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[Wondabarrapa]

does steel encumber people more than iron? i just want to know since my military already moves very slow with full iron sets 

[Max™]

Iron:        [SOLID_DENSITY:7850]
Steel:      [SOLID_DENSITY:7850]

[Diamond]

They are the same in terms of weight.
Consider removing breastplates (if you have chain mails) and if you use metal shields replace them with wood (featherwood if possible), until your military is properly trained.

[Saiko Kila]

The heaviest item (and equipment at all) is greaves and chain leggings. Steel/iron greaves/chain leggings weight as much as two copper mauls... Imagine your dwarf wearing two copper mauls tied to his legs. That's what you get when you give him leggings or greaves. Try dumping them till the dwarf is stronger. Also, mail shirt is actually heavier than breast plate, despite using less material to manufacture. However, mail shirt covers slightly wider area. Since high boot and mail shirt covers the parts covered by leggings/greaves and more, and a mail shirt also covers more than a breast plate, you can temporarily dump both breast plates and greaves. Metal leggings are useless in any case.

For training strength you can order the dwarf to pump iron (or any other) pump. In case of marksdwarves operating a catapult is also good, and it increases strength too. I have my pump machines installed in open-sky barracks, which help with cave adaptation. Exposing even a trained, strong dwarf to sun after adaptation makes him extremely slow, due to dizziness and nausea. Crawling babies are about as speedy as such an individual.

[utunnels]

If you want to train strength and amor user skill, let them spar.
Assign your marksdwarves a barrack instead of an archery target will also train their skills.

[Mlamlah]

For training strength you can order the dwarf to pump iron (or any other) pump.

I see what you did there.

[Saiko Kila]

For training strength you can order the dwarf to pump iron (or any other) pump.

I see what you did there.

Yeah, I'm guilty.


As for training, the best in my experience is to mix archery training (for archers), barracks (for all) and in case of weaker dwarves pumping (or shooting boulders). When scheduled to civilian they train at the gym, otherwise the do soldierly work.

That's because while sparring has a faster rate of strength increase, it works only when two dwarves meet, and only until they decide to do something different. Shooting at target won't increase strength, individual drill won't, watching or preparing to demonstrate won't, waiting for a partner (despite "Spar" being active) won't and so on. My dwarves usually spar for a short moment, which means a 1 or 2 point of strength at max. Pumping on the other hand guarantees you 2.4 points of strength per day, and dwarves will stop only when very tired or hungry or thirsty - or scheduled to do military service.

Pumping also means good thought from satisfaction at work. All my pump operators have low stress, probably because they don't see much horrors unless when fighting. Though nothing beats a certain siege operator, who has stress at -99999 and is blissful, content, delighted and pleased...

[utunnels]

By the way, does hauling train stength too?

[Salperticon]

To be honest, I have no clue if hauling improves any attributes.
But training strength and agility are most likely good ways to improve the movement speed of the heavily armoured military dwarves.

Another option could be, as suggested already, to outfit your troops not with a full set of metal armour right away.
My usual starting layout for new recruits is:
- Metal helmet
- Metal mail shirt
- Leather leather armour
- Metal gauntlets
- Leather leggings
- Metal high boots
- Leather shield or buckler (can be manufactured at least over the manager screen; not sure if that also works in any workshop?)
- Metal weapon or wooden / bone crossbow.

This should provide a good balance between protection and weight for new, untrained recruits.

[Tarqiup Inua]

So Toady reintroduced stat gains for non-combat tasks in 2014?

[Demonic Spoon]

So Toady reintroduced stat gains for non-combat tasks in 2014?

They were never removed? He just removed silly tough like becoming superdwarvenly strong from doing bookkeeping.

[BoredVirulence]

So Toady reintroduced stat gains for non-combat tasks in 2014?

They were never removed? He just removed silly tough like becoming superdwarvenly strong from doing bookkeeping.

Hey! Books can be heavy...

[Mlamlah]

Or carp becoming supernaturally powerful from swimming.

[Pirate Bob]

Keep in mind that your dwarves can carry up to a certain amount (which is strength/size dependent) without being encumbered at all.

Based on the numbers given in the arena for speed, as well as my experience from adventure mode, a full suit (helm, breastplate, mail shirt, greaves, gauntlets and high boots) of steel or iron armor does not encumber a dwarf at all.  If you instead make the armor out of copper or bronze (which are about 1.5 times as heavy) they will be somewhat encumbered, but I don't think steel armor plus any ordinary weapon is enough to slow them down.  Also, military training rapidly increases size and strength, so I doubt any of your military will have a problem.  The only way you would have an issue is if you use copper/bronze armor, or with marksdwarves, as bolts are stupidly heavy.

Using wood/leather shields is a good idea, as they are lighter and functionally identical to metal shields [Edit - identical for defense.  As pointed out below heavier metals are better for bashing, but shield bashing is a terrible attack anyway].

If you want to test if your dwarf's equipment will slow them down, just put it on a dwarf in the arena, assume control, and see if the dwarf's speed is still 1.0.  The only potential issue is that both fortress and arena-created dwarves have some variation in size (and hence carrying capacity), but assuming you train your dwarves at all they will be above average size. 

[Findulidas]

Or carp becoming supernaturally powerful from swimming.

Supercarpenly strong. When the normal carps dont cut it.