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[mordrax]

So i've read up somewhat about how to train your military and alot of labors are associated with attribute gains etc, but there isn't much definitive conclusions as to which labor is the best for which attribute training. This post is just about some of my observations and whether it correlates to what everyone else is seeing.

I've got 5 miners who dug out a Z-level (4x4) of soil + my whole fort in rock. These were my military reserves. I named them ResClumsy or ResClumsyTired based on their attribute. After all the digging which took several seasons, their attributes had changed very little, Clumsy was still Clumsy and Tired was still Tired.

I also have 12 soldiers, split evenly in half between axe and hammer, split into 3 groups of 2 sparring partners set to 2 minimum (hasn't died of hunger yet... despite what i read about setting lower minimum than in actual group)
Now these soldiers I pick based on their "lack of bad attributes" so if a soldier is a male and has no negative values, he's immediately drafted. But unfortunately i didn't keep a record of how Quick or Inexhaustable they were.

After the same number of seasons, my military soldiers seems to have a really large boost to their attributes. Most of them has at least 3 above average attributes and 2 of them are on legendary level for attributes (diamond shape in DT).

my conclusion is that the best way to train soldiers, not only in weapon skills but also attributes is to don the armor, pick up a stick and train 10 of the 12 months a year! or as some would recommend, train non stop and give them a grand bedroom!

If this is the case, then i can relax my military filter to include those who are slightly below average in attributes because the sparring would soon improve them.

However, this means i'd have to create about 30-50 squads to get a good sized training regime going.

tips?

[Triaxx2]

It's not necessarily that hard. If you use larger squads you can get more of them trained faster.

And I haven't seen the starve to death bug lately, mostly because it seems that the carry food with them option now works. They'll automatically grab food and water and it seems that now they'll actually eat it.

Of course I was only two years into my first fortress, so it's possible I just haven't had it happen yet.

[mordrax]

If you use larger squads you can get more of them trained faster.

the problem i read about larger squads is that they tend to wait around for demonstrations and not spar causing these active soldiers to waste most of their time loitering in the sun.

[mordrax]

Sparring is awesome! I've just embarked with 3 dwarves lvl 5 in hammer, spear and axe, and all lvl 5 teaching. And set them to 3 sparring partners with no weapon skills.
Within the first month, they each performed demonstrations that made the students lvl 1-2 in weapon skills and started sparring.
By the second winter, my spear dwarves are both legendary, axes on 14, 13, hammers on lvl 13.
Basically 6 of my 7 starting dwarves are hero level military dwarves in 2 years.

As an added bonus, I tracked their attribute progress and it's quite extraordinary. Where mining takes a whole year of mining out a level to get ~50 points increase in an attribute, sparring gives 300-500 points increases across the board for the last 2 years. I had a very clumsy dwarf on ~260 agility, he is now on ~700. My weak dwarf is no longer weak, 800 to 1100.

I'm considering drafting all dwarves into the military at some point to increase their speed and overall survivability. And since I found out about multiple training orders and the ability to set preferred orders, that means I can set 5 pairs of sparring partners per squad which should be less tedious than creating squads of 2.

[Snaake]

...I'm considering drafting all dwarves into the military at some point to increase their speed and overall survivability. And since I found out about multiple training orders and the ability to set preferred orders, that means I can set 5 pairs of sparring partners per squad which should be less tedious than creating squads of 2.

The start of your post was actually not just about the benefits of sparring, but also of starting with teaching 5 dwarves, the teaching really gives them a boost initially.

But multiple training orders :O

Please elaborate on how they work/point me to where it's explained, or is it already on the wiki? I'm just about to expand my military from my initial training groups (just got my first axelord), already have some rookies who've been pumping air for stat boosts lined up and everything.

[Triaxx2]

If you set minimum requirement to 2, it means you'll get a lot of sparring, regardless of squad size. 1 gets lots of individual combat drills.

[Archmonk]

Sparring is awesome! I've just embarked with 3 dwarves lvl 5 in hammer, spear and axe, and all lvl 5 teaching. And set them to 3 sparring partners with no weapon skills.
Within the first month, they each performed demonstrations that made the students lvl 1-2 in weapon skills and started sparring.
By the second winter, my spear dwarves are both legendary, axes on 14, 13, hammers on lvl 13.
Basically 6 of my 7 starting dwarves are hero level military dwarves in 2 years.

