I think you're forgetting that eventually armies are going to be coming from the world itself. Armies should vary in their skill level based on their experience in world gen-you could have one world where everyone's a goddamn Spartan, and others where everyone's an elf-loving beard-shaving pushover. And then of course the vast majority of worlds will actually lie between these two extremes
Tell me, why exactly wouldn't said armies have any damn training experience? It's like you plan on pitting civilians against each other. You don't just hand a dude a sword and let nature take it's course when making an army. This isn't a peasant revolt, this is a more or less organized invading army. You can expect some competence
Then there's the question of how this "Spartan" equilibrium would maintain itself. I don't think you thought it through
If everyone is an adept warrior, than would all peasants also have to be adept warriors if they weren't from your fort? Wouldn't this also mean that all dwarves that aren't under your control also start as adept warriors, including the king pre-arrival? What happens when we can start moving armies around the map, or powergoals such as armies the size or region tiles or greater get implemented? I think that then Toady would have to work all this out, and have to undo and rewrite all the code that would have gone into the "fix".
I really don't have a clue what the hell you're talking about. Civilians having military skills? Why?
What?And don't forget diplomacy is eventually going to be used to decide wars and treaties as well. If you can manipulate events to keep two nations at war and propsperous long enough, then you can train up two or more civs to be frightening fortress mode opponents-sometimes just about everyone in a civ ends up legendary already.
What the hell does have to do with anything? Besides, if you know
anything about history, you'd know two prosperous nations fighting for extended periods of time amounts to exactly one thing: financial ruin for both. Their elite troops would be quite dead from the extended warfare and their population taxed, they wouldn't pose you any threat. The diplomacy to talk about is a method of weakening your opponents, not strengthening them!
A better solution would be simple, and involve a AI rework that will have to go in eventually anyway: make the elite of the enemy better able to make decisions. For example, if outnumbered by the opponent, they should make a decision of whether to flee based on equipment strength, skill level, and just how badly they are outnumbered. Second, they should be able to perform pincer attacks, flanking maneuvers, and set up proper ambushes (i.e, two squads of archers perched on top of cliffs overlooking the path your army appears to be taking). Third, and most importantly, they should first *feel* the strength of the fort using advance soldiers, and then send forces in number and skill based on the results of these forays, instead of using wealth alone to determine the size of invading forces. And of course, eventually besieging armies will be able to poison your water supply...and that could eventually mean being unable to brew or do an other task which ATM doesn't involve water but should.
You do realize that AI of that caliber is far beyond the capability of commercial million dollar projects right? You're suggesting that one dude in his basement shows Relic how it's done instead of opting for something more plausible? Now, siege AI can certainly be somewhat upgraded but it'll never be sophisticated enough to make the current fodder troops pose any danger. Higher quality troops will be needed either way
Good luck poisoning an underground river or a closed cistern. It'll take more than tricks and strategy to pose a threat to the player
By the way, there are people who are considered to by masters at archery, kendo, martial arts etc, even though they have never once applied this knowledge to actual combat. Does this mean that they would be incapable of applying this knowledge if they found themselves in fight? No, it simply means that they have not been tested in that setting. This is a key difference. Rather than restricting their skill level, dwarves should require training to get used to what combat is like psychologically. Sparring in a non lethal manner with someone you know and might laugh and have a drink with later is one thing. It is an entirely different thing when you're in a chaotic battlefield, and your enemy is charging at you screaming for your blood. It's pretty easy to hold up in the first situation-but even if you can keep your cool in the first, you might completely break down in the second. Being shellshocked by combat could significantly lower a dwarf's effective skill level, showing the true difference between a veteran and someone who only has the know-how, but no actual experience. This could create situations where a untrained member of the miltia (with combat experience) is more able to cope with combat stress than green recruits.
That's all well and good but the crap you listed consists of fucking sports. These "masters" are laughable chumps compared to people with field experience. Allowing the current practice of sparring until Legendary and padding it with a requirement to kill a few deer or stripped goblins to "graduate" would do absolutely fucking nothing to fix the issue. Not that my suggestion is a lot better in that regard but at least you have to kill some dudes to continue instead of just training until you're perfect and then killing some hapless fodder to grind morale. Yeah it's totally fucked either way, let's throw this entire thing in the bin. I do still want actual trainers though
We could just strip sparring ability past a certain point entirely or something. Or a more likely solution, stop XP gains. After all, skills and muscle needs to be maintained
Let's see, how about this:
You can reach
Competent without any trainer, after that you need training to reach all the way to
Expert. To get past that, you need pure battle experience vs named opponents. Reaching
Professional would denote
Elite status and relieve them from civilian duties
Allows for poorly trained militias but doesn't restrict civilians into being incompetent if the player decides he wants more talented reserves at the expense of time. Requirement for trainers encourages diplomacy and battle experience requirement prevents the player from grinding his troops to Legendary on deer. While it restricts Hunter skills, they needn't be Legendary to begin with
Pilsu: You're preaching your solution, and solving a broader problem. Not that I think you're wrong
As I said, it IS a broad problem. Not just a matter of goblins being too small or some other catch-all solution