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[Mohawk_Bravo]

I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but my dwarves are taking forever to train. I started out with three, and with each wave of immigrants I added a few. Now I have ten in my squad and most of them are still 'Dabbling Axedwarves'. I'm very confused as every time I form a small squad to train, they reach profecient or expert, but then are too small of a force to repel an invasion, and if I add a full squad, they seem to refuse to train up to high enough standards. My schedule is set to minimum 10, and I have training weapons for everyone. As well, I have steel breastplates and helms, and steel weapons for real combat on a seperate uniform. Any idea what I'm doing wrong? I don't want to die in the third year again when my Axedwarves can't hold off ten goblins with pikes and bows.

[toomanysecrets]

Yes, the rate at which your military trains is dreadfully slow.  This can be sped up if your squad leader has the "teacher" skill which is somewhat hard to come by.  I believe you get lots of armor and dodging demonstrations until everyone in the squad is novice THEN you will start to see more sparring. Adding newbies frequently could be hurting you. Also, look up danger rooms on the wiki if you want legendary soldiers in a matter of minutes.

[Mohawk_Bravo]

I honestly was avoiding Danger Rooms because i was nervous about making more complex things, being a few week old noob and all. It looks like I might have to start traying more stuff like that though, since I see mt to have all my industries set up, including a passable steel production industry. Also, I'm a little confused about some traps. Weapon traps say that  they can be loaded up to 10 times. Will they work with just one weapon? Should I make 90 training spears and use those? Also, do they need a trigger to happen? Is it the same with upright spear traps? In a three wide hallway, what would you guys suggest for a trap compliment? I've created mutliple 3x3 blocks of stonefall traps but I'm scared a large scale invasion might be able to jam their way through.

[Fredd]

Do what militaries worldwide do. Form a cadre to train future squads. Three competent weapon wielders assigned to a squad, train year round, with a minimum of 2. Once they become highly skilled, break that squad into 2 more units, add two members to each of these, plus the original squad, same train orders as first.  With several highly trained squads, you can then start combining them into a larger squad. Once this is done, increase the training min, hopefully a even number to promote more sparring(Well since by now, they all should be close to the same skill level
 When sparring, casualties are almost nonexistent in the latest versions, so equip with real weapons and armor, in case of unplanned FUN.

[Herpaderpalerp]

Oops

[Mohawk_Bravo]

Well I've designed my first danger room, and I am extremely satisified with the results. I used the 1x4 manual danger room (due to my inexperience with repeaters/patrols), and I've put them through about two sessions now (the second slightly shorter, due to a very hilariously dumb engraver decided then was a good time to decorate the danger room). Only one injury I noticed so far. One dwarf lost his eye. Guess he should have ducked. Either way, I have some master dwarves (it announced them as Axelords ). I also survived my first siege. The goblins came at my base and were quickly grinded to death by stones or trapped in cages. I'm thinking the ones immediately crushed got off easier, as I'm going to try and come up with the most profitable and bloody way of disposing of their captured brethren. Quick question though. I don't want my whiny dwarves going beserk, so what are some good ways to avoid it? The living quarters is completely engraved by master engravers (a great dining hall is being constructed as I write this). As well, I'm in the process of fully engraving the barracks and danger room, to create some happy thoughts. I've been putting them in for a minute or so at a time, just to test the limits, and so far no problems. But I'm concerned about the down time. I want them trained so I can form a secnod squad and put them through the danger room with some experienced axelords.

[guitarxe]

1. Military training takes a long time. It just does.
2. Sparring is the most efficient and quickest way to train military.
3. Sparring happens in small squad sizes of 2-3 dwarves (if squad size of 3 dwarves, have min training set to 2 so that two dwarves spar, while the third is off-duty on break).
4. A higher skill in weapons (perhaps other skills, too,)* will initiate sparring far more often. So your immigrant dwarves that have 3 skill in a weapon will engage in sparring (and thus train quicker) much more often than dwarves with 0 military skills.
*this is from my observations

[toomanysecrets]

The Danger Room on the wiki is good but you don't have to lock them in.  You can have a barracks in your danger room so they train in there automatically.  You probably want at least two sets of doors set to "keep tightly closed" to prevent animals from getting in.

