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[mustafa2812]

I am kind of confused as to what the "minimum allowed" is in the scheduling page and where i should set it to.  I also am confused as to how many dwarves I should have per squad.  I've been doing 4 dwarves per squad with the minumum needed down to 2 for the training but I'm starting to wonder why I do it that way and if there is an easier/better way of organizing my military.  Also is it ok to schedule dwarves for all months of the year or will they get cranky without months with no scheduled orders?  What is the perfect balance? 

[dexxy]

Scheduling depends on various things. For example, legendary war dwarfs don't get mad from being on duty, so there would be no problem having them on duty all the time.

Recruits get mad when they go on duty. Then they might get even more mad if they stay on duty for a long time. However this doesn't have to be a problem, if you make them happy in other ways. A fancy bedroom, a fancy dining room, fancy food, and lots of booze will balance out the angry thoughts they get from being on duty.

[WealthyRadish]

I would recommend training dwarves in squads of two, as then they'll spend much more time sparring instead of doing demonstrations, which trains much more rapidly. Having squads of four with two minimum just means that two will be wasting time hauling junk around, idling, or doing individual combat drills.

Unfortunately, there really isn't much point in trying to keep your soldiers from complaining about long periods of active duty. Due to what seems to be a bug, the thought lasts a very long time, persisting over any reasonable time that they'd be on break, to continue to grow in severity. It's better to just rush them through their 'teething' period, trying to keep the 'enraged from long patrol duty' thought under control with other niceties. I'd recommend not having them carry any food, as carrying it causes them to eat it on the go, rather than in a dining room. It's more efficient if they bring food along, but keeping them happy is more important.

Once they reach hero status (which won't take terribly long if they're in squads of two) they'll stop complaining about active duty. Until then, keep in mind that they'll be fragile and sensitive things, rather like a bunch of frumpy bearded old ninnies, complaining about this and that until finally emerging from their hairy cocoons. Field duty can be a killer, as dwarves already on the fritz that are forced to go outside in the rain to get shot at are liable to go insane, so avoid any real fighting whenever possible.

[mustafa2812]

Alright these all seem to be good suggestions.  Any other advice is still aprecciated.  I am starting to get the mechanics of the military but not the strategy or the reasoning for many things.

[Finn]

This has all been good advice but I think it's important to understand the underlying mechanics that make it good advice.  All dwarves have an "occupation".  I put it in quotes because it's not an official term, but basically whatever skill is highest for a dwarf determines their occupation.  If that occupation is not military, then activating a squad with that dwarf will cause the "upset by the draft" thought.  This thought stops happening as soon as the dwarf's highest skill becomes one of the military skills.  Once they are a Marksdwarf, the negative thought will come when they are set to inactive.  So to sum up (sorry, drinking), before they are professional soldiers they get a negative thought when put on duty, after they are profesional soldiers they get a negative thought for being taken off duty.

Both of these negative thoughts can be easily offset by common positive thoughts, such as having their own bedroom and eating in legendary dining halls.

To answer your original post, what the "minimum allowed" does is determine how many dwarves in your squad you want to be "on duty" during months that you've scheduled as active/training.  If you are having labor shortages you might want to set this to something less than ten, otherwise if all your hauling and labor jobs are under control leave it at ten.  Despite continual inaccurate statements to the contrary it affects only how many dwarves are on duty and how many are still taking civilian jobs; it  has no effect on likelyhood of training, frequency of training, or anything else.

To be clear, what urbangiraffe said is probably true, that squads of two are more likely to spar than the other choices they have for training, and sparring yeilds more xp than other options such as watching demonstrations.  I haven't done the science myself but I tend to believe the people who claim it.  By far the most xp, though, is gained by capturing some enemis in cages and then dropping them in arenas where you militia can beat on them for a long time.

Hope this helps

[dexxy]

This has all been good advice but I think it's important to understand the underlying mechanics that make it good advice.  All dwarves have an "occupation".  I put it in quotes because it's not an official term, but basically whatever skill is highest for a dwarf determines their occupation.  If that occupation is not military, then activating a squad with that dwarf will cause the "upset by the draft" thought.  This thought stops happening as soon as the dwarf's highest skill becomes one of the military skills.  Once they are a Marksdwarf, the negative thought will come when they are set to inactive.  So to sum up (sorry, drinking), before they are professional soldiers they get a negative thought when put on duty, after they are profesional soldiers they get a negative thought for being taken off duty.

I thought it was:

A dwarf who has no military skills at "novice" level or above is a "Recruit". As soon as they have a military skill of novice or higher, they are no longer a Recruit, and they will no longer complain about the draft. So a dwarf who is novice at crossbow or hammer is called a marksdwarf or a hammerdwarf respectively, and will not complain about the draft, no matter how high their civilian skills are.

[Finn]

This has all been good advice but I think it's important to understand the underlying mechanics that make it good advice.  All dwarves have an "occupation".  I put it in quotes because it's not an official term, but basically whatever skill is highest for a dwarf determines their occupation.  If that occupation is not military, then activating a squad with that dwarf will cause the "upset by the draft" thought.  This thought stops happening as soon as the dwarf's highest skill becomes one of the military skills.  Once they are a Marksdwarf, the negative thought will come when they are set to inactive.  So to sum up (sorry, drinking), before they are professional soldiers they get a negative thought when put on duty, after they are profesional soldiers they get a negative thought for being taken off duty.

