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[Set_Beadra]

So I had a pretty good game going for the past two days or so. I had infinite glass and Stoneware. I was living large in dwarfbucks encrusting my stoneware with green glass and all the raw gemstones I was finding. I had big dreams of a city of glass. Then on my third year when the human caravan that I had planned to buy a lot iron from showed up, along with it came my first goblin ambush since this 'new' military screen. I was a fan of the 40d military because it was much more simple.

I had five hammerdwarves that I had been training since near the beginning of the fort and had outfitted them all with silver warhammers and started giving them copper armor. They each had breastplates, leggings, and greaves. Where they didn't have metal they had leather armor. So the goblins utterly destroy the human caravan and its guards before my military could even get across the bridge to join the battle. There were only 4 goblins there and having not fought any goblins since 40d I watched with glee expecting my dwarves to dash in and smash some goblin faces. However the results were much different. In less than possibly 20 turns my military was completely gone with not a single goblin even injured. Two of those goblins had crossed the bridge while the others stood outside. They then began to tear through my remaining 90 dwarves like they were nothing. Just like they had with my trained and armored dwarves. I then drafted every able dwarf to fight the green menace. Only to watch in horror as two goblins tore through my dwarves like a knife through butter. When the goblins finally fled for what reason I will never know, since they had zero casualties even when faced with 90 dwarves.

I was left with 26 VERY unhappy dwarves and 1 ecstatic dwarf who stood in the bloody and miasma filled meeting hall ignoring the world around him. (That or he is a very strong follower of Armok). Two children went berserk and the drafted military who had since then grabbed weapons pummeled them with hammers. It was then, looking at my unhappy tantruming dwarves that I had to admit defeat and abandon the fortress.

After re-reading the wiki page for the military it still does not leave me with any better understanding of how I am supposed to train my dwarves. It is extreme micromanagement from what I understand and if anyone has a basic setup for military that will allow my dwarves to train and maybe even be able to beat some goblins. Without me having to keep my focus on them all the time I would be much appreciative. Something along the lines of, how many squads should I have? How many in each squad? Can I have the dwarves always active and they still be happy? I prefer one well trained squad over an army. Since they had ~two years worth of training in the barracks I couldn't believe how easily they were killed. In two years on 40d they were either legendary or nearly legendary.

Here is the area after the battle, shortly before I abandoned it. http://mkv25.net/dfma/poi-29999-thefirstbattle

[Bloodyharbinger]

Did you check the combat logs? It would be a good idea to see what happened.

Possible that they were either under trained or under armed.

I am betting more toward under armed. One thing of note is that you used leather helms, which dwarf skulls are like tissue paper and I recommend metal helms. The second thing is that goblins can use up to iron. In the case of weapon vs armor, they rank something like leather> copper> iron> steel> adam.

[Set_Beadra]

I forgot about the combat log. I would check it now if I could but the fortress is gone. I had planned to get a bunch of iron from the human caravan since my fortress didn't seem to have anything but gold silver and copper. I had some lead as well but couldn't make armor with that.

[Sutremaine]

I don't suppose you have any autosaves showing the skill levels of the military dwarves? Your dwarves couldn't have been wearing leggings and greaves, as those items are mutually exclusive...

Take a look at the combat logs, see where it started going wrong. I would guess mostly undertraining -- they couldn't hit the goblins, and didn't have the skill to avoid blows or the armour to soak them. (upon preview: you should still be able to find a record in gamelog.txt, though the combat text will be mixed in with the announcement text.)

[Jacob/Lee]

From what I know soldiers train really slowly. They might've just sucked. Since I am on my phone, look up "danger room" on the wiki.

[omg_scout]

If you train them "normally" they degrade faster than train. You must divide them in smaller groups.

[misko27]

Training is hard, and takes a while. I bet it was underarmed, even a poorly trained milita should at least get a lucky shot. A better armed and better trained goblin squad is, literally, a shredder of dwarven civilians.
 
It's a reason to keep all civvies in the military, with little more then basic training, if only to make them where helmets.

