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[Toybasher]

I have a army of 7 idiotic dwarves, they keep getting ANNILIHATED everytime theres a seige! I reclaimed the fort 5 times already! Can someone please help me? They get their ass kicked EVERY SINGLE TIME. I try having them spar but they gain XP so slowly I might as well not even bother! I cannot seem to get them armor either because it never fits and the smelter system is terrible, all the options are red even with fuel, and even if i DO get armor the dwarves act stupid and put two shoes on one foot, etc.

What happened to the 40d days where you had to assign a weapon, armor, and be good to go? I remember vividly having legendary soldiers in only a few years of training.

This issue seems to be limited to me, I see NO ONE ELSE complaining of this issue and to be honest, I'm considering quitting.

Is there ANY way to get them to train more? They justs it there like "Organizing dodging "demon"stration (Properly labled for the devil this new militery system is) and 3 years later, their only dabbling! Can someone please give me some assistance on how to make a man out of these wimps? I never survived even an ambush in the +15 forts i've played and its putting me off. Is there any way i can temperoraliy disable seiges and ambushes, theifs, etc while i manage to find a way to get my army on its feet?

[Noodler13]

im pretty sure theres something in the init file that toggles seiges but iduno whether that will mess up saves or something..

do you make rigurous use of crossbows in your fortress? it would be suicide to send my dwarves into a melee battle the way they are, i use cage traps and  lure the remainder into firing range before i close my gate and they get shot to pieces.

i find the marksdwarf training is much faster than the other skills

[Friendstrange]

Squads of two or three, set 2 to train minimum. They will spar.

Alternatively: Set some cage traps. Use whatever you catch for live target practice.

And check their personalities. Dwarfs with weak will die as soon as they get a scratch. Flimsy and weak dwarfs are undesirable. You want mighty, agile, tought, iron-willed dwarfs with muscles the size of melons, or the next best thing.

More importantly check they are actually wearing the equipment you have asigned to them. Youd be suprised at the amount of times Ive sent my dwarfs into battle only to discover the only protection they got is a leather cloak.

[_DivideByZero_]

First off, you need a skilled teacher. It's best to have a dwarf skilled in dodging, shield/armor use, and weapon use, along with teacher skill. Having a skilled master is far better than having a bunch of untrained dwarves trying to figure out how to properly swing an axe.

Aside from that, do what's already been said. Agile, strong, and tough dwarves are preferable. Try to get ones with a sense of duty if you don't want them to get bad thoughts.

[thegoatgod_pan]

How are your training schedules set up? I set mine 7/10 (for a ten dwarf squad, proportionately lower for smaller squads down to a min 2/10 for a three dwarf squad) year round and I've never had trouble producing legendaries.

[krenshala]

I've found that 10/10 works just fine for a squad of 3 or 4 dwarves.  For a squad of ten, you will probably want to place multiple "Training Minimum 2" orders for each month to maximize training rate.

As for the smelter thing, what exactly are you trying to make at your smelter?  The objects that are red are typically that way because there isn't anything for the smelter to work on (bars for alloys, or ore).  From your OP, it almost sounds like you are attempting to make armor at the smelter, which just isn't going to work.  The other option, assuming that you know the basics (since you've played before) and that you are running 0.34.11, is that you have set at least one stockpile to give to the smelter, and that stockpile lacks the materials you wish to smelt.  I did that to my smelters on my current fortress before the bars were moed to the correct pile (I was making bismuth bronze at the time).  Removing that order, if it exists, will resolve it if this is what is happening.

[Toybasher]

I fixed the red smelter bug because of a burrows glitch, if you have a burrow assigned workshops for some reason are forced to be restricted to it. (I assigned mine because i need dwarves to stay inside during a siege)

I'm still having problems with my army, they got slaughtered so bad i almost shed a tear, training them is compltely hopeless, they couldnt even roll for an attack, they just get overwhelmed every time. I have to resort to cheating just to survive sieges and ambushes. If you want I can upload a save. I think it could be my fortress design, or something.

By the way, its been a few more years and their finally up to novice, its depressing to see how slowly they climb, I bet 60 dwarfbucks they will die of old age before they can even hit skilled. Either my setups bugged or I just picked terrible dwarves.

[Caprealis]

There is a faster training method.. But it depends on your morals to the game.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Danger_room

Or.. the conventional way

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Training#See_also

[Toybasher]

There is a faster training method.. But it depends on your morals to the game.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Danger_room

Or.. the conventional way

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Training#See_also

Thats kind of the problem, i disabled sieges currently until i can trian my army up...withotu danger rooms.