As an added bonus, I tracked their attribute progress and it's quite extraordinary. Where mining takes a whole year of mining out a level to get ~50 points increase in an attribute, sparring gives 300-500 points increases across the board for the last 2 years. I had a very clumsy dwarf on ~260 agility, he is now on ~700. My weak dwarf is no longer weak, 800 to 1100.

I'm considering drafting all dwarves into the military at some point to increase their speed and overall survivability. And since I found out about multiple training orders and the ability to set preferred orders, that means I can set 5 pairs of sparring partners per squad which should be less tedious than creating squads of 2.

You embarked with six full time sparrers? Sounds like the 1 other dwarf got shafted, having to do all the work till migrants arrived.

Sparring partners--is this done by setting up a squad for each 'teacher/skills' dwarf and then adding an unskilled dwarf to each?

[mordrax]

The start of your post was actually not just about the benefits of sparring, but also of starting with teaching 5 dwarves, the teaching really gives them a boost initially.

yeah, misleading advertising there the teaching puts them up to lvl 1 weapon skill really quick (one demonstration session actually) but beyond that, they just started sparring. i was watching them closely and they spent alot of time with fighting, dodging demos too, wasted alot of time. what surprised me was that by year 2, both student and teacher was at lvl 15 weapon skill! roughly the same time, the teacher was at 15 while the student was at 14 for a little bit so next embark i'm going to forgo the teacher skill and just focus on dodge and bit of weapon. not even convinced they need to start with much weapon skill seeing the speed that they improve it though sparring.

But multiple training orders :O

i only got bits and pieces of this through my last 2 weeks of DF addiction. i've been scouring forums on military.
it's only mentioned very briefly and in passing on the wiki (one sentence if you search 'multiple' on the soldiers wiki page)
i haven't tested this, only assuming it works from what i've read.

Create a group of 10 soldiers, all same weapon.
Go to schedule and clear your training so they have no orders.
create a training order, minimum 2, and at that screen you can set a preference of which positions to prefer. select 1-2.
create another training order, for the same squad, same month, this time prefering 3-4.
do this 5 times and you'll get 5 sets of training with preferences for paired training...
The positions refer to the order they are in the squad list so if u do 1-2, 3-4 etc, the first and second will spar, third and fourth will pair up etc etc

now i'm not sure if this is going to work as well as creating 5 squads of pairs... but if it does, it sure does beat creating 10 squads of 2 soldiers... instead u can create 2 squads of 10 soldiers. gonna try it out now and see if it works

[mordrax]

Sparring is awesome! I've just embarked with 3 dwarves lvl 5 in hammer, spear and axe, and all lvl 5 teaching. And set them to 3 sparring partners with no weapon skills.
Within the first month, they each performed demonstrations that made the students lvl 1-2 in weapon skills and started sparring.
By the second winter, my spear dwarves are both legendary, axes on 14, 13, hammers on lvl 13.
Basically 6 of my 7 starting dwarves are hero level military dwarves in 2 years.

As an added bonus, I tracked their attribute progress and it's quite extraordinary. Where mining takes a whole year of mining out a level to get ~50 points increase in an attribute, sparring gives 300-500 points increases across the board for the last 2 years. I had a very clumsy dwarf on ~260 agility, he is now on ~700. My weak dwarf is no longer weak, 800 to 1100.

I'm considering drafting all dwarves into the military at some point to increase their speed and overall survivability. And since I found out about multiple training orders and the ability to set preferred orders, that means I can set 5 pairs of sparring partners per squad which should be less tedious than creating squads of 2.

You embarked with six full time sparrers? Sounds like the 1 other dwarf got shafted, having to do all the work till migrants arrived.

Sparring partners--is this done by setting up a squad for each 'teacher/skills' dwarf and then adding an unskilled dwarf to each?

yeah military has always been my weak spot. in the last 5 embarks, i always get screwed by goblin ambushers, or siege. so this time i did 3 teachers with lvl 5 weapon skills in 3 squads with a unskilled dwarf, so 3 squads of 2. they trained 2 years and they are all now lvl 13 or better. thing is, you can't specify sparring partners directly, u can just put them in groups of 2 and hope they spar rather than do useless demonstrations.

i embarked with 60 food and drinks. enough to get by for the first year. i only really started digging on the second migrant wave when i got 16 dwarves. first wave of 2 dwarves didn't really help out much. the one that got left out was my smith, lvl 5 weapon/armor smith with a preference for steel (good for masterwork weapon/armor later on). for basic survival, all you need early on is a farm plot and a still. plump helms for dinner and plump helm for ale... same old drink, yuck, same old meal. but they hover on content or fine. 80-120 happiness.

what i'm really happy about is the attribute increases. previously i picked male dwarves with no negative attributes but now i can pick any male dwarves because their attributes will just go up dramatically from sparring. and leave female dwarves for labors cause they go searching for babies alot.

