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[Ibid Straydrink]

I am typing this as a horde of trolls and goblins pour through the tower gates, and down central chamber into the gilded halls of not-so-glorious Valolarum- oh, there goes a baby, poor thing!- after four years of smooth moving, with thanks due perhaps to my incredible distance from any goblin settlement. Everything began nce and slow, but come this fourth, bloody summer, we saw our first incursion- three ambushes simultaneously. Naturally, my almighty military consist(ed- the commander was beheaded at "incursion") of ten dwarves, seven of whom had been in training for the past three years, and were still utterly incompetent versus anything but the occasional trog. Cage traps worked well for a while, but they just aren't enough for the caravans and I wasn't about to create a mega-wall. That aside, it does get boring after not so long anyways, as well as turning off invasions and choosing peaceful/isolated locales.

What I really want is to rejoice in my own bad-ass band of merry men who can do slightly more than take up hospital beds for an indefinite amount of time.
So, I ask: How does one train and maintain an effective military (I know the basic mechanics, and am curious more about strategies you may have employed effectively)? When should one begin recruiting? What is the optimal number of arms-dwarves?

Thanks.

Ibid

[slothen]

for my fort, one squad of 10 marksdwarves stationed on the outer wall and 1 squad of legendary steel-equipped axe dwarves at the open gates seems to handle 60+ goblins sieging with no injuries.

for training, a danger room is sort of an exploit but will make your dwarves legendary killers in no time at all.

regular training is slow until you have a few skilled dwarves showing the others how its done.  You can do that by killing wildlife or unarmed prisoners with wooden training swords, or otherwise giving them real life practice.  Their training sessions will then be much more effective.

[celem]

The danger room.  Some people love it, others hate it.  Personally positiion aside it must be acknowledged as the most effective and rapid method of training there is (short of year round live-combat)

As for how many soldiers.  I generally have 1 professional soldier for every 10 civvies, he does nothing but train and fight.  there are also 2 militia for every 10 civvies, they train part-time but usually also have labours enabled.  These are often marksdwarves and are about twice as many in number as the actual soldiers.

Getting your military ready to fight off the first few ambushes is really kinda difficult, it takes quite a few well-geared dwarves with reasonable skill or you'll likely lose a few.
A much simpler method is to use physical traps for the first ambushes while you finish filling/training the military.  Personally I like maybe 8 cage traps with a pair of serrated discs behind the last one.  Allows you to more or less ignore the little ambushes, once they are caged then build their cage in your arena/barracks and release via lever to train your soldiers on P.O.Ws

[sdrawkcabcM tsirU]

I hadn't tried it before my latest fortress, but I was pleasantly surprised by the speed with which a danger room trained my dwarves. With the amount of time I spent building it, the repeater to power it, and the hospital to treat the danger room's victims (none so far, surprisingly with almost all trained to legendary weapon and armor skill), and the armor to keep them from getting danger roomed'd, I thought for sure I'd have goblins breathing down my neck. Traps and the occasional lava bath held them off more than long enough though. And my hospital was overly-elaborate and took quite some time to build due to the plumbing system/reactors.

I'll have trouble if I ever need to go back to a simpler method...

[Ibid Straydrink]

I appreciate the suggestions thus far, and especially the general advice on tactics. However, I not a fan of the idea of a danger room for the same reason that I don't want to decorate every inch of my entrance with OP little cage traps. It does sound effective, and I will probably give it a try one day, but I (naively, perhaps) want it to flow naturally, without having to cheat, nor go through painstaking micro-management to do so.

Even burrows are too much work for me. :/

[Larry421]

Capture thieves and ambushers, disarm them, tie to a rope and then send your unarmed  soldiers at them.
It does require fiddly micromanagement (especially getting thieves onto ropes without the slippery
buggers escaping). But it's moderately effective at training skills without being exploity.

Drawbridge and wall constructions that funnel invaders in a particular way can be useful (past your
fortifications, perhaps)

[o_O[WTFace]]

Danger rooms are probly overpowered, but no other method of training is nearly as good.  The alternative is to pass out training weapons and have your military attack any unarmed, non-poisonous creatures you have on your map.  This can be dangerous so its a good idea to load them out with full metal armor, several cloaks and have a squad with real weapons standing by in case Fun starts to happen. 

Keep a look out for a migrant with high military and teaching skills, supposedly they can hold fairly effective teaching demonstrations. 