Is it alright if i upload my save? I think i need some feedback on my fortress design, tbh.

[Caprealis]

Ill take a look at it, If you don't mind posting the fort.

I kinda have a bit of a abstract design to my forts, It might help though.

Also, I find capturing as many mobs as possible is the best way to train anything. Setting up fighting pits
is relativity simple. and its good entertainment.

And.. Now that I thought of it. Make your potential military dorfs work the pumps.. A year or so on that gets them up there
pretty quick.. and I do believe that it boosts there stats a bit.. (Which makes them hit harder and move faster I guess)
But it adds up and helps with training/fighting.
I have a fort and almost everyone has legendary. The militia and civilians hold up nicely when they are attacked by a invader and forced to fight.

[krenshala]

Lets try this military thing from another angle.

1 - What weapons do you dwarves have equipped?
B - What squads to you have them in? (more than one? how many and what weapon in each?)
Third - What are the squad's orders set to (military screen, schedule)

I'm assuming you've got a barracks and it is set to train the squad(s) already.

My strategy, and it has gotten me 6 speardwarves that are tearing  up giant birds and thieves of both flavors, is to start with 3 or 4 dwarves on 24/7 training, then add a dwarf per migrant wave once the initial group reaches Competent (started training just as the first caravan arrived, started adding folks from the second summer migrant wave, about a month or so before the second dwarf caravan arrived).  This is a single weapon type squad (not mixed weapon).  I did get a bonus when one of the migrant waves included a Proficient Speardwarf (2 or 3 levels better than my best at the time) and she started training sessions as soon as she was added.  I'm up to six speardwarves, the worst happens to be a farmer that punched a goblins brain out before I drafted him.  I drafted him because of that, actually.  I just started my third year in the fortress, and I'm about to split the squad in thirds and train up another twelve farmers (all my potential recruits were given farming/plant gathering as their only tasks, aside from hauling) so I'll have three squads of six, each with two Competent or better in their weapon leading the training.

And the dwarves I'm selecting for the military?  Smoes that lack any useful skills when they arrived.  I don't care about physical attributes, as they will either improve, or die.  Now if I can only get some thread to get my Militia Captain back on duty -- he's been slacking in the hospital with a broken finger for about six months.  The slacker ...

Once all three squads (18 dwarves) are at least Competent I'm going to comb through them for the one with the best teacher skill, make hir a squad captain for a dedicated training squad and just rotate recruits through that and into the 'real' squads once they reach Competent.

[Toybasher]

http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=6646

[Caprealis]

Right off the bat, I see that the set up of your fortress is kinda.. Odd? (Can't think of a word) but its fine,
Your gatehouse not so much.

The fort looks very. De-centralized. And to spread out, And the 1x hallways are a issue for speed/production.

The gear your troops are set up with is decent , The weapons they are using are not that great.

Stick with war hammers or whips if you can get a hold of them.
They never failed me before.

I could do a little setup/rebuild and ill post the save for you later.. I'm at work at the moment,

Also.. try using your manager. Setting up a half dozen tasks to make booze helps keep it flowing,

And the way you have your workshops set up, Make it harder for your dwarfs to get anything done promptly.

More farms might help.. Or at least paying attention to them ..

And looking through therapist, I see that your labors are very sporadic.. and probably not helping anything for production.
(Though I can't really comment on that. Due to having my own way of setting up labors)

If you have the time, check out my fort in my Sig,.. It might give you some ideas.

[Snaake]

I don't care about physical attributes, as they will either improve, or die.

This. More the improve part for me, but anyway. Agility, strength, toughness and endurance will all get improved by military training (all but agility also improve nicely by pumping air, which I have rookies I've marked for future training do). Healing speed can be nice to have on a military dwarf (mostly I try to avoid below average values for that), and disease resistance doesn't get trained either.

Toybasher: no offence, but there's multiple things in your OP that should give you a hint that the problem is in your setup, or between the keyboard and chair, so to say. Mainly the fact that you yourself state that noone else is complaining, and it only seems limited to you. While I haven't trained many legendary soldiers yet, from what I've read it's easily possible to get legendary dwarves in 1 year by training 24/7 (if they start from skill 5, or are taught by a dwarf with the taught skill at 5 and teacher at 5). Starting with a large squad of complete newbs will take years for them to get any significant skill. You either use teachers, or you have them spar in pairs.

[Caprealis]

Locking up 2 dwarf squads in a room with food and beds helps motivate them to train.
Taking off individual training helps too