[Archmonk]

I rarely if ever see much improvement in squad training in my typical games.  I just tried the 2-man squads for a year, and wow, VERY noticeable improvements. Thanks for the tip.

[Panando]

I quite often do the 6 military 1 civilian embark. It's quite a lot of fun actually. Initially I have the military dwarves chop some trees, dig out some space, produce some furniture, and smelt, forge and create their own gear. Typically the civilian will be a herbalist or farmer, and will be doing his thing. Otherwise the civilian will be a weapon or armorsmith - that depends on what the preferences are like.
Typically there is no need to bring food. Just slaughter the pack animals and cook some seeds from brewing and/or do some booze cooking (since I incline more to herbalism than farming, seeds are expendable, but even if you farm, if you bought some plump helmets for brewing, you'll have plenty of spare seeds).
The 6 will be training within the first season, and the 7th will be pretty busy until the migrants arrive, usually doing things like finishing off the furniture, completing uniforms for the military dwarves, producing soap, farming, brewing, cooking etc.

I also do 4 military and 2 military embarks. With 4 military, you have enough civilians left over to pierce an aquifer if need be. With 2 military, once you're used to 6/4 military starts, you almost wont know what to do with all the spare hands. Even 2 military is enough to absolutely demolish vanilla ambushes and sieges. But if you're playing Fortress Defence mod you'll want 4, and if you're playing FD Challenge and/or Bonus, you'll want 6 - at least if you're planning to fight the sieges with pure military.

[Sutremaine]

Having the military dwarves do setup gives them some civilian skill, which is good for avoiding bad thoughts if they turn back into civilians. I've seen military dwarves rapidly switch to civilians and then back again at month changes, and there probably isn't an exception to the 'military -> peasant =  bad thought' rule for this situation.

On attributes: time spent on a skill-related task raises attributes, number of skill-related tasks raises skills (tested this in .31 with normal dwarves and uberfast dwarves, found that with rooms of equal size the normal dwarves had raised more attributes by the time the last tile was dug). The new changes to direction-picking mean less walking than before if digging a large room, but the nature of mining means that the individual jobs will often be done in locations far away from anything else in the fortress. This means lots of walking, especially since miners can't carry waterskins, and walking doesn't teach a dwarf anything*. Mining also doesn't raise Agility. Did you use DT to look at the dwarf stats, or did you just use the descriptions of each dwarf?

I did some tests in .31 with Pump Operating, and found that it raised some stats far more than others. See here.

*maybe the Observer skill. Nobody seems to know anything about that, or really care.

[mordrax]

I rarely if ever see much improvement in squad training in my typical games.  I just tried the 2-man squads for a year, and wow, VERY noticeable improvements. Thanks for the tip.

yeah, the first time i did it too, very exciting to get a working military!

I quite often do the 6 military 1 civilian embark. It's quite a lot of fun actually. Initially I have the military dwarves chop some trees, dig out some space, produce some furniture, and smelt, forge and create their own gear. Typically the civilian will be a herbalist or farmer, and will be doing his thing. Otherwise the civilian will be a weapon or armorsmith - that depends on what the preferences are like.
Typically there is no need to bring food. Just slaughter the pack animals and cook some seeds from brewing and/or do some booze cooking (since I incline more to herbalism than farming, seeds are expendable, but even if you farm, if you bought some plump helmets for brewing, you'll have plenty of spare seeds).
The 6 will be training within the first season, and the 7th will be pretty busy until the migrants arrive, usually doing things like finishing off the furniture, completing uniforms for the military dwarves, producing soap, farming, brewing, cooking etc.

I also do 4 military and 2 military embarks. With 4 military, you have enough civilians left over to pierce an aquifer if need be. With 2 military, once you're used to 6/4 military starts, you almost wont know what to do with all the spare hands. Even 2 military is enough to absolutely demolish vanilla ambushes and sieges. But if you're playing Fortress Defence mod you'll want 4, and if you're playing FD Challenge and/or Bonus, you'll want 6 - at least if you're planning to fight the sieges with pure military.

