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[ISGC]

I use danger rooms with steel spears
just to weed out the weak ones

[JohnnyDigs]

So the trick is just tiny squads?  Do you set them to train for the entire time?

I've never been able to get even close to a champion since the changes, but I usually have size 10 squads.

Yup nonstop training. They get depressed or angry about it but I let them have their own rooms so they stay content. Good booze and good food too. I tried setting the training limit to two instead of ten so they can get some time off but that resulted in the off duty dwarf getting her hands chopped off when the first ambush came. Apparently in the rush to put on her gear she forgot her gauntlets. So I just never let them off duty and when they become champions they don't complain anymore.

[ZCM]

Nerve damage does not heal - you might as well mod the dwarves not die from decapitation.

This is a common misconception. In reality, peripheral nerve damage does heal.

[Shootandrun]

I use them, to send axedwarves legendary +5 in every skill in the middle of twenty goblins. It's quite funny when they go in a martial trance. Limbs are flying too quickly to count. And you can't do that with normal training.

[Levi]

So the trick is just tiny squads?  Do you set them to train for the entire time?

I've never been able to get even close to a champion since the changes, but I usually have size 10 squads.

Yup nonstop training. They get depressed or angry about it but I let them have their own rooms so they stay content. Good booze and good food too. I tried setting the training limit to two instead of ten so they can get some time off but that resulted in the off duty dwarf getting her hands chopped off when the first ambush came. Apparently in the rush to put on her gear she forgot her gauntlets. So I just never let them off duty and when they become champions they don't complain anymore.

Hmm...  Isn't it hard to manage so many squads? 

Oh well, if that is what I must do to have dwarfs that can defend themselves I suppose that is what I must do.

[agatharchides]

I have 12 military dwarves in 3 squads of 4, two training. They are mostly happy or ecstatic and seem to get 2-3 levels a year. Though I do feed them a number of caged gobbos to level up on.

[SirAaronIII]

Blocking and dodging spears counts as training to me, even if they're wooden.

[krenshala]

I use them, but only because normal assign-dwarves-to-a-barracks-and-wait training is almost completely useless.

Same. If regular training improved dwarves faster than one skill up a year I would probably just use that, but as it is regular training is sometimes so poor it doesn't even prevent combat skills from rusting. It's really bad when you see half your dwarves have rusting [Weapon] skill or Shield User after 5 years of regular training, yet it happens every time I try to go without a danger room.

In .22 I trained two dwarves, nine months of sparing with training spears and wooden shields -- end result : lvl 5 and 6 spear dwarf, lvl 5 armor and shield users.  In 3 to 6 months of sparing they usually go from zero experience to lvl 2+ in my playing experience.  I never use danger rooms.  I think the key is to set your minimum number of soldiers to less than or equal to the dorfs in the squad (e.g., if you have 6 military dorfs, but training is at the default of 10 minimum, they won't do carp ... drop the number to six or lower and you get nice steady training experience).

I, admittedly, have not played a lot of DF as of late; I had one ~3 year old .19 fort which I lost on a reformat and have yet to settle into a new fort since. Most of my forts were around .12 and .13.

So far, my experiences have been this:
In one fortress, roughly 5 years of training, 10 dwarves in a squad full steel equipment, didn't alter the 10 minimum, almost no improvement. Highest was IIRC around competent. Some dwarves had rusting combat skills.

Second fortress, 8 years of training, 10 dwarves only bronze equipment, 8 minimum, again almost no improvement. Highest was one expert swordsdwarf. Almost all dwarves had a skill or two marked as rusty.

Third and fourth fortresses, 3 to 5 years of training, 3 dwarves per squad 2 minimum, training did actually progress and I don't recall seeing any rusty skills, but it was still astronomically slow. I don't feel that it should take 5 years of training to reach master fighter. With how expendable dwarves are and how likely even the most ridiculously well trained dwarf is to die from a freak blow it should not take that long just to become more than competent.

Ever since then if I've founded a fortress it had a danger room.