I thought it was:

A dwarf who has no military skills at "novice" level or above is a "Recruit". As soon as they have a military skill of novice or higher, they are no longer a Recruit, and they will no longer complain about the draft. So a dwarf who is novice at crossbow or hammer is called a marksdwarf or a hammerdwarf respectively, and will not complain about the draft, no matter how high their civilian skills are.

This may be more correct; again, apologies for posting while drinking.  I am fond of drink and industry.

[dexxy]

This may be more correct; again, apologies for posting while drinking.  I am fond of drink and industry.

You dwarf you.

I just checked out one guy in my recruit squad. She's been in there for about a year, and has just turned into a Wrestler because she got to novice fighter. I think these are the problems with military training:

* for a dwarf to learn military skills in a lesson, they need student and concentration skills.

* for a dwarf to teach military skills, they need organization, leadership, and teaching.

* if the teachers and students have low levels in these skills, it will take a very long time for them to learn military stuff

* also sometimes the recruits will teach the lesson, so of course they have low teacher skills and low military skills, those lessons won't be very effective.

To get around these problems there are a few ways:

* lots of combat, either get the soldiers to kill as many animals as possible on the map, or build an arena and throw prisoners captured in cage traps in there for them to fight

* wait a realllly long time for the training to work

* put them in a danger room so they can learn some melee skills quickly

I think it's possible to have a recruit on duty for so long that the draft complaints thoughts disappear, and they are just mad about the long duty. I've got 4 recruits in the recruit squad who currently aren't complaining about the draft but are angry about long patrol duty. The angry thoughts are overpowered by the happiness of good bedrooms, good food, and good dining rooms, so this is not a problem. The problem is that after a year of training, 4/5 of them are still only dabbling in the military skills.

[Panando]

"Angry about the draft" occurs when a dwarf without any combat skills is forced to active duty (you can put him in a squad and he'll pick up his weapons and stuff, but he only gets the unhappy thought when actually activated by being stationed, giving a kill order, or manually activating).
"Upset about being relieved from duty" occurs when a dwarf without any civilian skills is changed from active to inactive.

If a dwarf has both a combat skill and a civilian skill - even if it's only novice - they will never get either of those unhappy thoughts regardless of how much they are activated and inactivated.

By far the quickest way to give a dwarf a combat skill is to train them up to novice marksdwarf by shooting at stuff. You might even want to do this before starting them training in melee. It shouldn't matter for squads of 2 because they get weapon skill fast, but for larger squads which might spend a lot of time inactive, it might be years before gaining novice weapon skill.

As for mitigating the other unhappy thought "Enraged about long patrol duty". The key here is to minimize other unhappy thoughts. Give them their own bed, it doesn't have to be a fancy bedroom, just don't make them sleep in the dirt. Make sure they have food and booze. Try to avoid having them train in a place which attracts vermin, like a refuse stockpile or food stockpile. As already noted, they can be sensitive. A military dwarf in a small squad will get enough happiness from sparring to overcome the unhappy thought about long patrol duty. They also get a happy thought for slaughtering enemies. It is often worthwhile investing in a waterfall/mist generator, if you occasionally station them under it, this will make it almost impossible for them to get unhappy.

[greycat]

By far the quickest way to give a dwarf a combat skill is to train them up to novice marksdwarf by shooting at stuff.

A danger room is quicker.  Just sayin'.

[Sutremaine]

Both of these negative thoughts can be easily offset by common positive thoughts, such as having their own bedroom and eating in legendary dining halls.

Just a note: soldiers don't take their meals to the dining room. If they were inactive and already decided to take their food to the dining room they won't drop it or eat it where they're standing if they're suddenly activated on the way, but otherwise they eat off whatever tile the food was on. You could give them a month off to allow them to get hungry as civilians, but I prefer using any potential free time for more sparring and skill gains.

[dexxy]

On the subject of who is a recruit and who isn't: My recruit squad has one guy named Bomrek who is novice fighter and dodger, but still a recruit. He is dabbling at axe, shield, armor, wrestler, and striker.

Another recruit is Kogan, who is novice dodger, but dabbling axe, hammer, armor, fighter, wrestler, and striker.

Another dwarf named Cerol has novice striking and dodging, and is a Wrestler. (Dwarf wrestling must include punching?)

So it seems that not all military skills will stop somebody being a recruit. Maybe they only stop being recruits if they have novice or better in a weapon skill, wrestling, or striking? Maybe kicking or biting too? Anyway it seems that dodging and fighting at novice will still leave the dwarf at recruit level.

[Panando]

It seems that anything which causes them to change from a recruit works. If they (only) have skill in striking, biting, kicking then the game calls them a wrestler and they don't gain the unhappy thought.

[dexxy]

I think that fighter and dodger don't count for stopping being a recruit. Not sure which other skills don't count, maybe armor and shield?

[Garath]

afaik, any weapon skill
marksdwarf, wrestler (wrestling, biting, kicking, punching), axe, sword, spear, lash, knive, mace, hammer... did I forget any?