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[aaOzymandias]

I am new to DF, but I think I got a fairly decent fort going for a first time game, despite loosing half my population early on due to thirst and no knowledge on how to build wells or farm/brew properly.

Regardless, I not got 70 more or less merry and well fed dwarves, even a few wee little ones. But with my current population I fear a siege or ambush or monster, or digging into something dangerous since I have started to dig deep and just found a very large cavern.

So I created a 6 dwarf squad from a bunch of skilless imigrants and set them all to be marksmen. I set the schedule to train all year. However I am not sure I actually did any good, or did it right at all.

I made some crossbows tho, that I am fairly sure off, but for the rest of the equipemtn I am not sure. I have not found metal yet, so I traded a large deal of leather to try adn make som leather amror for now.

But, how do I set it all up? Is 6 trained dwarfs OK? Should I have a more relaxing schedule? I guess I need to amkea  barracs as well?

I am clueless

[eugene]

To train marksdwarves you need to build (A)rchery targets and create a (r)ange starting from them. Most efficient is one per marksdwarf. In the menu of the range you need to set the squad to (t)rain.  The (s)quad need to be set to ac(t)ive to follow the training schedule. They might become unhappy after a year or two of continuous training. For training you will need a steady production of bolts, from wood, bone or any weaponizable metal.

I think 6 marksdwarves in leather without metal bolts is not enough to defend your fort, unless you have very peaceful neighbors. Usually some of your immigrants have quite good combat skills, you could look for them and draft them into a melee squad. Those will train in barracks, similar to archery ranges. You will need some good metal weapons and armor for them to be effective: iron, bronze or steel. Have fun.

[wuphonsreach]

In general, for a 150-200 dwarf fort you'll want 2-3 squads of marksdwarfs, 2-5 squads of melee dwarves.  Figure 10-30% of your population for warfare, and only pull melee dwarves from the male population (ideally, your marksdwarves are also all-male too to avoid the "baby as shield" syndrome).

My personal preference for 150 dwarves is 2-3 squads w/ 5-6 marksdwarves in each, which gives me flexibility in positioning them to cut off escape or to cover multiple overlooks.  Then the rest of my squads (as many as 7 more squads w/ 5-6 in each squad) are melee squads for clean-up or corridor / inner defense.

[aaOzymandias]

Ah, thanks. With that many squads, do you leave some openings in the shceudle for them to do other tasks?

[Darkweave]

Ah, thanks. With that many squads, do you leave some openings in the shceudle for them to do other tasks?

I usually go for 30-40% of the dwarves in the military and many squads of six that rotate between two months training, a month stationed at the entrance and a month on break.

I haven't messed around with marksdwarves - I'be heard of problems getting them to train - but you can design your entrance to ensure that ranged enemies can only get at most one or two shots off before being engaged by your melee dwarfs anyway.

[Saiko Kila]

Wow, what do you people fight with so much military? Who works for them, creating GDP, while they burn through your resources? It's worse percentage of military personnel than North Korea has 

[Darkweave]

You don't really need that many dwarvfs to get things running;

5 Nobles doing useful things (manager, max precision bookkeeper etc)
5 Doctors on stand-by
5 Random outsidey jobs (hunting, fishing, woodcutting)
10 Miners & Engravers
15 Crafts (stone pots, glassmaking, leatherworking etc.)
15 Smelting & Metal
15 Food production (including processing plants, milking, bee-keeping etc.)
20 Randomers working on your current project and/or hauling

With a pop-cap of 150 that leaves you tonnes of spare dwarfs for the military. I have so many as it's nice to have spares in case of injury and I often have two to three entrances and want a squad of six stationed at each one at all times.

The idea that the current military is useless without danger rooms is silly. I'm playing a mess-about fort while my gf is at work and took a few dwarfs with three levels in dodging, striking, fighting, axes, armor and shields and two levels in teacher. I assigned random dwarfs to the military until I had about 15 and had 6-7 axelords with at least 8 levels in the main military skills and legendary fighting by the middle of year four. I think that's more than reasonable.