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[Girlinhat]

My advice on getting a military going?  It's quite simple really.  Get as much armor as you can, preferably in whole suits, spears, and shields.  Wooden shields work fine, just make sure they're big shields.  For armor, you want a chain shirt, breastplate, gauntlets, helmet, greaves, and high boots (low boots are fine if your civilization doesn't have them).  The chain shirt is VITAL as standard armor actually leaves the upper arms (shoulders) exposed, and you end up with armless soldiers after a while.  You CAN layer armor deeply, but there's not much need.

In order of importance, if you can only produce one of these, or only produce a few of better material, the order I give is:
Shield (blocking is the single best thing ever)
Chain Shirt (covers upper body, lower body, upper legs, and upper arms)
Helmet (those headshots...)
Weapon (no use being armed if you're too squishy)
Gauntlets (gotta keep hold of those weapons
Breastplate (fortified defenses!)
Greaves (leg shots are less common for me, you may swap places with Gauntlets if having trouble)
Boots (If dealing with forgotten beasts, put these at the top)

As for actual structure of military, the real key is a dedicated army, and constant training.  Make decent alerts to get soldiers out to the field quickly.  Especially, 99% of invasions come during the last month of a season, so they should spend 2 months training and 1 month on guard duty.  I simply fit squads of 10 soldiers with spears - these are often the only weapon capable of damaging very large beasts, and are still very good at dealing with common goblins - and later expand to axes, usually multiple squads of axes.

The single best defensive addition you can make, is something to block line of sight.  I usually build my killing field (a dedicated fighting location) with one wall leading to the fort, two solid walls on either side, and the wall leading to the outside being made in a checkerboard.  This prevents LOS so dwarves won't rush out, but still allows enemies to come through.  A long killing room, or multiple checkerboards may help improve combat, depending on how your military acts.

If you've got the vertical space available, you can also make the outside wall of your killing field into a solid wall, and then add ramps to BOTH sides.  The dwarves can't see over the wall, so they'll only move forward when the goblins move over the ramps and come into the field.  This is more difficult to set up for underground bases.

[Sutremaine]

Danger rooms increase skill but not attributes.

skill increase attributes.  as far as I know the ONLY way to improve attributes is to level up skills.

It's time spent doing a task that raises attributes, not the skill gain itself. Creatures that can't learn can still raise their attributes.

Danger rooms will raise attributes some, but barracks training uses more skills at once and raises attributes more quickly.

[Girlinhat]

I've actually proven that it's time spent performing actions that raises attributes.  I used DFHack and other tools to make perfectly identical dwarves, with different attribute starting points and skill levels, and let them all smooth and engrave their own 10x10 bit of stone floor.  The highest attribute gain came from the one dwarf who was thirsty and upset, and performed his job the slowest, spending the most time working on each task.

Attribute gain is tied only to time spent performing actions that raise it.  Danger rooms are quick, and will gain attributes but not very quickly.  Drills and sparring will train attributes better, but if you ask me, pump operating raises it the best.  For my real supersoldiers, I leave them 1 month training, 1 month pump operating, and 1 month at the gate, every season.  Although really, regular combat usually raises attributes pretty well anyways.

[Sutremaine]

I once did a quick test on pump operating, with three dwarves. Since I did it on a whim, the attribute gains were already modded, with the relevant change being that attributes cost twice as much to raise and wouldn't rust.

Final stat gains after about six months and hitting Legendary were as follows:

Endurance: 133 -151
Strength and Toughness: 18

You can double that for an unmodded game, but I'd still rather have six months of training over six months of pump operating.

[Girlinhat]

In my experience, my soldiers get a LOT of combat training simply by being part of the army.  Every goblin ambush nets them decent skill experience, at least enough to get them good at killing, at which point the skill gain dies off because they simply kill things to quickly to learn much during the short time.  And really, that's a good level of skill to be at!  Fractional increases beyond that part are glorious, but really not important to actual military effectiveness - after all, they're already killing everything!

[Sarvaartha]

So, what I've done is stripped some recently captured goblins of their weapons (the goblins, too, were actually taken to the dump and put in the garbage, but had to bring them back out haha) and chained them up into a recently dug unnamed room. I created a new squad of axedorfs, gave them training axes, and have told them to kill one of the goblins chained up. They roughed him up good, but had to pull them back when they were actually getting hurt since they weren't fully armored. They have since sporadically gone and picked up random bits and pieces I have as i(t)ems at the forge. I followed the quickstart guide's recommendation of creating (in order) mail shirt, leggings, helm, gauntlets, and high boots (all bronze; best material I have at this time), and wooden shields. I'm sure they must look a motley crew, since they're walking around like this: one has leggings and helmet, one has a shirt and boots, etc. Any way to force them to pick up what is sitting at the forge? They actually got a little damaged from the goblin they assaulted since they weren't fully armored...

[KingBacon]

Make sure the uniform has

REPLACE clothing and EXACT matches toggled. Otherwise your soldier may opt to wear a Xxpig_tail_fiber_hoodxX over a helmet.

(Still better than a !!Xxpig_tail_fiber_hoodxX!!)

[Sutremaine]

I would also recommend beating the goblins to death once your dwarves have a couple of levels of Axe skill, and allowing the (disarmed!) goblins to be unchained once your dwarves have a few more levels under their belts. Unarmed attacks are much harder to improve than weapon attacks, and dwarves who can kick with the force of a hammer blow are just plain badass.

