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[Ganthan]

I've got my fortress sealed off with channels, fortifications and a bridge.  Then I recruited two of my dwarves into the military to start some basic combat training, both using wooden shields, the commander with his embark copper axe and the recruit with a wooden training sword.  I don't have armor ready yet so I just want them doing individual drills for the time being.

After some weird order juggling I finally got them both to pick up their gear but now they're just standing around in the meeting hall with 'No Job'.  They're both in the same squad.  The squad is set to inactive.  I've got a barracks set for that squad's training and sleeping.  The squad is scheduled to train and I've tried having both 1 and 2 minimum training settings.  I've disabled all civilian labors for them.  They did do some individual drills initially but now they both just stand around with No Job.

I haven't tried Active Training yet but I don't want to risk that without armor.  Is there still something I'm forgetting to do or is the military still way too bugged?

[Stardrinker]

They shouldn't injure themselves if you go into active/training if you have the latest version (.12). AFAIK if they're set to inactive they will do individual drills but only when they feel like it.

[Ganthan]

They shouldn't injure themselves if you go into active/training if you have the latest version (.12).

Really?  I thought the whole point of introducing wooden training weapons was to cut down on sparring injuries.  If they never injure each other in training anymore then the only purpose I can think of for training weapons is to allow dwarves to get some skill in that weapon type right near the start before you've had a chance to produce proper steel weapons.

[Shoku]

Yeah, training is no longer so much an inactive thing. Just set up squads of 3 with the schedule requiring 2 active and you're good to go.
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The training injuries were cut way way back to the point that it's now described as "hammerdwarf a taps hammerdwarf b" in the combat logs. Training weapons are also available and are so extremely weak that if you send some dwarves using them at a local animal they'll need quite awhile to kill it. Professional skill level soldiers manage to turn that around and make it pretty quick again but they'd no doubt one shot unarmored opponents if they had real weapons.
But really, training weapons are there specifically not to kill. Check how long it takes to kill a dwarf locked in a room full of training spear traps on repeat. He might starve to death first.

[Ganthan]

Wait a minute.  What the hell's going on now?

I figured out how to set up schedules for different alert levels so I set both Active and Inactive to Train with 1 minimum.  However, when having it set to Inactive, the recruit is now trying to Organize Combat Training.  I thought that only happens with Active training?

How to I make squads train the way I want them to?  How do I ensure the squads do either individual drills OR organized training when I want them to?  How do I ensure that only the squad leader does the teaching?  Why do my soldiers keep phasing in and out of civilian mode?  Why are they trying to Organize Training in Inactive mode?

This all seems so random.

EDIT:  Inactive and Active/Training must be reversed or something.  I switched back to Active/Training just now and my recruit reverted back to lazy civilian state.

EDIT2: The recruit is telling me Soldier(Cannot follow orders) but immediatelly went back to training when I changed to Active then back to Inactive while paused the whole time.  Seriously, what's going on here?!

EDIT3:  Aaaaaand now the recruit is trying to Watch Shield Demonstration and the commander is a No Job civilian, even though they're in the same squad and therefore on the same alert level.

[KrazyDocK]

Wait a minute.  What the hell's going on now?

I figured out how to set up schedules for different alert levels so I set both Active and Inactive to Train with 1 minimum.  However, when having it set to Inactive, the recruit is now trying to Organize Combat Training.  I thought that only happens with Active training?

How to I make squads train the way I want them to?  How do I ensure the squads do either individual drills OR organized training when I want them to?  How do I ensure that only the squad leader does the teaching?  Why do my soldiers keep phasing in and out of civilian mode?  Why are they trying to Organize Training in Inactive mode?

Okay, if both "Active" and "Inactive" are set to the same thing, then that's why training is happening when you are on "inactive".  It's because you told them to.  If you want "inactive" to mean "all of you become civilians" then leave it on "no orders".  Note that dwarves in a squad but inactive may still do individual drills while idle, and you've probably seen that already.

You CAN'T ensure that only the leader does the training.  But any time there's a demonstration, the teacher should be higher skill than the students (or at least equal).

Soldiers phase in and out because you set a minimum.  If you've got 3 members in the squad and set minimum 2 to train, usually you end up with 2 training soldiers and 1 civilian.  Then they sort of rotate in and out.  It's a pretty good system really.  Eat/drink/sleep while a civilian so training (as a soldier) won't get shortchanged.

[Ganthan]

Thanks Krazy.  It turns out that what I was doing wrong was that I was just looking at the 'names' of the two default alert levels and thinking, "Oh, those must be hardcoded to always mean Inactive = Individual Drill while Active = Demonstration because I remember reading something like that on the Wiki."

Nope, turns out the names don't mean anything and are just there for my convenience and can even be changed to whatever you like.  It's really all in how you set the 'schedule' up for that squad, that month and that particular alert.  I also discovered that Individual Drills come from having the schedule set for No Specified Order, which is also how the Inactive alert schedule is set by default which explains why they did in fact do individual drills initially.

Man this stuff is needlessly complicated.  I was so close to ragequitting back to 40d.  Thanks for the patient explanation and sorry for the rant there.