[shlorf]

If you don't user danger rooms and massive amounts of traps, a good way to deal with ambushes and (to a lesser extent) sieges, is to build 2-3 courtyards in front of your fort entrance that can be locked with raising bridges. Place bait pets behind the bridges and once the first bunch of enemies is inside raise the bridges and have your dwarfs fight 10 goblins instead of 30. If you manage to outnumber the goblins 2:1 even inexperienced soldiers stand a chance.

[sdrawkcabcM tsirU]

I appreciate the suggestions thus far, and especially the general advice on tactics. However, I not a fan of the idea of a danger room for the same reason that I don't want to decorate every inch of my entrance with OP little cage traps. It does sound effective, and I will probably give it a try one day, but I (naively, perhaps) want it to flow naturally, without having to cheat, nor go through painstaking micro-management to do so.

Even burrows are too much work for me. :/

Burrows are too much work? You select an area for the burrow, then turn the alert on when you want all the Urist McSquishies to go there. It's extremely easy unless you want to micro-manage individual burrows to minimize work interruption. Personally, I just do one burrow and then resolve the issue quickly so everyone can get back to work.

Honestly, I consider danger rooms more of a high risk, high reward venture. They can take awhile to set up, depending on the size you want, since it's bottlenecked to 1 mechanic working on hooking up traps at a time (unless you use two or more pressure plate/levers). Not only that, but pets constantly get in to my danger room despite having 3 pet-airlock doors. I had to discharge one of my soldiers when two of his pets died and he got dangerously unhappy. Not to mention that injuries can happen in danger rooms (I've been lucky so far). Not to mention that simultaneously you have to get decent armor set up. Also, on at least two occasions my repeater has just plain stopped working and needed to be shut down for repairs. I now have an auto-reset lever.

It's basically lessening the chance of an early military catastrophe (once it is actually operational) and raising the chance of other types of fun. So I guess it comes down to choosing whether you want your embark to end with a bang or a whimper, if it comes to that. If you're the blaze of glory type, more power to ya.

[Nameless Archon]

Sadly, the abysmal rate of improvement of military skills under sparring and demonstrations (common among low skill dwarves) is fairly low, requiring much time to reach anything like 'competent'. Unarmed (but armored) prisoners make good training. The "build cage, disarm goblin, release for training' method is best here, but assumes you have some cage traps to deal with lesser incursions. Cavern exploration and surface scouting are another good choice for military training, if you have plenty of vic.. er... animal life in those areas.

Failing that, you're down to "wait longer" as a method to train dwarves, and would be well suggested that you consider how to defend your fortress with incompetent soldiers. Marksmen and fortifications are probably your best solution. Backed up with traps and dogs, they should handle most minor attacks. You can get better skilled marksdwarves by using hunters to fetch meat for the fortress. For your melee dwarves, make sure they have shields - a skilled shield user is very hard to kill.

In the end, though, I find that a military without a danger room is a danger only to your military.

[mrbobbyg]

If you won't use the danger room, you're going to have to bring a soldier dwarf with you.

He or she should have a few points in organization, weapon, shield, dodge, etc.

They won't be much, but they will start your military off a LOT faster than unskilled dwarves. 

Also, were your dudes using good gear?  You didn't mention, but if they have quality armor and weapons they at least have a chance on the ambushes.

[tolkafox]

I start my military right from the start and bring a competent teacher novice ambusher/marksdwarf/archer. He'll be legendary or near legendary by the time I outfit the new recruits. Outside of that, as per above wooden bolts/weapons and live targets for them to train on. Cage traps aren't cheating either, I keep a few scattered about to capture the random living thing. If you insist on not using them, weapon traps work just as well loaded with iron disks.

Also, it might be good to mention that dwarfs get unhappy when they're on long patrols. They also get unhappy if they're drafted and don't have novice in a military skill, and unhappy when they're relieved and don't have novice in a civilian skill. I build a quern for half of my military and have a farmer growing cave wheat/longland grass/whip vines for the sole purpose of giving my off duties something to do. I alternate my squad of rangers with my squad of infantry, when one is off duty the other is on and vice-versa.

Elves make good live practice. Buy their animals first, then trap and kill them.

[tsen]

I always take two military dwarves... Both have Proficient Dodge, one has Armor use the other has Shield use. Sparring gets them weapon skills, the defensive skills are slower to develop.  I do just fine without danger rooms or goblin training dummies. (Although the latter hasn't been used just because I've been too lazy/busy)