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[microtank]

I've noticed since I drafted a 10 man squad last year and had them set to the default training alert (set to 8 so 2 of them can always be getting food or drink), nearly every dwarf in my military have been consistently lowering in happiness, now I have 2 in the red and most others in the white (when referencing happiness levels with dwarf therapist).  If I take them out of training and set to (inactive) for a short period, they go up in happiness VERY slowly, so slowly that its pointless and makes me angry that I dont have a squad on the ready.

Is it possible to have a permanent squad training without making them all get pissed off? 

How do you keep your military happy?

Should I just ignore the fact that my squad is always increasing in anger when training?   

[papent]

try setting up a schedule for the squad being inactivated so they train for a month then no orders and alternate between those options.
also try smaller Sq's 3 or 4 members for flexibility. In addition to that you can always have dwarfs training and you can also set up for a Sq to train, a Sq to defend the fortress, a Sq to be on break (no orders) all without activating the Sq's

[plisskin]

Papent is right, they're not getting rotated often enough. If you prefer big squads that's cool, it's good to have a lot of soldiers mob another enemy group, but make sure the number of on-duty dwarves isn't more than 3/4 the total in the squad or you'll have at least a couple stuck on duty too long and they'll hate life. Smaller squads would definitely fix the issue though since big squads with a small minimum trainer count mean fewer dwarves train as often. Squads of 3 with a minimum of 2 are an excellent size, since it ensures 2 members for sparring with nobody left alone.

You could also make some Danger Rooms, if you don't mind them, and train your squads up to Great or better in any one military skill and they'll stop complaining about soldierly duties.

It also helps to load the barracks up with high quality furniture/furniture made of stuff your dorfs like and a waterfall if you can. Happy thoughts everywhere! Combat gives them a happy thought too, so send them off to their certain deaths with impunity!

[bobhayes]

It also helps to load the barracks up with high quality furniture/furniture made of stuff your dorfs like and a waterfall if you can. Happy thoughts everywhere! Combat gives them a happy thought too, so send them off to their certain deaths with impunity!

Even if you decide to deal with ambushes without abusing cage traps, put a few cages on the frontlines so that every ambush/siege gives you a few slaughter targets. Then assign individual unhappy soldiers to the slaughter job and they'll be happy again.

[Girlinhat]

Urist McAxeLord has taken joy in slaughter recently.

[microtank]

great tips guys, already noticed a huge boost when i broke the squad down to smaller counterparts and worked in time off and time training / time stationed

[Jake]

I've found the optimum for my mostly crossbow-armed military is squads of six, minimum of four on duty at once. One month of training and then another on duty is as long as I go barring an alert.

Also, is three months of training, with a ten-man squad and a minimum of six active at once, then the rest of the year inactive too much? I was planning on implementing that for my melee squads as soon as I have enough squads for a year-round watch on my main gate.

[ral]

I usually set all my squads to train max 3 every month year round. I don't know if that's optimal but they don't get unhappy that way.

I'm not sure if they learn better by having lots of them train at one time or if you have them training in small numbers (probably depends on whether you have one highly skilled teacher in the squad), but for maximizing sparring you're supposed to split them all into squads of 3 with two set to train at any given time. Not sure if all squads need their own training areas or if they'll all just do their thing separately in the same training area.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Just make sure that they have time off every other month and something to do with that time.

[Fredd]

In a training cycle, for a month, I tried an experiment with my fledgling militia. Had them(10:Min under the inactive schedule, training order every 4 months, rest of the year no orders.Equipped with wooden shields, initially. 
 They did their jobs well, the militia commander, who had basic military skills, giving demonstrations. When the rookies became novices, would spar, and give their own demo's, during training months. During the no orders month, would practice shield work, and wrestling moves(indiv. drill). The parties dropped drastically, and were spending their off-time for the defense of the fort. Then rotated the old militia members to a new squad, with training orders only twice a year. New migrants filled their old spots in the militia.(Assigned the newest squad practice weapons, since the fort was still poor.)
 
 With basic skills already learned, the new squad improved quickly. Would train those two months, then invid train with the practice weapons 10 months a year, during off time.

 After 2 years, had half the population able to defend themselves, and had traded/produced for basic sets of armor/weapons to outfit the old squad(Old Guard, actually). When migrants started showing up with military skills, would assign them their own squad, then reassign old squad members to them.Then start these squads on Active/training cycles. Optimum is 5 a squad, with 4 full time squads available so there is a squad on station, at the depot each month. Every 4 months, 1 month is guard duty, then train,no orders train. Everyone trains, on guard duty, I set a min, to allow them to go eat, whatever. If I assign a full time Active squad, their civilian jobs are of no matter, they are to defend the fort. They can either work, on no duty months, or invid train

[cikulisu]

mine always remain happy with no time off, and no exposure to the statue garden. all they do is train, not that it helps much they still get totally slaughtered whenever they are matched in number. i'd like to invite the goblins to show me how they train their soldiers, because i must be doing it wrong.

[DarkerDark]

In one of my .18 forts I basically keep my huge military happy by assigning them all their own rooms decked out with golden furniture, including a gold statue next to their bed. I usually still get a few militia types that get unhappy if they lose friends to sieges, but so far none of them have thrown a tantrum and the unhappy mood doesn't last long.

The hardest part about giving each soldier his own royal bedroom is assigning them rooms that are closest to their squad's barracks. If you take any casualties in a siege, the royal bedrooms of the deceased are usually taken over by a random roomless Dwarf, such as Urist McUseless, Novice Cheesemaker. So usually I rename all my soldiers so they've got their squad letter listed and then make sure the bedrooms are all filled out with the appropriate squad members.