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[Khegit]

Every. Single. Time. Every time my marksdwarves are scheduled to train, they just stand there and do nothing. Why? Well, apparently, they're either too lazy, or too stupid to pick up the wooden bolts I marked for use in training. Is there any way to solve this?

[sackhead]

do you have archery targets? is the range large enough? are they equiping the bolts? do they have quivers?

[Mythalinear]

Each archery target is considered its own 'Archery Range' which means that each archery range needs to be assigned to a squad before it will be used.

[Repseki]

Are they active, or inactive?

To get Marksdwarves to train at archery targets you need to have them set to inactive in the military screen, with orders to train, and have the targets set as proper ranges.

Or, if you also want them to do some minor training in other things like dodging, you can have them set to active with a barracks overlapping your archery range. But that isn't really needed if you are just going to have them behind fortifications, and can sometimes be weird to get working.

[Mythalinear]

Are they active, or inactive?

To get Marksdwarves to train at archery targets you need to have them set to inactive in the military screen, with orders to train, and have the targets set as proper ranges.

Or, if you also want them to do some minor training in other things like dodging, you can have them set to active with a barracks overlapping your archery range. But that isn't really needed if you are just going to have them behind fortifications, and can sometimes be weird to get working.

I didn't know that about marksdwarfs. Can you explain the difference between active and inactive?

[Mythalinear]

I am having the same problem. I set them to train and one out of the ten shoots five bolts and then goes away and hasn't come back. I set them to unactive and they just sit around doing nothing. Help?

[Khegit]

Are they active, or inactive?

To get Marksdwarves to train at archery targets you need to have them set to inactive in the military screen, with orders to train, and have the targets set as proper ranges.

Or, if you also want them to do some minor training in other things like dodging, you can have them set to active with a barracks overlapping your archery range. But that isn't really needed if you are just going to have them behind fortifications, and can sometimes be weird to get working.

You have to set them to inactive? But if they're not set to "Train"....then they don't train.

[Khegit]

Also, another reason why Marksdwarves are punks: Not all of them stand next to the fortifications to shoot out of them, which is really troubling during a siege.

[FuzzyZergling]

Marksdwarves set to train will train skills like dodging and armor user, marksdwarves set to active but not training will use archery targets.
At least, this is how I think it works.

[Khegit]

Set them to "Active" with no orders? How does that work?

[FuzzyZergling]

Set them to "Active" with no orders? How does that work?

[m]ilitary -> [a]lerts, set the squad to Active/training. Then go to [s]chedule and press [x] on all months to cancel orders.
It's either doing that or leaving them inactive that lets them use the targets without normal training getting in the way.

[Larix]

I did some testing on this, and dwarfs can train archery very quickly and efficiently in active mode, it just takes closer supervision to make sure they do it right.

If you want them to train up reasonably quickly without your breathing down their necks all the time, just set them to 'inactive' (schedule is probably completely irrelevant here, since afaik it's only ever consulted if the squad is active) and assign them a bunch of archery targets to shoot at. _Don't_ assign them a barracks, that'll only enable "individual training drills" which in inactive mode do nothing useful for a marksdwarf squad. An inactive squad will still count as civilian and can take any job enabled for them, so you'd better nix their hauling labour permissions.

For very fast training (preferably of smallish squads, because it burns bolts at a ridiculous rate), set the squad to "active" with training year-round. In this case, you _must_ assign the squad a barracks as well as archery targets. Active training needs a barracks for the "organise training" phase. The squad members will spend some of their time on demonstrations and individual combat drills, but if they're dedicated marksdwarfs - with no or negligible melee skills - they'll spend most of their time shooting at targets. They'll level up quite quickly and should develop some token defenisve skills like dodging through demonstrations and drills. My reference two-dwarf archery squad took about a year and a half to go from nothing to legendary with about 99% of their experience coming from archery range practice.

[Khegit]

Yeah, I know that, the problem is they won't pick up their wooden bolts to DO the training.

[Frogwarrior]

I'm having marksdwarves train just fine... in ONE squad. The other two squads will occasionally train, but usually won't pick up bolts. A goblin force just showed up, and I activated them and stationed in my watchtower - the FIRST squad has full quivers, but the second and third squad have nothing. (I set all squads in the ammunition screen to be able to hold whatever bolts they want. No luck so far.) I've also been getting "Ranger cancels Pickup Equipment: Equipment mismatch" spam for a while. Is there a problem with having two types of bolts assigned to a squad or something?

[Garath]

how many bolts do you have? if it's less than 100 and you havn't changed the default settings, 100 bolts are always reserved for hunters.

My guess is:

1: not enough bolts. Have about 50 bolts per marksdwarf
2: not enough bolts assigned. In the military screen, under ammunition, the amount assigned isn't per dwarf, it's the total amount.
3: Only one archery target set. As mentioned, each target needs to be set for the squad to use for training
4: targets set for wrong directions, or not for training enabled. As also mentioned, the length to the target may also be a factor
5: Problem with bolts number uncountable (*sigh*, bloody military). They may have trouble switching over to training bolts when they still have combat bolts


It would definately help if you could give some info on how many bolts you have, how many marksdorfs, your settings exactly for bolts, do hunters still have bolts reserved, have you double checked if the ranges are all set up correctly and other such common issues. Please spare me any 'I don't have to check I know I did it right', everyone makes mistakes and it's good to check if you didn't make one. Sorry if that last sentence is a bit sharp and not-nice, I'm a bit tired, time to sleep soon and I heard it too often (and used it myself too, shame on me).

While there do seem to be troubles with marksdwarf training, it's sporadic enough and there are enough people who report no problem at all that I'd first check for mistakes


There used to be a common problem where dwarfs wouldn't change or pick up different bolts when assigned various ones for combat and different ones for training, I don't know if it still exists

Also, @frogwarrior, aside from that issue, if you have 1000 bolts and squad 1 has 500 assigned, as well as 2 and 3 the same amount, and the hunters still have 100, the hunters have first pick of 100, squad 1 has 500, 2 has the last 400, and squad 3 will have none. If you assigned like 1.000 without having enough bolts, the other squads might never get anything