[Sarvaartha]

Make sure the uniform has

REPLACE clothing and EXACT matches toggled. Otherwise your soldier may opt to wear a Xxpig_tail_fiber_hoodxX over a helmet.

(Still better than a !!Xxpig_tail_fiber_hoodxX!!)

So, does Dorf Physics state that the armor properties will be whatever is the outermost layer? Or is it that they will choose to wear a Xxpig_tail_fiber_hoodxX instead a helmet?

[KingBacon]

They will choose the hood over the helmet.

Though, once you get a squad good enough they will start training weird skills.

Right now my champion has been training everyone in biting. He is a skilled biter and legendary speardorf. Guess he got bored of stabbing goblins.

[Larix]

A dwarf will not wear a hood _instead_ of a helmet, you confused that with caps. Hoods can be worn in addition to helmets and are even recommended - every extra layer provides a little bit of extra protection, and hoods are very lightweight; up to six can be worn above a helmet.

Caps are the headgear that collides with helmets: if a dwarf's already the proud wearer of a x*pig tail fibre cap*x, they'll keep wearing it and won't put on their helmet unless you force them through switching on the "replace clothes" option in the uniform settings.

Biting's a decent additional attack type - it always "latches on" when connecting, preventing opponents from dodging away from a strike and can be used with the "shake" wrestling move to open arteries and sometimes even rip off limbs. It's not too great on a speardwarf, but makes e.g. hammerdwarfs significantly more versatile.

[dleave]

Very helpful thread.  Couple questions of my own to add on.  Feel free to point me to a different thread if this has already been explained well elsewhere.

Don't forget to activate the squads: set military alert to "active/training" and activate all sqauds in that alert (via (m)ilitary -> (a)lerts)

So my first question deals with alerts.  I don't believe I set any, but my dwarves still train.  Here is a screenshot because I'm not sure I'm reading it right.  I have not messed with this screen at all except to use it to get my dwarves inside during an attack.  Military settings are whatever they default to:



There is also the green A next to The Laborious Enjoyable Brands squad.  My screen just glitches out sometimes.  So if I'm reading this right my squads are all inactive, yet they still train?  Am I reading this wrong and they are actually active, or am I just not getting the full benefits of training or something while they are on inactive?

My second question has to do with the schedule screen.  To start out with I only had 3 dwarves in a squad, so I set their orders to  "Train, 3 minimum."  My squads now all have 5+ dwarves in them; is there any reason to change the orders to set this higher or is it fine just to leave it at 3?  I guess I'm unclear as to what exactly this setting does, as it seems my dwarves are perfectly comfortable training alone, even though this is set at 3.

[Finn]

Regarding minimum requirements, what that setting does is allow you to require only some of the squad to attend whatever is scheduled.  The number you set there determines how many training jobs will be put in the queue for that squad.  The rest will be free to take other jobs in the fort.  If there are no other jobs then they might (depending on their Will) do "Independent Combat Drills".  Otherwise they will be idle.  (If they are Marksdwarfs substitute ICD with "Archery Practice".)

Calling it a minimum is confusing since it's actually a maximum.  Whatever number you set it to you will never have more than that number doing whatever is scheduled.

Basically unless you are trying to do something tricky you probably just want to leave it at 10.

[WoobMonkey]

Basically unless you are trying to do something tricky you probably just want to leave it at 10.

I beg to differ.  Conventional wisdom is that it's best to have <#of squad members> - <at least 1> as the minimum for training on an active squad.  This allows your soldiers to rotate out during training, and continue building civilian skills.

There is some debate as to whether the setup of

Train, minimum 2
Train, minimum 2
Train, minimum 2
Train, minimum 2

OR

Train, minimum 3
Train, minimum 3
Train, minimum 3

is a better setup for a 10-dwarf squad.  The former will lead to a great deal of sparring sessions; the latter, to demonstrations.

Having your squad set to

Train, minimum 10

will lead to a great deal of 'waiting for' or 'organizing' tasks, as opposed to actual training. 

A better breakdown can be found here: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Scheduling.

[Finn]

Basically unless you are trying to do something tricky you probably just want to leave it at 10.

I beg to differ.  Conventional wisdom is that it's best to have <#of squad members> - <at least 1> as the minimum for training on an active squad.  This allows your soldiers to rotate out during training, and continue building civilian skills.

Well, let's talk about it then.

Yes, I agree that if you want to rotate soldiers out to do civilian tasks that you should set the minimum lower than 10.  That's what I meant though by "something tricky".  Most beginners just want their military to be military.

Also, I humbly suggest caution in general when applying "conventional wisdom" to this game.  There is a decent amout of incorrect information that repeatedly cycles through these forums as truth.

There is some debate as to whether the setup of

Train, minimum 2
Train, minimum 2
Train, minimum 2
Train, minimum 2

OR

Train, minimum 3
Train, minimum 3
Train, minimum 3

is a better setup for a 10-dwarf squad.  The former will lead to a great deal of sparring sessions; the latter, to demonstrations.

Having your squad set to

Train, minimum 10

will lead to a great deal of 'waiting for' or 'organizing' tasks, as opposed to actual training. 

A better breakdown can be found here: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Scheduling.

I agree with you again that you might achieve the efficiences you suggest by reducing the minimum, however I find that leaving the number at 10 provides for plenty of sparring and is suitable for beginning strategies.  I normally leave my minimums at 10 and have no trouble producing skilled squads in a just a few years.