I've gotten some way into the life and times of a fort for the first time in the .40.x series; got my first offer for a barony (and declined). And for the first time in this version/series, i took serious steps to build a military, but haven't bothered enabling invaders yet. I'm quite pleased to see that normal training is _much_ faster now. It seems that "organising" lectures is now (nearly?) instantaneous, when in .34.11, it normally took several days of standing around not gaining any skill and way too often ended up in a restart (because someone moved) with absolutely no combat skill gained in a full week of active "training". In addition, soldiers are now much readier to actually spar. I set up two mixed squads, one from the three soldiers with any previous weapon skill (two hammers, one mace), the other of five with no weapon but some kind of military skill - novice marksdwarf mostly. The latter got an axe, a spear and three ☼obsidian short sword☼s; i want to see how those perform now they're no longer obsidian rolling pins. The random name generator even decided to call them "The Swords of Night". In just over a year, seven of the soldiers became weaponmasters, the last is just one level below the cut. In .34.11, such a setup _could_ have gotten the pre-skilled soldiers to weaponmasters with a good deal of luck, with less luck, they'd have stalled and gone into a demonstration loop, not getting past skilled. The raw recruits wouldn't have started seriously sparring after a year, i'd expect weapon skills of novice to adequate. While there's much less point to it now, i guess people will still build danger rooms and engage in cowardly prisoner-murdering.
And training no longer generates "long patrol duty" unhappiness. Permanent soldiers aren't overly happy still, they don't get to enjoy the legendary dining room and hardly socialise.
Of course, i still have to see how .40 military works in combat.
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Topic: What's going on in your fort? (Read 6224187 times)