The hardest dwarves to keep happy in the most recent versions is the military.  Give them good bedrooms and give them some time off. I train my squads every other month, everyone does something a little different, just give the some time off.  Look up mass pitting on the wiki, it will tell you how to uncage your gobbos. There used to be a bug where pitting bad guys was a huge pain but it works in 34.11 even if enemies are still armed.

[Mohawk_Bravo]

Yeah, I've noticed that locking the door is pretty pointless. When I had it left open, I noticed that thirsty/tired dwarves would occasionally wander off and take of their needs, allowing them to train for longer periods of time. I'm now just waiting for them to become legendary armor users, and they will have a complete set of legendary skills (Weapon, Shield, Fighter, and Armor User, right? Is dodger important too?). As soon as there maxed, I plan to give One Eye his own squad and have them train in a danger room of their own. Generally, for a population of around 120, what is a suitable amount of squads/milita to keep on hand? I'm giving my main force some time off so they can wander around the palace of a residential level I have going. Also, are statue gardens worth it? What sort of additions should I build to keep motivation high?

[Quietust]

3. Sparring happens in small squad sizes of 2-3 dwarves (if squad size of 3 dwarves, have min training set to 2 so that two dwarves spar, while the third is off-duty on break).

Would you mind explaining your reasoning behind this? Because if it's what I think it is, it's probably wrong...

[guitarxe]

3. Sparring happens in small squad sizes of 2-3 dwarves (if squad size of 3 dwarves, have min training set to 2 so that two dwarves spar, while the third is off-duty on break).

Would you mind explaining your reasoning behind this? Because if it's what I think it is, it's probably wrong...

To keep the average happiness higher.
You could keep squads of 2 and have them train 24/7, but for me that drops their happiness down just a bit too much for my liking.

[Saim]

My apologies if any of this has been answered/covered, I didn't feel like reading the whole thread...

I've never been too concerned with the happiness of my military dwarves, I just train and train until they love it...they alllll will eventually. The purpose of the multi-stacks of weapons per tile is more damage and a higher chance of the trap hitting them from what I've seen, I usually just have 1 training spear per tile in my danger room, but when I used to use traps I would put about 5 per tile to be safe (I would put more of I had them or wasn't covering a large corridor)

Back to the danger room for a second...my preference is building the room with 1 door in right along the main hallway into the fort and once its all set up and the room size is set, I remove the door and the walls so its completely open. This way if an invader comes in my military will take a quick break from sparring and take care of them, I usually have my hallways 3-4 tiles wide so I never have any 'oops' moments with other non-military dwarves wandering in.

[toomanysecrets]

Oh yeah, statue gardens are great. Dwarves will go there on break. There are benefits to having a statue room (or two) plus more than one meeting area zone; dwarves that have a grudge against another dwarf won't have to go to the same spot when they're idle, and also if you split up these zones then everyone will not be friends with everyone and it's a little easier on fortress happiness when someone bites the dust. Some people complain about the "parties" that happen when you have a statue garden...it's a little bit of lost work time but I say let 'em party.

[XXSockXX]

Additionally to what has already been said: let them execute cagetrapped prisoners and kill animals or animal people. A dwarf with 20 kills HAS to learn something.
Also make trousers, cloaks and socks part of their uniform. Most happiness problems I had with my military were clothing related (in 34.07 that is).

[Snaake]

Additionally to what has already been said: let them execute cagetrapped prisoners and kill animals or animal people. A dwarf with 20 kills HAS to learn something.
Also make trousers, cloaks and socks part of their uniform. Most happiness problems I had with my military were clothing related (in 34.07 that is).

I 34.11, armor should prevent clothing-related bad thoughts. Bonus side is that armor never wears out. The extra clothing can help mitigate damage too, of course, I hear cloaks can be surprisingly effective at that.