[thegoatgod_pan]

I also depends on how they engaged. Unless I *know* my military can take anything I make sure I only engage goblins as they trickle out of a long trapped hallway into a small room jam-packed with my soldiers. If they went one on one with better armed and armored and probably more skilled goblins the results are naturally bad.

[javierpwn]

The answer to your problems are marksdwarves, whose bolts fly speedily shattering bone,tearing muscle.While even shooting wooden bolts,metal bolts are PURE overkill

Actual assigned training is extremely slow, and copper is also the WORST armor material, and it would be best to train your dwarfs on cave animals, as actual combat allows for speedy training

[Seraphim342]

Yeah, sparring training isn't very good.  The best way to train dwarves, without using a danger room, is combat.  Capture a couple ambushes worth of goblins, strip their gear, and let your militiadwarves slaughter them in an arena.  I also don't even bother with copper armor, it barely confers any advantage in my experience.  I start with steel, or iron if I lack flux.  Completely lacking any iron, go straight to bronze.  Once your dwarves are skilled enough to not be accidentally injured by unarmed goblins suing wrestling, leave your prisoners with their armor on and arm your dwarves with training weapons.  Unarmed gobbos make great punching bags. 

Another thing you can consider is having all your dwarves in the militia (except hunters and woodcutters, causes unifrom conflicts), but inactive.  Give them a corssbow, bolts, a metal helmet, and maybe armor if you want (though this will slow down untrained dwarves), and set them to wear their kit while off-duty.  That'll make your civilians MUCH more effective at defending themselves, and they will even train on archery targets while idle.  Marksdwarf training is incredibly easy, just give them wooden bolts and have them shoot at armored goblin prisoners through fortifications.  Even completely unskilled marksdwarves/civilian reservists can be deadly en masse.  Had a minotaur tear through my 4 trained melee dwarves without batting an eye and then get one-hit-killed by a bolt through the brain from a novice cheesemaker with dabbling marksdwarf skill. 

[Set_Beadra]

I will try, I was never a fan of marksdwarves. Not as much fun to me, I love seeing a master hammerdwarf slam a goblin and send it flying 10 spaces before smashing into a wall and gibbing. So if I just set up a few archery targets and give all my dwarves crossbows they will just train whenever? Thats a lot of materials and I had no iron or bronze available to me at this fortress so I couldn't outfit my dwarves any better. I planned on getting a lot of iron from the human caravan that was coming.

[javierpwn]

Use them only as a line of defense,and make plenty of traps
Archery targets can be made from stone
Who needs soldiers when you have spinning +copper serrated disc+ evicerating goblins into finely minced goblin chunks

[Drazinononda]

Hammerdwarves don't really send things flying anymore. Wrestling throws can, but not far if both creatures are roughly the same size, and throws are uncommon in combat anyway.

Having your military train in smaller groups speeds things up: either form multiple two-man squads, or give multiple two-man-minimum "Train" orders to the same squad. Leave them training all the time; also, either seek out the binary patch or use DFHack to fix the bug that causes training to rack up "long patrol duty" negative thoughts. Give them backpacks and waterskins so that they don't always have to trek to the dining hall for sustenance.

Equipment-wise, start with helms, shields and breastplates (I'd say in that order; it's debatable that I'm correct) and then move on to the other stuff. The quickest way a dwarf can die are from liquefied brains, perforated arteries and severed spinal cords (which lead to suffocation). Shields can block any sort of attack up to and including dragon breath, and helms and body armor protect the majority of the important dwarven components. Though I did have that marksdwarf squad that tended to kill by opening arteries in the thighs...

[Jacob/Lee]

I personally favor legendary axedwarves. Sieges can be turned into 10 item-tall masses of gore that spread for 10 tiles in every direction. The month spent cleaning up is worth it.

[HavingPhun]

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I was left with 26 VERY unhappy dwarves and 1 ecstatic dwarf who stood in the bloody and miasma filled meeting hall ignoring the world around him. (That or he is a very strong follower of Armok). Two children went berserk and the drafted military who had since then grabbed weapons pummeled them with hammers. It was then, looking at my unhappy tantruming dwarves that I had to admit defeat and abandon the fortress.

Urist Mc Clueless has been ecstatic lately. He has admired masterwork adamantine socks recently.