Honestly, the largest issue with training -- and something which I DO consider to be a bug -- is that larger squads train exponentially slower with each additional member to the point where full 10 dwarf squads don't even train fast enough to keep the rust off. THAT is an issue. That is what most people encounter and why most people give up on the military.

And don't tell me I'm doing it wrong; that's just insulting. There's nothing more to do beyond assign the dwarves to a barracks, assign equipment, and watch them crawl along at a snail's pace.

That pretty much matches what I've seen.  With four dwarves in a squad and 3 minimum training they usually get to level 2, almost 3 in six months but only level 3, maybe 4, in nine months.  With two dwarves training (minimum 2) they get the same result for the first six months but by nine months they are easily level 5, and posibly lvl 6.  Student/Teacher skills might have affected this, however, as both of the two I mentioned above were also level 3 or 4 in both student and teacher after nine months.

[JohnnyDigs]

So the trick is just tiny squads?  Do you set them to train for the entire time?

I've never been able to get even close to a champion since the changes, but I usually have size 10 squads.

Yup nonstop training. They get depressed or angry about it but I let them have their own rooms so they stay content. Good booze and good food too. I tried setting the training limit to two instead of ten so they can get some time off but that resulted in the off duty dwarf getting her hands chopped off when the first ambush came. Apparently in the rush to put on her gear she forgot her gauntlets. So I just never let them off duty and when they become champions they don't complain anymore.

Hmm...  Isn't it hard to manage so many squads? 

Oh well, if that is what I must do to have dwarfs that can defend themselves I suppose that is what I must do.

Its not hard at all. Everyone wears the same uniform, the default "Metal Armor" one. Although, I do have to manually remove individual choice weapon and tell each recruit to use the weapon I want. I like to have each squad only use one type of weapon (battleaxe squad, warhammer squad, etc). Since you can select multiple squads and give them the same order at the same time, its no different from having only 1 squad. In fact it lets you have a more control since you can split them up if you need to.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

well, i made this mod, so...
i just think it's redunkulous that with one year of training everybody can become legendary... for me legendary means somebody whose great grandchildren would tell stories about, it would be someone whose exploits the elven traders from the other side of the world would have heard of, not some dude who has been makin barrels for a few years

that said, i don't have a problem with the idea of danger rooms, actually i think they're ingenious and i congratulate whoever invented them. i do think they're exploity, though.

[Ipwnurmom221]

I haven't used danger rooms since a TRAINING SPEAR killed one of my dorfs

[DrKillPatient]

I might give one a try, although I'm more of a "hide in a mountain and play drawbridge pong with goblins over a lava pit" type of person. Haven't used a full military squad yet-- although I use three dwarves in a squad for hunting.

[GotIt_00]

Originally, I felt that DR's were exploitative and less "realistic" than other game features. After playing the game for two months though, I realized that DR's are basically in line with many other game features.

How is a DR more exploitative than selling food that's overvalued?
How is a DR anymore of a cheat than atom smashing materials?
How is a DR less realistic than piping magma through glass tubes, or standing near magma?

I could go on and on. The game is very detailed, and those details make for compelling simulation, but realism is not an appropriate description of the game.

So far as that goes, many effective simulations succeed because they clearly deviate from "the real." I think giant mushrooms and dwarfs are unrealistic, but who's keeping track?

[ral]

I don't see what's wrong with danger rooms conceptually. I mean an automated ninja training room almost seems like a cliche.

If they're an exploit then how would such an exploit be fixed? I mean the fact is that when skills are used they train up. How are you going to fix that? Only thing I can think of is maybe limit the number of training spears to one per tile, or make the training spears more dangerous somehow so dwarves can't get attacked 10 times every 2 seconds with no chance of wounds.

So basically, if danger rooms are an exploit then someone should be able to suggest some way to fix the exploit. Get rid of retractable spikes?

[DrKillPatient]

Maybe make long exposure to spikes more likely to cause injury, say, dwarves in a danger room for long periods of time will probably get wounded?