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[ZedEh]

How soon into the game does everyone start training a dwarven militia?  I just had my first goblin invasion, and the only reason they didn't completely slaughter me is that they had to through my trade depot--which was occupied by a full dwarven caravan at the time.  

So, when do you start, and how?  The wiki isn't too helpful on this.

[Derakon]

I start when I start running out of tasks to hand to new migrants. The military makes a good catch-all for useless dwarves.

[grelphy]

Agreed--whenever useless people begin accumulating. I set about half to marksdwarfship and the rest to wrestling. Give armor to the wrestlers so they train their armor user skill (and note that it will not take them long to reach hero status and become permanent fixtures of your military). After they're at a pretty high skill of wrestling, give them silver/glass/wood weapons to train that weapon skill without maiming each other horribly.

Viola. Military.

[Sukasa]

First immigration, or as soon as the barracks/training facilities are ready, whichever comes last.  I try to use only marksdwarves, since I'm of the opinion that prolongs their lifespans (not to mention it means I can just pull up the drawbridges, flood the entryway, and shoot the bastard gobbos safely)

[Inquisitor Saturn]

Most migrants are useless anyway. I don't usually bother to equip them at all. I just set them to unarmed combat and throw them at the enemy.

When all else fails, use raw Dwarfpower.

[jester]

Expect to get an ambush a while after your first immigration.  So this is probaly the best time to start.  I give 2/3 of my recrits bows and the rest armour and a shield,  When they develop a few respective skills the marksdwarves get wrestling and shield training and the wrestlers get hammers.  for an extra boost give the marksdwarves hammer training for a while so they can crack skulls with their bows.  Watching one of your marksdwarves singlehandedly rout an ambush with tommygun like bowfire then dash out and club the stragglers to death as they try to preserve their evil lives is always great.

[numerobis]

You can get away with zero army, just using traps.  If you want to work primarily off your army, then you need to start building it up pretty much as soon as you get any immigrants.  Put a quarter of every wave of immigrants into the army, and set them to wrestle.  Make or buy some armor (note: at the moment, you can't buy steel gauntlets) and a few weapons.  When war comes, equip your soldiers with whatever you've got, and set them loose.

Marksdwarves are key; draft all your hunters.

[sneakey pete]

I usually just give my immigrants a shield, plate armour and set them loose on eachother. By the time they start getting close to elite status, they've usually gained enough attibutes to able able to let them loose on eachother with normal weapons, though if you dont have plate that might not be such a good idea...

[Torak]

quote:Originally posted by benoit.hudson:
<STRONG>Put a quarter of every wave of immigrants into the army, and set them to wrestle.</STRONG>

Quarter? Unless the other 75% is farmers and weaponsmiths, I put about 95% of all immigrants into the army. Alot of my dwarves are grey.

[numerobis]

quote:Originally posted by Torak:
<STRONG>Quarter? Unless the other 75% is farmers and weaponsmiths, I put about 95% of all immigrants into the army. Alot of my dwarves are grey.</STRONG>

Do you ever build anything?

[Alaern]

Actually, I think it's better to give two of your starting dwarfs proficient skill with axes or x-bows so they will be able to fend off initial hostilities on site. When first wave of immigrants arrives about half of them should begin their drypumping training to buff stats. Once they'll reach legendary, they're good to begin their wrestling, hammer and marksdwarfship training.

[Moocow]

On my last fort I had 7 military dwarves. No more, no less. Suited up in full adamantine and legendary in all their skills. It may take a while and seem unpractical buy it actually worked pretty good. They never got a scratch on them.

[BurnedToast]

If I've got steel on the map, I usually wait till I get metalsmithing up to make armors for them (usually mid year 2 sometime). If no steel, I recruit them as I get leather to make armor - I usually start with the first caravan to bring me leather.

Leather shields seem to work just as well as steel ones (i.e legendary shield use = immortal dwarf) and if you can get a legendary leatherworker the armor is not terrible either so it usually works OK.

I don't usually draft more then 10 or so soldiers, once they get to legendary shield and weapon skill (about a year or 2) a single dwarf can take out a whole siege himself so what's the point? soap makers might be useless but they can still act as haulers which extra military dwarves don't do.

[Mephansteras]

For me, a lot of it depends on the map. If I'm on a dangerous map, say sinister/haunted, I'll usually need a decent military ASAP. You've got to, if you've got harpys and whatnot running around hungry for dwarf. If I'm on a safer map, it then depends on the lay of the land and how much of my defense I want to have run by my military. If I'm in an open area or want to do a military defense, I have about half my dwarves in the military. If I'm in a safe location (like a narrow canyon) or one where I decide to have traps do most of the work, maybe a quarter of my dwarves in the military, and most of those are really just Fortress guard with some Marksdwarves for tower defense.

I always have at least a few dwarves in the military early on to help deal with thieves.

[numerobis]

Last thing: draw from the soap makers and other useless ranks, *not* from peasants, so that when something goes weird you can undraft/redraft without causing unhappy thoughts.  If all you have are peasants, send them to yank on a pump for a while and wait to draft them until they're at least novice pump users.