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[Balthalion]

What is the best way to train up your Dwarven Military?

I've been using "No Orders" each month to get "Individual Training", which is increasing Weapon Skill very, very slowly.

Whenever I try to use the "Train" order (with 10 minimum) my dwarves stand around "waiting for demonstration to start", sometimes one will "organise demonstration" but mostly I can't see any skill gains. Exactly how many off months you need and how many minimum dwarves per order is unknown to me.

So what are you guys doing?

[blue emu]

So what are you guys doing?

I capture Goblins in cage-traps, disarm them, and have my Military fight them butcher them in the Arena. This trains up weapon skills very quickly.

[Arekis]

Yup, live combat training is the best, I've discovered.  Strip a well-armored goblin of his weapon (but not his armor), give 2 or 3 dwarves some wooden axes, and lock em in a room for a season.  One good session will up their skills several levels.  I'd have some marksdwarves or cages ready in case the dwarves start dropping from exhaustion. 

Don't send in newbies against elites.  Even without a weapon, an elite pikeman is a formidable wrestler and can break arms/legs of untrained recruits.  They make excellent pincushions for archery training, though.

[detsuo04]

how do you get them to the arena cus when i try to move them from the cage they emediatly go awal and rampage through my fort.

[Arekis]

Thieves will try to escape when you pit them.  I usually keep my animal stockpile in a lockable room so when moving a thief, I'll station a couple of dwarves there and as soon as he breaks free, I lock the doors and let em go to town.  With militia there, they don't get a chance to do anything to the handler.  Definitely strip them of their weapons first.

Other goblins can be escorted to the pit without issues (I think master thieves can be escorted too, at least I noticed this in the last game I tried).

[USEC_OFFICER]

Also, if you don't want to use live training (Lack of goblins), have only two man squads. That way, they spar more, which is the fastest way to train outside of combat (and less messy.)

[blue emu]

how do you get them to the arena cus when i try to move them from the cage they emediatly go awal and rampage through my fort.

I build fifteen or so cages already filled with Gobbos in my Arena room ('b' - 'j' - select the spot - 'x' - select the cage) and then hook them up to a bank of levers (which are in a seperate room), with each lever controlling a small group of cages... from three to five. Then I mark all the caged prisoners for stripping ('d' - 'b' - select all the cages - 'd' - select all the cages again) and wait for my Dwarves to come and take all their gear away. Then I send in my Military, lock the door, and have someone pull the levers, one at a time... killing each group of prisoners before pulling the next lever in the bank.

[Arekis]

I personally find the "link cages to switches" method significantly more time-consuming.  Thieves stripped of their weapon rarely do any significant damage to armed militia so even if they escape, the nearby stationed dwarves take care of them.  However, pitting does have this issue if you want to drop several goblins into the pit, whoever is leading the next goblin will get scared if your squad is engaged with a prisoner.

As an alternative to the d-b-d mass-strip approach, to get rid of just the weapons, I use the stocks menu.  Weapons that are carried by goblins are forbidden by default.  So I just look at all forbidden entries, mark those as dumped, then when they become forbidden again (meaning they were dropped off at a garbage zone) I know the goblins are stripped and I melt the weapons.

[DTF]

Embark with a good soldier (f.ex. 4 axedwarf, 2 dodger, 4 teacher).
First migrant wave: assign one or two newbies (they'd better be unskilled, more on that later) to his squad and set the squad to Active/Training.
At first, your teacher will lead demonstrations - after some (short) time the newbies have become skilled enough to spar.
Now its a piece of cake, they'll gain skill very fast. If you want: set up some upright speartraps with one wooden training spear (low quality!) each in the baracks, link them to a lever, let your legendary soaper migrant use the lever on and on => armor user skill skyrockets. But make sure you equip your guys with proper armor (bronze, steel).

As soon as more migrants arrive and you feel the need to strengthen your military, split up your initial (now experienced) military and let them be the drill sergeants on the other squads.
For starters, dont make the squads too big. Having too many different kinds of soldiers in one squad slows training down. Make squads of 3-5 and let them gain some skills.

Depending on who has the most experience in a particular skill, that one will lead the demonstrations. This can be a pain if you have f.ex. a talented sword dwarf in your axe squad - he will insist on teaching the others sword fighting. Thats why you should put unskilled newbies together with a good drill sergeant and the more experienced fighters in a different squad. This will speed up the training tremendously, as only the skills the sarge has (and that are the skills you want them to learn) will be trained.

Archers are a bit different, I reckon. While giving a marksdwarf squad a good teacher certainly helps, they gain skill better by actually killing stuff. Since they shouldnt be in the first line anyway (unless they once again forgot to bring bolts -- "Oh you need to bring these little pointy sticks along with this weirdly formed hammer? Wish you had told me earlier, chief!"), training them armor user/dodger isnt THAT important.

And dont miss around with training weapons for their actual training. Never had any injuries during sparring.

[Mudcrab]

Thank you all, so very much!

[Arekis]

...training them armor user/dodger isnt THAT important.

I do wish you could train archers in shield/armor/dodge skills so at least they can try to block/evade the occasional bolt that flies their way.

Training weapons aren't really needed for traditional training, but they do wonders for raising skills on a pitted goblin.

[oolon1]

...training them armor user/dodger isnt THAT important.

I do wish you could train archers in shield/armor/dodge skills so at least they can try to block/evade the occasional bolt that flies their way.

Training weapons aren't really needed for traditional training, but they do wonders for raising skills on a pitted goblin.

I've seen my archers train those things.  I think you'd need to disable archery range training for that squad and turn it on in a bed/stand/rack designated barracks.

[Arekis]

Ah, good idea.  I'll occasionally turn off the archery targets so they don't waste ammo when I'm running low, but all I've seen them do is striking demonstrations.  I'll keep an eye out for other exercises.  Thanks!

[DTF]

...training them armor user/dodger isnt THAT important.

I do wish you could train archers in shield/armor/dodge skills so at least they can try to block/evade the occasional bolt that flies their way.

You can when you set up the upright speartraps in their barracks and constantly turn them on and off. They will block/dodge the spears (or will be injured when equipped with bad armor).

[FreakyCheeseMan]

...training them armor user/dodger isnt THAT important.

I do wish you could train archers in shield/armor/dodge skills so at least they can try to block/evade the occasional bolt that flies their way.

You can when you set up the upright speartraps in their barracks and constantly turn them on and off. They will block/dodge the spears (or will be injured when equipped with bad armor).

Pfft. Make it wooden spears, they won't hurt anything.

Really. I once *tried* to kill off a group of civilians with those things. "deflected by pig tail tunic" or whatever. For *months* with the lever set to pull on repeat. Eventually it killed a few dogs, but no dwarves.