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[entelin]

So I've had some very successful fortresses now. On some I've walled myself in until I finished a large death trap (like water flowing down the main entrance pushing enemies into a pit of spikes, etc etc. On my most recent one I made a kick ass army using the danger room method.

However I've never been successful with training, It seems like the training is so slow that its almost not even perceptible.  Is it intended to be possible to defend your fort from ambushes / invasions, using only a conventionally trained military and no traps?

[VerdantSF]

Absolutely. On my latest embark, I had two soldiers from the very start.  One axedwarf and one hammerdwarf:

Weapon Skill, 3
Shield, 3
Dodge, 2
Armor User, 2

I had them training together from the very start, 2 minimum scheduled.  As more dwarves migrated, I kept all squads small, with 3 dwarves, 2-on/1-off scheduling, as the most common set-up.  Despite minimal trap use and lack of danger rooms, here's how my fort has fared over the years:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Small squads might seem like a pain, but once you start getting legendaries, you can split most of them off into their own, larger squad.

**edit**  Oops, I somehow added 5 to each of the skills.  The correct values are there now.

[Werdna]

Entelin, the most common problem is creating a melee squad and then forgetting/not know to place it on Active in the military alerts screen.  They default to inactive, and an inactive squad will train at glacial speed.

Unintuitively, marksdwarf squads are the opposite - to get them to train at archery targets, they must be left inactive.

[Garun]

Unintuitively, marksdwarf squads are the opposite - to get them to train at archery targets, they must be left inactive.

This is not true. To get them to train using an archery target, the target must be built and then designated as an archery practice room with a proper shooting direction set using it's query options. Then you must ensure your marksdwarf squads are set to carry ammunition through the military menu, and lastly ensure they are set to active under the active/training alert section like was already mentioned.

Keeping them set to inactive would definitely not cause them to train.

[Eddis]

i have recently had fantastic success w embark of 2 axe dorfs, 5 axe, 5teacher eachst get food drink and 3x3 bedrooms up and then wall off entrance with roof and have them train active constantly. they will get 20 axe, fighter and decent dodge shield in 1.5 years or so. they will also get decent teacher, which is key.
once they become legendary and have iron or steel they will wipe up gobs like mad. stick them in separate squads and train up 1 more each squad.  from there you can get multiple dorfs trained quickly.

 the key is to keep the squads to max 2 and set training max 2, so recruits get undivided training from the core teachers.

[Werdna]

Keeping them set to inactive would definitely not cause them to train.

I just set up 8 targets, created a zone for each, added one Active squad of ten archers to 4 of them, and added one Inactive squad of ten archers (with no other jobs) to the other 4, and unpaused.  These are pre-existing squads that I had been using regularly, fully equipped and functional.

The 4 targets assigned to the Inactive squad were instantly filled with 4 archers, and when one stopped training another would come and replace him promptly.  The other 4 targets were not attended; in the unit list the Active squad was filled with dwarves with the job of "Go to Archery Practice" but not actually going there.  The difference between the attendance is night and day.

I could be wrong and the Active squad will eventually come and train, but its my experience that they train far more frequently while Inactive.

Edit: From the bug tracker: 0006070: Odd Military/Training behavior

[Extreme Boyheat]

Remember to get a fix for the long duty negative thoughts.

[entelin]

ok, well i'll try this next fortress and see if I have better luck

[Eddis]

Remember to get a fix for the long duty negative thoughts.

a 2x3 bedroom with decent bed coffer and cabinet, choice of the 4 underground booze and some decently prepared meals will counter even enraged-by-long-patrol thought (so long as they dont lose family i suppose).

Once you get the first 2 teachers up high enough they stop caring about long patrol anyways, and once you have 4 high skilled teachers you can start putting out a lot of trained dorfs fairly quickly, in my current embark the latest batch of recruits are progressing a lot faster than the first 4.

[Larix]

Unintuitively, marksdwarf squads are the opposite - to get them to train at archery targets, they must be left inactive.

To get them to train using an archery target, the target must be built and then designated as an archery practice room with a proper shooting direction set using [its] query options.

That much is correct. Setting up a proper training location is needed for any military to get skills via training. The targets also need to be set to 't'rain for the squads you want to train there.

lastly ensure they are set to active under the active/training alert section like was already mentioned.

Have you had any success with this? It's been widely observed that _active_ squads are extremely reluctant if not completely unwilling to practice archery, while an _inactive_ squad with the basics set up properly will practice reliably and without maintenance apart from securing the bolt supply.

Keeping them set to inactive would definitely not cause them to train.

My dozen or so squads of elite marksdwarfs testify against this quite convincingly - they've never been active outside of battle and gained 90%+ of their experience through off-duty ('inactive') target practice.

[Garun]

lastly ensure they are set to active under the active/training alert section like was already mentioned.

Have you had any success with this? It's been widely observed that _active_ squads are extremely reluctant if not completely unwilling to practice archery, while an _inactive_ squad with the basics set up properly will practice reliably and without maintenance apart from securing the bolt supply.

Keeping them set to inactive would definitely not cause them to train.

My dozen or so squads of elite marksdwarfs testify against this quite convincingly - they've never been active outside of battle and gained 90%+ of their experience through off-duty ('inactive') target practice.

Yes, I have had success. While I agree that it isn't very frequent, I don't see how you guys are getting them to train with them set to inactive training. I have my archery practice room designated with the individual ranged squads set to train in those rooms. I didn't think about the frequency until this thread. Does seem a little low, but I tried what you all recommended and made them inactive, and well... I just don't see how that makes any sense. I tested it for about 3 game months. They went back to being civilians and performed their civilian duties. How will they use an archery range that their squad is set to actively train in if they're set to inactive on training?

