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[roguester]

I've never been able to get my dwarves to train in any other way than individual combat drills. Furthermore, they seem to level up one or two skills(like fighting and dodging) to legendary pretty quickly, while things like weapon skills are still dabbling. Most of the time they are using the correct weapons and armor, although they seem to switch them out a lot. So how does one get dwarves to do demonstrations and/or sparring? I'm not really interested in things like danger rooms.

[Zaik]

well, you don't want demonstrations, because those are crap wastes of time. I've never seen anyone NOT be able to get those.

I mean, if you always leave your squads inactive, they would only do individual combat drills, i guess.

Anyway, sparring is something that happens when you have two or three dwarves with somewhat equal defensive and offensive skills.

If yuor dwarves are switching weapon types, then you need to stop them from using "individual preference" weapons, because that setting is awful and shouldn't even exist.

[Rexfelum]

I mean, if you always leave your squads inactive, they would only do individual combat drills, i guess.

Hint: Check this first.  Is the squad scheduled to "active/training" or any other schedule that tells them to train?  "Inactive" won't do.

--Rexfelum

[tfaal]

well, you don't want demonstrations, because those are crap wastes of time. I've never seen anyone NOT be able to get those.

Nah, demonstrations are quite effective, provided that you've got a good teacher.

[roguester]

I thought the problem might be lack of teaching skill, so in my last fort I brought a 5-axedwarf 5-teacher dwarf and made him militia commander with 4 recruits. They all immediately headed to the barracks where they went into individual drilling. I didn't mess with their schedule, so it was on default--training I think.

[tfaal]

The default setting is an inactive one. In order to get your recruits to become actual soldiers who do actual training, you have to do an elaborate kabuki dance, the details of which I do not fully recall at this time.

[FleshForge]

What exactly is "quite effective" and what is a "good" teaching skill?  I started a set of 7 dwarves with Teaching:5 and tbh I'm not really sure it's doing anything, if it has an effect it's very hard to perceive.

[roguester]

The default setting is an inactive one. In order to get your recruits to become actual soldiers who do actual training, you have to do an elaborate kabuki dance, the details of which I do not fully recall at this time.

According to the wiki all that is needed is to assign a barracks for them to train at. What else is needed?

[FleshForge]

Select squad -> 't' (active)

[roguester]

Yea that's what I did.

[FleshForge]

The two big things beyond that: if the squad was created as an Archer squad, they will never spar; they will do group sessions if somebody has something to teach.  I don't think any group sessions will happen if nobody has a combat skill to teach though.

The other big thing is that the schedule needs to be defined to allow training; by default it is, but it is worth checking.  Hit m-s and make sure there is 'Train' in the right column for the given month - by default all 12 months are set for training for all units, which is probably not desirable but that's a different thing.

[Nameless Archon]

Nah, demonstrations are quite effective, provided that you've got a good teacher.

Do you know where I could find the !!Science!! on this issue? I'm interested in non-danger room training for my dwarves, but the base rate of teaching an unskilled squad of dwarves is horrifyingly slow.

[ioi101]

The two big things beyond that: if the squad was created as an Archer squad, they will never spar; they will do group sessions if somebody has something to teach.  I don't think any group sessions will happen if nobody has a combat skill to teach though.

The other big thing is that the schedule needs to be defined to allow training; by default it is, but it is worth checking.  Hit m-s and make sure there is 'Train' in the right column for the given month - by default all 12 months are set for training for all units, which is probably not desirable but that's a different thing.

What do you mean "created as an archer squad"? All the dwarves have ranged weapons assigned?

[drkpaladin]

Only two dwarves in a squad will spar at a time, and they will only spar if their abilities are comprable.  The easiest way to get dwarves to spar from the get-go, is to set up squads of just two dwarves with NO combat abilites, make sure the two dwarf squads are assigned the same type of weapon (that way one doesn't learn axes and the other swords, and they start wasting time teaching the other one something they don't need). 

Based on what your desribing, you need to go to military(m)  active (a) and set your squad to active/training.  By default they are set to inactive.  Also, go to Military(m), schedule (s), and edit their schedule so that only two dwarves are scheduled to train at a time.
You can rotate them out of training if you want to give them a little time off or something, as long as they are set to 'active' they won't be doing any civilian jobs.  Using this, I would often ignore the unhappy thought that would eventually spring up from the long patrol duty, this is balanced out by the good thought of constantly sparring.  Although I would eventually at some point give a dwarf a few months off until the thought disappeared altogether.  Like maybe once every couple years.

[Burning_Iceman]

Only two dwarves in a squad will spar at a time, and they will only spar if their abilities are comprable.

I've had sparring matches with more than 2 dwarves.