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[LordTumbles]

Jesus I feel stupid but I just cannot figure it out.   I can (mostly) equip them, set archers to train, and set normal military to do self combat drills.  But nothing ever seems to go up in skill, or is very slow in doing so.

Are the days of dwarfs battling against each other untill blood was shed to train their skills gone or am I doing it wrong?


If anyone could simplify the way military works, i'd be much appreciative. (Btw i HAVE checked the wiki...  My brain just dosent grasp it)

[Nyan Thousand]

Yep, dwarves are stupid when it comes to learning. See, this is what happens: when your dwarves have no skill in something, they set up demonstrations and stuff. Say, a dodging demonstration. Note, they'll spar eventually, but only when they actually know something.

Urist A sets up the demonstration. The time it takes to set this up is dependent on the Teacher skill. Urists B and C watch. The skill gain they get from this endeavor is dependent on A's teaching skill as well as his dodging skill.

Now, if we have a squad of 10 recruits who have no business to be anywhere near a weapon, imagine how that works. It takes forever to set up demonstrations, and when it does happen, nobody learns anything because nobody knows anything. Quite frankly, your best bet is to equip them with the best weapons and armor and feed them to goblin ambushes. Call it field training. Eventually, when you get dwarves that actually know which end of the sword goes where, you should consider making them militia captains, heads of their very own squad of useless idiots.

When you think about it, some things never change. In 40d, you were better off feeding your dwarves to goblins because they always end up killing eachother during sparring. Now, you're better off feeding your dwarves to goblins because they're too stupid to learn anything on their own. Ah, c'est la vie.

[Graknorke]

Dwarves on train orders will choose a type of training, demonstrations or sparring.
Sparring is nonlethal combat practice
Demonstrations are the highest skill dwarves teaching the others, but it's not very useful without a decent teaching skill.

In their free time they'll sometimes do solitary combat drills/archery practice.
Archery in itself is actually an odd one, if you set them to train there's a good chance they'll organise demonstrations in wrestling or something. If you set only an archery range, they'll frequently enough use the targets to practice. I say frequently enough because they eat through bolts like someone off Jeremy Kyle through chocolate ice-cream. I've had my archer squad clear out my bonecrafters in almost every fortress, so make sure you have lots of training bolts spare.

The skill gain WILL be slow, you're not going to just throw dwarves together in a room for a year and have them come out being able to take down megabeasts. Live-action practice is the most time-effective, but it can be hard to always have enemies to fight. I find it's best to capture a few goblin prisoners and dump them in an arena on a reasonably regular basis, instead of all at once. It should give your dwarves enough practice to get to decent skill in their fighting skills within the lifetime of the fort.

[LordTumbles]

Sigh ok,  Last night I tried doing a (send military out to meet the goblin ambush)... resulted in my fort going from 80 dwarfs to 30.


oh the fun.


I dislike using traps for the simple fact that it kind of puts a safety mode on your fort.  And that can get boring quick.

[Nyan Thousand]

Well, I was going to suggest using a danger room, but if you don't like traps, then I'm sure as hell you won't like danger rooms. Have them practice on elves or the local wildlife.

[L3TUC3]

Make sure you set the equipment properly with custom uniforms. The default metal armor setting will assign armor but for some reason not have your dwarfs equip it when already multilayered. The extremities (head/feet/hands) are the worst offenders.

I've had dwarfs opting for fiber hoods and shoes instead of iron helms and boots. Lots of amputees guaranteed.

[Poindexterity]

early on,you dont need anything but shields and weapons.
Just put em in squads of two and make more squads. They'll learn WAY faster.
Also, consider giving one from your starting seven 5 pts in teacher, it makes it way easier.

[EmperorJon]

The military.
Simplified.

