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[billw]

I have been doing this during a couple of lunch times at work. As we know, attacking live targets works okay now, but people (me) are still having trouble with archery practice. So this is what I have been trying to work out. I managed to get my squad training in my test scenario like so (from a clean embark, with premade xbows in the embark kit):
1) Create a uniform with just a crossbow without defined material (I embarked with 7 metal ones).
2) Create a squad from my starting 7 using the uniform. Do NOT make them active/training. They must be set to Inactive to train properly.
3) Assign 100 wooden bolts to the squad in the ammo screen, set them to Training only, no bolts assigned to combat.
3) Create a few barracks with only a single archery target (nothing else) in each one. I created 4 of them, overlapping at the edges. /edit Also assign the barracks as [T]raining for the squad (nothing else).
4) Create two craft workshops and start two dwarves constantly pumping out wood bolts.
5) Create an ammo only stockpile next to the barracks.

To start with, as many of the squad as there were archery targets available went in to archery practice mode, but all just clustered around the wagon. Then, as ammo started to become available they would go and start practising, till eventually all archery ranges were in use. You can see the effects of ammo assignment when you nearly have enough ammo, but not quite, as one of the dwarves set to practice will go to claim some ammo as soon as it is dumped in the stockpile, then it will get assigned to someone else and the original dwarf will stop in his tracks, and another will go pick it up. This generates the dreaded "mismatched ammo" message. You can see the confused dwarf moving closer and closer to the stock pile, till he eventually gets there and claims some ammo.

Would be great is someone could verify all this, it only takes 10 minutes or so to test this out.

[Rask]

Tried to get this to work on my own. Embarked with copper crossbow and copper ammo, made Urist the militia commander, and made a squad that had as uniform a copper crossbow. Okay, Urist goes and picks up the crossbow. I assign him the copper ammo, setting it for training.

I build an archery target. Urist does nothing.
I designate the archery target as a room. Urist does nothing.
I set his squad to train at the archery target. Urist does nothing.
I set up a second archery target, overlapping with the first. Urist does nothing.
I set his squad to train in the second archery range too. Urist does nothing.
I set Urist's schedule to training. Urist goes to the archery range, organises training, and starts archery practice. But Urist isn't firing.
I check out Urist's ammo. He doesn't have any.
I check out the ammo menu. His ammo is properly set to copper bolt for training.
I notice that my copper bolts are all assigned to the nonexisting hunters. I correct this.
Urist goes, grabs some bolts, and starts firing.

So the conditions for successful practice seem to be:

Two overlapping archery ranges, both set for squad training.
Squad schedule set to training.
Bolts unassigned from hunters.

[billw]

Yeah I think the main problem is not that the bolts are assigned to hunters, but that there aren't enough bolts to also assign to the xbow squad. When I was doing this test, I paused the game just as the last of the 4 dwarves went to start training. I counted all my wooden bolts, I found I had 500 of them. The hunters were assigned 100 which I think would of come out of the metal bolts I embarked with. The squad was assigned 100 wooden bolts for training only. I think either assigned bolts become un-usable, e.g. certain events cause all currently assigned bolts to be marked as used or something, OR the 100 bolts isn't quite what it sounds like. e.g. maybe it means 100 each, or something weird like that. When I get home, I will try messing with my big fort in progress game, see if I can get my xbow squad training properly. I will report back tonight.
/edit

Squad schedule set to training.

Also, this is contrary to what I did. I set my squad to inactive and they trained anyway. When I had them set to training they would get stuck in "organise training", and when I checked their ammo they had non. Could be the problem is only to do with ammo assignment, and nothing else.

[Psieye]

It is easy to get confused, but people can mean 2 things when saying "squad was set to training" - the Schedule (which is perfectly safe to set to training) and the Alert State (which leads to bugs until .11 comes out).

[Miggy]

It is easy to get confused, but people can mean 2 things when saying "squad was set to training" - the Schedule (which is perfectly safe to set to training) and the Alert State (which leads to bugs until .11 comes out).