... that's... hardcore... dude. i mean slaughtering embark animals to get food and using a herbalist to get plants rather than growing it.. and COOKING seeeeeds... i'm not at that level of play yet but i can see the reasoning behind it.
i'm happy to have 6 soldiers for my non-evil untamed wilds fort a Kea took out 3 digits of one of my axe zerker, i don't think i could handle any more.
7th dwarf for producing soap? now that's just bragging. isn't there a million more important things to do before soap?

Having the military dwarves do setup gives them some civilian skill, which is good for avoiding bad thoughts if they turn back into civilians. I've seen military dwarves rapidly switch to civilians and then back again at month changes, and there probably isn't an exception to the 'military -> peasant =  bad thought' rule for this situation.

yep, i've seen that too. but i don't think it mattered much, their grand bedrooms and satisfying sparring session and kills way override those bad thoughts

On attributes: time spent on a skill-related task raises attributes, number of skill-related tasks raises skills (tested this in .31 with normal dwarves and uberfast dwarves, found that with rooms of equal size the normal dwarves had raised more attributes by the time the last tile was dug). The new changes to direction-picking mean less walking than before if digging a large room, but the nature of mining means that the individual jobs will often be done in locations far away from anything else in the fortress. This means lots of walking, especially since miners can't carry waterskins, and walking doesn't teach a dwarf anything*. Mining also doesn't raise Agility. Did you use DT to look at the dwarf stats, or did you just use the descriptions of each dwarf?

I did some tests in .31 with Pump Operating, and found that it raised some stats far more than others. See here.

*maybe the Observer skill. Nobody seems to know anything about that, or really care.

i use spintermind's DT. (Aside: I've noticed that if you assign dwarves to squads using DT, it doesn't apply the uniform sometimes?  equipment screen shows they have the uniformed item but i check their inventory and they dont!! so i re-mass assign uniform and they immediately go pick it up. took me a while to work that out)
using descriptions to look at stats is like using the audience's reactions to watch a movie... however, having said that, one of my axelords 15+5 legendary is now on max str, agi, tou and very high endurance (max meaning diamond, lvl 15?).

your research into pump operation is very interesting since that was the 40d's recruit job of choice (that and stone detailing) but pumping is more automatic. when i ask about attributes, i got alot of qualitative answers but no quantities. everyone would say, yeah job X improves your strength and toughness and agility but no one knows how much. however, i've shown that sparring improves it 100 fold!

So i conclude from your tests that pump operation isn't good for attribute training, in fact, i've pretty much come to the conclusion that sparring is the fastest attribute training strat. However, it doesn't train healing or disease resistance.

So now, my military consists of male, regenerative and disease resistant dwarves.
i'm about a month into my current experiement:
Test subjects:
Axe recruits, 10 dwarves, 5 orders of pairs

Controls:
2 squads of: 1 hammer lord + 1 hammer recruit with no weapon skill
a squad of 2 spear recruits, no weapon skills

The hypothesis is that the test subjects will gain in weapon skill as fast as the squad of just 2 spear recruits.
I'll observe the hammer dwarves to see if training with a superior skilled dwarf makes any difference.

[lcy03406]

interesting experiment! waiting for your result!

[Snaake]

i'm about a month into my current experiement:
Test subjects:
Axe recruits, 10 dwarves, 5 orders of pairs

Controls:
2 squads of: 1 hammer lord + 1 hammer recruit with no weapon skill
a squad of 2 spear recruits, no weapon skills

The hypothesis is that the test subjects will gain in weapon skill as fast as the squad of just 2 spear recruits.
I'll observe the hammer dwarves to see if training with a superior skilled dwarf makes any difference.

Usually you keep seeing statements that sparring is the best. There was some !!SCIENCE!! recently that teacher5/some military skill 5 dwarves, teaching another dwarf in squads of 2, was even faster (the 2nd dwarf could be unskilled, or also a dwarf with 5 teach and another military skill - in the latter case, it doesn't even matter which one holds the demonstrations, something useful is learned anyway). The catch here is that teacher levels up pretty slowly, if you don't start with it. I've already set up my next fort, it's going to have 4 dwarves going into military training ASAP: all have teacher 5, and 1 each with a skill of 5 in axes, dodging, fighter and shield using (iirc). I'm going to rotate them so that 2 get everything, and 2 get everything but axes, and then they'll be training other dwarfs later (in the 2nd or 3rd year).