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[Child of Armok]

Oke,how to make A GOOD TRAINING crossbow squad?

[Mimodo]

I'd like to know this too, if anyone can be bothered explaining I mean, i've got a squad of marksdwarfs, but they don't seem to train very fast

[misko27]

1. Make a pit.
2. Throw non-archer gobbos in pit.
3. Station Squad next to pit.
4.
5. Profit.

Seriously, live training trains lightening fast. Case in point, it takes 60 practice shots to train to novice, but only 17 combat shots.

[Child of Armok]

I don't have any gobs, and i want to prepare for the NECROMANCER (<------- = bolt) attack!

[Mimodo]

You want to prepare for necromancer? I want to keep my fortress safe :p

I'm thinking I'll line up cage traps to get some goblins (if they want to send more than a snatcher).
Is exp trained faster if I don't strip the goblins first? Does that armour add a little more to what they get, or is it a waste of time?

[Wyrmnax]

Armor make the goblins survive longer, so it can give you a target for more time.

[Merijeek]

Are archery targets bugged in the current version. I'm running Masterwork, and I can build a target, I can assign a squad to it...and I haven't seen anyone fire a single bolt.

[Talvieno]

Misko has the right idea here. Armored gobbos in a pit, but make sure you use wood bolts or they'll go down far, far too quickly.

If you want to do it the traditional way, I would suggest staggering archery targets and pits, like so: ■x■x■x■x■ and place them against a wall. Bolts that miss will hit the wall and fall down into the pits. If you connect them to a room on the z-level below, you can reuse any of the bolts that fall. This is especially useful if you only have a limited amount of lumber and ore. Oh, and make sure you set each target as a separate range.

Are archery targets bugged in the current version. I'm running Masterwork, and I can build a target, I can assign a squad to it...and I haven't seen anyone fire a single bolt.

Nope, not bugged. Sometimes they just take a while to start practicing - newer squads especially. "Take a while" as in months to a year or two. Put a skilled archer in a small squad with just one or two recruits to increase training time.

[Cozmopolit]

My theory on this is that dwarfes only use archery targets as soon as they got any points in Archery/Crossbow skills - so you want to have at least one dwarf in the squad that has used a crossbow before, so he can give an archery lesson in the barracks to the new recruits.

Also, conserving bolts by dropping them to a lower z-level creates fucktons of hauling jobs once you reclaim those bolts, which is why I stopped doing so months ago. Might/should be a lot better now with the hauling changes though.

[Talvieno]

Also, conserving bolts by dropping them to a lower z-level creates fucktons of hauling jobs once you reclaim those bolts, which is why I stopped doing so months ago. Might/should be a lot better now with the hauling changes though.

Yep, it's not like that anymore, if you've updated to 34.08 or later. Now they take bins with them and gather everything a lot more quickly.

[Maxmurder]

just wait till a hauler takes a bin full of masterwork armor outside... then is killed by a siege.

[Qwernt]

Just have the room below contain an appropriately designated storage for bolts (no bins).  They won't be moved, right?

[Loud Whispers]

Set to train with -1 squad size all year. They'll do demonstrations right up to the point where they're decent at shooting things, and begin walking off to do their own individual archery training.

Yep, it's not like that anymore, if you've updated to 34.08 or later. Now they take bins with them and gather everything a lot more quickly.

In .07 I didn't even have this problem - the military claimed every single bolt the moment it was reclaimed

You should have a Dwarf at least proficient in marksdwarfship leading each marksdwarf squad. Teaching skills help greatly.

[DavionFuxa]

just wait till a hauler takes a bin full of masterwork armor outside... then is killed by a siege.

Simply making your stockpile only deal with Ammo would fix this problem, wouldn't it?

[FourierSeries]

A word of caution, this is based on my experience. It works for me; but, for all I know none of it's true. Also I've just barely started into the newest version there may be changes. And the wiki probably says it better.

A few guidelines I've found from my frustrations of dealing with the military.

1) Have the squad size of 3 for new squads. Once they're good at what they do you might want to consolidate them into mondo 10 man squads. Or maybe not.

2) Have each squad set to Train for 8 months & No Scheduled Order for 4 months. Break up that 4 months off time across the year - not all at once.

3) When set to Train make sure they are set to Train, 2 minimum & don't forget to copy that order for the other 7 months.

4) Have a barracks & set each squad to train there.

---

5) In addition to all this, for each xbow squad, create 3 archery targets. DEFINE EACH TARGET AS A SEPARATE ARCHERY RANGE. ( This was the biggest "Ah Ha!" moment for me. Just defining one that overlaps the others DOES NOT WORK. Training really took off after I got this. ) Assign each xbow squad to 3 of them.

6) Assign ammunition for each xbow squad. I use "200" bolts per squad - that's 100 wood bolts set as Train, & 100 bolts of anything else that is not wood for Combat. You could go all wood all the time for everything.

7) Set up a massive bolt creation industry. You are going to be strip clearing the forest regularly for wood for bolts for training. You want at least 1000 wood bolts in your stockpiles, per squad, per season. Check every season at a minimum, you'll probably need more than this.

This should give you a functional military in a year, & some very dangerously effective ( but not completely legendary! ) squads in under 5 years. Any extra real combat you can give them, provided it's done in carefully controlled & totally unfair circumstances, will greatly accelerate this process.

Keep in mind this is just a guideline - someone else can probably pick this apart in much greater detail.

( Extra edit - I'm not even going to try to cover uniforms .. ask around. One last suggestion, have each squad set to sleep in their rooms, & don't let them carry any food or drinks. )