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[Naragako]

Hello all,

I am new to DF.
I seek to train effectively dwarfs.
I set up a squad of 10 dwarfs and gave them all wooden weapons + a schedule of 8 trainers per month (they do group training) yet they advance very slowly in their training.
According to Wiki "Training soldiers up is fairly easy, in good cases taking around a season for legendary wrestling, and similar for a weapon skill." but my dwarfs are 2 years training and they still are low skill (some even haven't reached level 2).

Thanks!

[varangian]

There are two reliable ways I've used with reasonable success:

1) Capture goblins or other intruders in cages. Remove their armour and weapons and release them into an arena with a squad of dwarves on hand to cut them down. A few kills seems to boost skill levels quite nicely. Can be risky if you only get intruders that are innately very dangerous, dragons, bronze colossi and the like.

2) Look round for a skilled fighter amongst immigrants (or spend points on embark to give one of your dwarves such skills). Make him a militia captain and he should teach the others. Dwarves apparently don't start sparring until they've got some skill in weaponry but once they do start they seem to build up skills quite well.

Personally I've never bothered with training weapons (embarrassing if you dwarves get caught in an ambush and only have wooden axes), they seem to spar with real weapons without injury. And I let  the initial squads choose their own melee weapons then create specialist axe/hammer/sword squads from the best fighters as they get up to speed.

[Niseg]

If you are looking for purist ways you can also eradicate local wildlife .  I embarked in untamed wild so i get some crazy monkeys ,wolves and sometimes pumas to  practice on . Goblin sieges are also good practice (of the deadly kind)  but you should get a bunch of armor layers preferably steel alternately bronze (shield,chain mail,breastplate,helm,gauntlets,leggings ,boots,cloaks,robe  seem to work for me) before sending your army to chop them to bits( I prefer axes) . Take some time to carefully define your own uniform rather than going with stock uniforms .

Unarmored dwarfs tend to get nerve damage or limbs choped off which is super annoying but with decent armor they should do fine . Just get enough resources ,coffers, and beds for your hospital. I usually just ask for lye (for soap) from the liaison and then kill some animal for fat on delivery (make sure you have a kitchen) .Thread and  cloth and thread I usually get from caravans .

I admit I played this game for a while before engaging anything so When i did started fighting I took some "shortcuts" . I did noticed that designating dwarfs to train in a small room they tend to do it more often but i could be wrong. I think 31.18 is a better newbie version 19 is a few levels harder . I did quiet a few embarks untill I started getting the hang of it. I'm still fairly new to this game (but I'm addicted ).

[obeliab]

By my experience, unless you use danger rooms, legendary warriors can be potentially years in the making.  Most maps have wildlife, and the caverns always have some nasty, yet relatively weak, denizens, and all can be targets for a sort of field training.  Also, I find that even low-skill recruits, when decked out in a full set of steel armor and equipped with a steel weapon, can pretty well handle an ambush squad or two.  A lot of my military hangs out at Adequate or Skilled fighting abilities for a long time, but if they've got enough good equipment, they only suffer maybe one or two minor injuries during ambushes.  Sieges aren't for the weak, but you generally don't see those until your military has been around for a good while.

Also, I'd like to add that smaller squads with low minimum training requirements seem to do better with training.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you have a squad of 10 with an 8 minimum training, they won't do all that much unless a total of 8 dwarves are ready, i.e. not eating, drinking, sleeping, being obnoxious.  This can cause problems, as if one of those 8 gets hungry or decides he's tired, the rest are kind of loafing until at least 8 are ready... by the time that happens, one of the other ones gets thirsty, and now you're waiting longer, until another gets hungry... you see how that's going.  Setting your minimums lower might help with getting more going on in the barracks.

[Dutchling]

Do you have an alarm which marks the squad as active? The soldiers should look like soldiers and not just civilians.

[Rude]

I only use squads of 3 for melee and 5-10 for marksdwarfs. I start by finding a decent fighter and make him an axeman, then spears and 1 other weapon type (hammers usually).

2/squad to spar at anytime (schedule training all year with 2/3 training. watch for unhappy thought and give breaks accordingly)

3 well armed dwarfs can handle 1 squad of gobos at a time fairly easily. 3+ squads of gobos happens often in a siege, but they dont necessarily engage at once. so you should be able to manage. 1 well armed elite can pretty well manage the whole siege if he doesn't get throat slashed, tired, or swarmed.

Watch out for hammers, lashers, maces, and crossbows because they can go through armor. Use marksdwarfs to counter melee armor piercers and dogs/cats to waste enemy crossbow ammo (or for a distraction while my melees rush them (or for lulz))

I Usually have 3 melee squads (my pop is maxed at 50 for fps, but I get as many as 65 at a time) so I always have 2 squads ready to go.

Sometimes Ill equip 1 squad with wooden weapons and go kill trogs. (Cave Crocs and Giant Olms work if you have good armor) 100+ pages of combat is a huge amount of XP even split 3 ways.

If I have enough dwarfs that I want to militarize, Ill set up a 4th melee squad of 1-2 well trained dwarfs (preferably with teaching) and as many other soon-to-be soldiers as I have. equip 2 shields and let them train up (spar). when skilled, I move them to the "real" melee squads and give them an appropriate weapon (instead of 2 shields. Axes if for the axe squad. this is to avoid wasting time training recruits to use spears and then deciding I need more hammers. instead of weapon skill, they train shield or fighting/dodging. I'd rather they not die for a long time than kill things quickly -- let them be tanks for my veterans.)

I set archers to train 1 dwarf per month and about half the rest to 'man the towers' while the rest rest. (or weave spider webs to silk. They carry their xbows around and defend themselves better than civilians would)

Its important to me to get xbows fairly quickly. Once a monster made of fire attacked. every dwarf that hit him caught fire and he threw fire balls. I lost all my melee. 1 bolt to the upper body "breaking away the tissue" and he died. Xbows simply can do things melee can't, like how copper knifes simply won't be effective against bronze armor, but copper maces might.

[elpizo]

the way i make my military is that i embark with 3 soldiers in a hostile place, then i make them hunt down any animal that comes near, when you kill one herd another one comes so you can have endless training, it goes really fast that way, using this i have 2 legendary+5 sword dwarf and fighter at the same time even tho they had no fighter skill on embark

another thing is that aparently group training can only be done in groups of 3 so if you want to be effective you have to make multiple squads of 2 to 3 dwarves

[Naragako]

Thanks for the answers, I am going to try the different techniques people use!