So what I'm saying is, when set to inactive, they never used it at all. While set to active and configured the way logic would dictate, they used it, albeit a little less frequently than I would have expected. Agree to disagree then? Making statements like "my squads testify against this quite convincingly" doesn't mean anything to me.

[Larix]

[inactive archer squad]
They went back to being civilians and performed their civilian duties. How will they use an archery range that their squad is set to actively train in if they're set to inactive on training?

That's easy then, you gave them civilian duties. 'Inactive' archery practice is a spare time job and will be done primarily when no job is available or when the dwarf is on break. To give them more opportunities, free them from hauling labours and optionally delete other jobs from their list.

Seriously, i've seen many complaints about dwarfs not practicing archery while active, and yours is the only statement i can recall that claimed inactive archers wouldn't practice. With enough spare time, off-duty archers will practice and improve their skills very reliably; quite a bit more slowly than sparring melee soldiers, but about twice or thrice as quickly as off-duty, 'individual combat drill' only melee militia.

Newsflash!

Active training of archers totally works!
I checked what had been suggested by some on these fora and the results are impressive.
The setup was quite simple - volcano in a 'minerals everywhere' world, invaders off since this was just testing anyway. In spring i set up a pair of archery targets and waited for the first migration wave. As soon as the wave arrived, i drafted two of its members and made them an active/training two-dwarf archery squad. One was a ranger with novice marksdwarf skill, the other a peasant who'd just turned twelve. Expectedly, they instantly started loitering around with the job 'going to archery practice', without actually moving to their assigned targets.

_Then_ i installed the armour stand and defined a barracks encompassing the archery ranges and set the squad to train there.

That was what was needed - they instantly went to the barracks and started training. First a bunch of demonstrations (the ranger had not only marksdwarf skill, but was also a novice in dodging), but once they were happy with their respective skills, they started shooting at the targets non-stop. They occasionally idled for a few ticks after picking up new ammo and needed to take a 'go to training' job to return to the barracks/range, where they also needed a quick 'organise session' job before returning to practice, but the amount of wasted time was negligible. I let it run until just after the year change, and in those ~seven months of training the two of them had gone from novice/no skill to adept/talented.

I suspect that this success was helped by the almost complete lack of interfering skills - the only non-archery skill present was dodging, so they spent little time on demonstrations. I don't know whether a larger squad would have run into the ubiquitous training interruption troubles, but i think the bigger problem would be the immense ammo consumption.

My assessment as of now is:
active squad - to train up a few high-level marksdwarfs fast, better look in on them from time to time to make sure they're practicing properly; they need the comforts of active military to stave off unhappiness while levelling up.
inactive squad - somewhat slow, but very reliable and practically maintenance-free training of sizable archer reserves. No happiness management required because they practice in their spare time, as civilians.

To reiterate: active archery squads _will_ use archery targets if those targets are inside their training barracks.

[Repseki]

Remember to get a fix for the long duty negative thoughts.

a 2x3 bedroom with decent bed coffer and cabinet, choice of the 4 underground booze and some decently prepared meals will counter even enraged-by-long-patrol thought (so long as they dont lose family i suppose).

Once you get the first 2 teachers up high enough they stop caring about long patrol anyways, and once you have 4 high skilled teachers you can start putting out a lot of trained dorfs fairly quickly, in my current embark the latest batch of recruits are progressing a lot faster than the first 4.

If you set up a puppy fountain you wont have to worry as much about losing family members either 

[Werdna]

_Then_ i installed the armour stand and defined a barracks encompassing the archery ranges and set the squad to train there.

That was what was needed - they instantly went to the barracks and started training.

Excellent!  I had seen (and forgot) that barracks influences it, but I also recalled complaints that at some point the Active squad will stop training at some point?  But yours went 7 months, so perhaps I had misread, or its due to another issue (like bolt supply or bolt C/T equipping issues).

Back to topic: I can vouch for the 'Teacher' skill being very effective, I even go as far as embark with 2 dwarves maxed in it, plus a little student/weapon/dodge.  They start out as diggers/wildlife defense until first migrants, then they become an active 2man squad, then later they become the leaders to teach 3-4 man squads, and so on.  They level fast.  Migrants generally don't arrive with Teacher, so it is a rare skill; although squads will naturally learn it.  Embarking with teachers is great for a fast military start without danger rooms.

[Larix]

I let them carry on until the dwarven caravan of the second year, and they just kept going. The captain is Grand Master, the former peasant Master Marksdwarf. They're also both competent dodgers and adequate/novice in teacher/student skills. I fully expect them to be both legendary by the end of the second year. They became elite around the 10th Malachite and 10th sandstone, i.e. it took them just under a year (started at novice) and five seasons (started without skill) respectively.

The squaddie occasionally stated "individual combat drill" as occupation, which meant she stood around and got exhausted - neither has any melee skills. I think that happened when the captain left the premises while she was retrieving fresh ammo - she wouldn't get a proper order on what to do and would default to individual drill. The captain would just organise her own schedule when needed and never fell into this trap. It was mildly irritating that the squaddie could take quite a while to snap out of it and return to proper training, but that could be forced by 'f'reeing the armour stand, deleting the barracks(*). This would _always_ abort her errouneous individual drill and _usually_ also current target practice of the captain; yet another confirmation that a barracks is necessary (or at least very helpful) to get active archers to shoot. It may be that larger squads would suffer more from errant drills.

I think this type of full-tilt active training would mostly be useful to fast-track replacements after losing highly-skilled archers; it trains few dwarfs and goes through bolts at an alarming rate. In a young fort, i'd rather aim for a decent number of moderately-skilled marksdwarfs instead of very few very high-skilled ones. And sending squads out to shoot at wildlife would be much more economical.

(*) i've gotten used to employing this trick to yank melee squads out of particularly counterproductive demonstrations.