[luppolo]

put bunch of dorfs with no skills in team, have all equip the same weapon type, edit orders to have 5 "training-minimum 2" orders*, they will spar right away and since their skill rise together they will spend very few time with demonstrations, thus keeping sparring and improving


*if you don't do this they will always wait to be all 10 in the barracks idle which leads to them not doing anything ever except individual drill

[Graknorke]

No, that doesn't happen anymore. Now they'll just get on with what they've got (unless the demonstration leader goes t eat/drink/whatever).

[Calathar]

and set normal military to do self combat drills.

If by "self combat drills" you mean individual drills, then I can see your military not gaining hardly anything.  Make sure your squad is "activated" when training - the training dwarves should look like military dwarves.  If they appear like civilians, then they won't gain much skill.  Military skill gains do progress slowly, which is why many people use danger rooms.

[LordTumbles]

Allready i'm learning alot from all of you.  As soon as I get equipment (or should I start training immediatly with wooden stuff instead of waiting till my metal industry is built up??) I'll get to putting you're advices to work.

[luppolo]

i always bring 2 weapons on embark to have them start training right away, by the time i have steel they are already at decent skill

i recommend to not equip shield because they'll start parrying everything becoming legendary shield users but will stay forever crap in other skills as they will never manage to hit each other when sparring

[Anathema]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The military.
Simplified.

Usually it's more like this..



But on a serious note:
-Absolutely make a custom uniform that covers every inch of recruit in about 3 layers of steel
-Divide your melee dwarves into 'training' squads of ~2-3 dwarves each, with all dwarves in a given squad using the same weapon, with minimum training number set to 2 either way. It encourages sparring (good for noob recruits) instead of demonstrations (waste of time if recruits are doing the demonstrating)
-Send them out to kill random wildlife
-Capture some goblins with cage traps (I know you don't like traps, but bear with me..) and arrange an arena fight vs. your recruits. If you want to be hardcore about it, leave the goblin his weapons, and just use the trap/arena as a way to ensure your recruits have a fighting chance against a single goblin rather than getting overwhelmed by a full squad at once. If you're willing to cheese it a little, strip the goblin of all equipment (unforbid and dump while he's still in the cage), then set your recruits on him with wooden training weapons, he'll take forever to die and they'll get plenty of skill.

Of course, that's assuming you're set on melee dwarves. If you want to go marksdwarf-heavy, all you need is a drawbridge and fortifications, they can train "on the job" so to speak by taking potshots at the next goblin siege. The skillups are better than archery practice if you can actually get them to stand next to the fortifications with ammo, and they're relatively safe. If you set it up so that nothing can stand just outside the fortifications (either via a moat or putting them up a z-level) then only elite goblin bowman can hit them (watch out for those guys, one will slaughter your entire noob marksdwarf squad).

If you're like me and you must defend your fort the hard way, no traps, no danger rooms, no raising the drawbridge and letting marksdwarves whittle them down, then positioning is critical. You want to station your barely-trained/equipped dwarves somewhere that the goblins have to come to them one by one, say a 1-tile hallway leading to a larger room where your squad waits, with some way to block off the hallway until your dwarves are ready. Like so:

Code: [Select]

            XXXXXXXXXXXX...
            ...D.XXXXXXXg..
<- Fortress .D.D.+.g.g.g.g. Outside ->
            ..D.DXXXXXXX.g.
            XXXXXXXXXXXX...
D = melee dwarf
X = wall/rough stone/whatever
+ = door (keep locked until your dwarves are in position)
g = goblin ambush squad

I've actually defeated ambushes without losses this way, using only skill <4 recruits with just weapons (no armor/shields) and a lot of luck; it won't do for sieges, but it'll get you through the first year or two until you have a chance to get their skills/equipment to decent levels. It should go without saying that, for this to work, you need to spot the ambush before it's in the middle of your fort slaughtering civilians - for this I use watch animals (preferably useless pets) penned at strategic points on the map.

[DarkWolfXV]

Actually its like.
Adamantine equipment + Dwarf
Armed Dwarf + Danger Room
=
Carnage