy because many of them don't like flies. Well, there are lots of flies around, despite the cats. Maybe because this is a jungle setting?

My civilian dwarves tend to be ecstatic, but not my military dwarves, even when they sleep in the same bed as an ecstatic dwarf.

For best results, have the 2 dwarves in the squad have near-identical combat skills (Biting, Fighting, Dodging, Armor User etc.) so they get straight to Sparring.

This might be it. I've received almost no migrants with military skills, especially not with any melee skills. I got one dwarf with low-level mace skill, one dwarf with low-level hammer skill, and one dwarf with low-level spear skill. So, in order to get two to a squad, I teamed each of them up with a complete newbie.

But still, even the "experienced" soldiers of the pair don't have very much skill (level 2, generally - and novice in dodging, armor use, shields, etc.). But I suppose if they have to be of even skill abilities in everything, that's got to take a lot of time.

Hmm,... I didn't do it in this fort, but I've heard other advice that I should bring a dwarf with good military skills and a high teaching skill, then keep pairing him up with new recruits in order to train them. But that's the exact opposite of what I'm hearing here, that both members of a squad should have similar levels of ability, isn't it?

[Xen0n]

For best results, have the 2 dwarves in the squad have near-identical combat skills (Biting, Fighting, Dodging, Armor User etc.) so they get straight to Sparring.

This might be it. I've received almost no migrants with military skills, especially not with any melee skills. I got one dwarf with low-level mace skill, one dwarf with low-level hammer skill, and one dwarf with low-level spear skill. So, in order to get two to a squad, I teamed each of them up with a complete newbie.

But still, even the "experienced" soldiers of the pair don't have very much skill (level 2, generally - and novice in dodging, armor use, shields, etc.). But I suppose if they have to be of even skill abilities in everything, that's got to take a lot of time.

Hmm,... I didn't do it in this fort, but I've heard other advice that I should bring a dwarf with good military skills and a high teaching skill, then keep pairing him up with new recruits in order to train them. But that's the exact opposite of what I'm hearing here, that both members of a squad should have similar levels of ability, isn't it?

Yeah, it's relying on 2 different forms of training; Sparring vs. Demonstrations.  For Sparring you want them to be the equally matched, for demonstrations you want one with a much higher skill.  I think the "Teacher" method of training is theoretically possible to be efficient, but takes such an investment and relies so heavily on getting migrants with good Student skills etc. that it doesn't play out well. 

Based on these two threads, Demonstrations seem the absolute worst method of training dwarves, and rely on both the Teacher and Student having their respective skills high to boot.  If you're using mods like Higher Learning where you could set your Military instructor to rack up a Legendary Teacher skill, then got lucky with some high-level Student dwarves, it might be feasible...  But generally migrants have Teacher and Student at either Dabbling or Novice

[WCG]

Based on these two threads, Demonstrations seem the absolute worst method of training dwarves, and rely on both the Teacher and Student having their respective skills high to boot.

Apparently, I've been doing this backward. I've taken migrants with some existing military skills and put them in the military. Well, that seemed logical, don't you think? But apparently, I should only be recruiting dwarfs with no skill at all. Then they won't spend all their time giving demonstrations.

My guys don't learn anything at all in years of training, yet I keep hearing that two-man squads of complete newbies can become lords after only a year. Apparently, that's because they spar, rather than give/watch demonstrations.

Of course, the designation bug might have something to do with it, too. I'm constantly designating new mining and other tasks. I'm always pausing the game to fiddle with it - very nitpicky, in that way. But apparently, that causes my military to learn nothing from demonstrations.

Well, I am definitely making a danger room! As broken as this is, I don't see any option at this point. (Actually, I'm making it now. But since I lost my only skilled mechanic, it looks like it will take my newbie mechanics years just to complete it.)

[Quietust]

Dwarves give each other lessons when one of them has a higher level in some combat skill than the other.  So if you have a Grand Master Dodger in a squad with a dabbling dodger, they won't spar until they are close to equal levels in Dodging... which will take years at the rate that demonstrations go. 

Is this actually true? I once had a Legendary Axedwarf spar with a Novice Axedwarf and boost him up to Great in a matter of months.

[Mechatronic]

The key to optimising military training is to find the what is preventing them from training optimally and fixing it. There's usually a "bug" in your system. If you follow the method that greycat gave dwarves will often train up to legendary soldiers in a couple of years, similar to if you optimise civilian training. Some notable "bugs":

- Walking back and forth between barracks and food stockpiles
-- solutions: place food stockpile near/in barracks or give waterskins/flasks and backpacks

- Walking to the forge to collect incrementally better kit as you make it
-- solutions: assign a training uniform consisting of wooden weapons and shields while you make metal stuff, make armour in large batches, assign specific item in uniform (tedious)

- Bugged uniform assignment, happens more often when you try to assign multiple layers of armour
-- solutions: use default metal uniform, remove a layer of armour and see if it fixes problem

- Walking out to previously assigned waypoints, standing around like morons
-- solution: assign a new move command somewhere close to the barracks

[Xen0n]

Dwarves give each other lessons when one of them has a higher level in some combat skill than the other.  So if you have a Grand Master Dodger in a squad with a dabbling dodger, they won't spar until they are close to equal levels in Dodging... which will take years at the rate that demonstrations go. 

Is this actually true? I once had a Legendary Axedwarf spar with a Novice Axedwarf and boost him up to Great in a matter of months.

I can't confirm this, and am mostly basing it on things I've heard in the forums, so I suppose it should be taken with a grain of salt. 

I did notice that when I switched from a bunch of 2-dwarf squads with carefully matched skills, to a few 10-dwarf squads with 5x Train (2 minimum) orders, I started seeing a lot more demonstrations and less sparring.  I assumed this was because now the pairs to do Train (2 minimum) are random and not always evenly matched.

[WCG]

There's usually a "bug" in your system.

None of those bugs apply to my military. But as I noted, I've heard of a designation bug, where time passes when you're designating items. (I've had dwarves change from military to civilian, and/or the other way around, while I was designating areas to mine.) Apparently, dwarves watching demonstrations - which is all mine seem to do - don't get any experience at that time.