Uhh, those are the same things, I thought? There isn't an "alert" schedule, there is just a separate schedule for each alert stage. If you have 5 different alerts (say: Inactive, Training, Defending burrow, point defence and patrol) you assign a different schedule to each alert, then toggle between the alerts whenever you want to change your schedule. That way when you want your dwarves to train you don't have to painstakingly edit their schedule for every single month, you can just do it in advance.

Or is it bugged and I never knew?

[Psieye]

You just listed schedule orders, not alert states. By default, the military screen gives you 2 Alert states: Inactive and Active/Training. You can define more and name them whatever you want. Each squad (all civilians count as one big squad) can have a separate Alert State. It's most practical use is telling all civilians to run to "the Safe House burrow" when trouble comes your way. The Alert States are also where you specify exactly which burrow the squad should defend should it get a "defend burrow" order.

[billw]

So I tried some more tests when I got home:
Second time around I tried using the Active/Training alert instead to get them to train. They did one successful training session in which they gained a few hundred xp each. After that they kind of got confused. Also it took AGES for them to actually do the session. About 5 minutes waiting, 5 minutes preparing, and then they were done. More efficient to have them doing their own sessions. The confusion consisted of one of them never leaving the session, being stuck on "waiting for training session", then more joined him "waiting", but no one actually lead it. Eventually I disbanded the squad, reformed it and set them to inactive. They started doing individual training again just fine. One thing I noticed is they need quite a lot of assigned bolts. 100 default is not enough. They needed about 100 per squad member minimum.
Anyway I am in the process of trying to get the marksdwarves in my main fort, will report back on getting them training in a bit.

[s20dan]

I have always used the schedules to assign guard duties to my dwarfs.  And I believe that any order you give for defending and or patrol is given in the schedules screen.  You would then activate those schedules by activating the alert that they were placed under.

 Alert 1 -> Dwarves patrol as defined in the schedules screen.

 Alert 2 -> Dwarves guard points or burrows as defined in the schedule screen.

 Alert 3 -> Dwarves do nothing, as defined in the schedule screen.

I think defining training this way it still bugged, but I haven't tried it for a while.

[billw]

Managed to get my xbow squad to train in my main fort:
- disbanded the squad
- built a thousand+ wooden bolts
- dug 10 separate archery ranges with 1 target in each all facing outwards from a large ammo stockpile that is filling with ammo
- reformed my xbow squad, gave them only one type of ammo (wood, 1500 of em), set to [T]raining ammo only
- made sure squad was on Inactive
- created all the archery ranges, set them all for [T]raining for my xbow squad only

That pretty much did it.

[AngleWyrm]

One thing I noticed is they need quite a lot of assigned bolts. 100 default is not enough. They needed about 100 per squad member minimum.

To do what? Gain a level? Reach level-5 archer? what?

[billw]

One thing I noticed is they need quite a lot of assigned bolts. 100 default is not enough. They needed about 100 per squad member minimum.

To do what? Gain a level? Reach level-5 archer? what?

For them all to be able to do training simultaneously. As soon as they use up bolts they immediately get more assigned to them (if more exist). The number you set in the ammo screen is how much the ammo manager tries to keep assigned to that squad.

[Shrugging Khan]

Ma gosh...I thought that was per dwarf. No wonder things got awkward during the last ambush.

[mardukarn]

Okay I'm going to try increasing the ammo beyond 100. Now, all I get are dwarves beating each other over the head with crossbows and no ammo. They're becoming hammerdwarves.

[billw]

I changed my previous recommendation, I would try and get 200 assigned per dwarf. So for 10 man quad that would be 2000 bolts for practice, meaning you need to make 30 wood bolts x 3 in the manager. And they use them up FAST if they are practising. I am having to make bolts pretty much non stop when my entire squad is in practice.
Anyone else feel free to dispute these numbers, I'm hardly an expert, I have only been playing with xbow dwarves for the last 3 days or so.

[Heavenfall]

Got em working.
Assign squad like normal.
Remove bolts from hunters.
Assign archery targets. Overlapping didn't seem to matter
Assign 200+ bolts per member
Set to off-duty, not all dwarves train off-duty so switch out those who don't and replace with new ones

Also I noticed that the many looted IRON BOLTS (1) were causing them to train very slowly as they had to go pick up ammo all the time. I dumped all those.