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[catphive]

Thanks for your help, I'm new to dwarf fortress.

I recently created a militia squad, and added my carpenter to it. I noticed he never takes a break from training to go back to work as a carpenter. I need him to make some stuff with his carpentry skill, so I tried deactivating the entire squad. Instead of training in a group, he just sits in the barracks doing individual training. I even turned training off for the barracks, and he won't leave and go back to work.

How do you force militia to go back to their civilian jobs for a while?

[twilightdusk]

try removing him from the squad

[ext0l]

He will automatically stop doing individual training if he has other civilian things to do, like carpentry. It may take a while however, for him to finish individual training.

[nil]

Try (f)reeing the armor stand or whatever piece of furniture from which the barracks is designated.

[martinuzz]

I never designate barracks.
All my civilian dwarves are in military squads (5 dwarves per squad)
That way, you can arm and outfit *all* your dwarves, except miners and woodcutters.
I keep my miners and woodcutters in one squad, and they are the only dwarves that never see battle. The inability to permanently outfit them in decent armor makes them way too vulnerable.

All my other dwarves wear a full set of steel armor (chain, plate, gauntlet, boot, helm, greaves, shield), plus 2 cloaks (one GCS silk cloak sewn with plant fibre image, one plant fibre cloak sewn with GCS silk image).

Their defensive skills are trained up in the danger room, their weapon skills are trained with the help of craploads of goblin captives.

With this method, there's no dwarf labor wasted, while you can still have a decent military.
Do keep an eye on the dwarves' labors though, as once they hit legendary in certain combat skills, activating them with a (s)quad order causes them to turn off all civilian labor. You will have to turn that back on once you revert to civilian duty.

[catphive]

Removing the dwarf from the squad temporarily seems to be the most effective way to get him to stop training quickly.

[capt.pantsless]

How do you force militia to go back to their civilian jobs for a while?

As others have said, removing the Dorf from the squad is the most reliable way to get them back to Civ jobs, but the long-term solution is to lower the minimum training number in the squad's schedule. That, and/or set-up the schedule to alternate training and no-orders months. This can also help with the negative thoughts from 'long patrol duty' (FYI: 'Patrol' here is a catch-all for military jobs)

Also, I'd recommend having more than one carpenter. Cross-training your dwarves is rather especial to the long-term health of the fort.

[Myrmec]

My military is composed of dwarves that do nothing but train.  My important crafters and workers don't get involved in the military at all.  By keeping them separate, you don't have to worry about job assignments throwing a wrench into your training schedule.

Martinuzz's idea is very cool.  I may try that next time around.  But with a good front gate setup, nobody should be getting in your fort to eat all your tender unarmed crafters.

[Krecik]

I've got a related question - during my emergency I had to draft half of my dwarves into military, including my legendary miners. After they ripped invaders apart, I disbanded the squad. But, after that, thay won't go back to their civ duties. I tried disabling and enabling labors for them, but still nothing. They've got 'no job' in their current task according to DT. What to do?

[Fredd]

Krecik, if you still have a militia commander, vacate his position, unassign/free their training area. If they are still doing nothing, select another militia commander, assign the rest to the squad, assign a training area, let them train for a few seconds, then unassign it, free up the armor rack, weapon wrack