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[AutomataKittay]

I thought Bismuth Bronze was better for shields than copper. *Checks Raws*

No, they're right, its copper.

Kinda funny to imagine, you have an entire candy coated army, but they're using shields of the cheapest metal available.

Sometimes cheapness' better than trying to spend the world on something that barely dents

*facepalm* I'm using candy. Ok, so this just in. My new 20 dwarf squad rushed into combat fully armored against a single squad of goblins. Their single crossbowman shoots one bolt that insta-kills one of my favorite dwarfs. Then another. Somehow the squad of MACE GOBLINS cuts off BOTH of my axe dwarfs' hands. Both. Anyway to make the military not cannon fodder? I want my soldiers to last.

Danger room, that's pretty much the only option if you need to drill them up really fast, otherwise years of training and cage traps for 'live fire' training. And have a back-up squad of crossbowiers to hurt them a bit.

[Rask]

Armor skill?  None.  It only makes them faster while wearing armor, and since candy is so light it technically floats in water (if DF supported buoyancy) this doesn't help. 

According to my tests in the arena, this is horribly wrong. In 13 one-on-one duels between steel-clad dwarfs with steel swords that only differed in skills (one was grandmaster armour user, the other was unskilled armour user), the grandmaster won 12 out of 13 times. Since I had given them no shields to test this, the grandmaster took hits too, but more blows were deflected. In some duels, the grandmaster also lost limbs during the fight, but they were in general smaller, less vital parts. 

[Erkki]

Train them in pairs, make sure the starting skills are as close as possible. You'll get them to "great"(lvl 12) in weapon and 5-10 range in other skills within a year. They'll be legendaries in 3 years... Perhaps a bit too quick. I've never had to use danger rooms, and traps only come after my barracks.

[humblegar]

Train them in pairs, make sure the starting skills are as close as possible. You'll get them to "great"(lvl 12) in weapon and 5-10 range in other skills within a year. They'll be legendaries in 3 years... Perhaps a bit too quick. I've never had to use danger rooms, and traps only come after my barracks.

Hmm now that you mention it my macelord has a partner that is just one skill lower with his mace, way ahead of the rest of the field.

Do you have lots of of squads with two dwarves and a barrack per squad? I have to rethink my scheduling it seems.

[Psieye]

Armor skill?  None.  It only makes them faster while wearing armor, and since candy is so light it technically floats in water (if DF supported buoyancy) this doesn't help. 

According to my tests in the arena, this is horribly wrong. In 13 one-on-one duels between steel-clad dwarfs with steel swords that only differed in skills (one was grandmaster armour user, the other was unskilled armour user), the grandmaster won 12 out of 13 times. Since I had given them no shields to test this, the grandmaster took hits too, but more blows were deflected. In some duels, the grandmaster also lost limbs during the fight, but they were in general smaller, less vital parts.

Next test: explore how armour skill helps against bolts. My view is that armour is for dealing with slashing weapons not blunt or piercing attacks.

[AutomataKittay]

Armor skill?  None.  It only makes them faster while wearing armor, and since candy is so light it technically floats in water (if DF supported buoyancy) this doesn't help. 

According to my tests in the arena, this is horribly wrong. In 13 one-on-one duels between steel-clad dwarfs with steel swords that only differed in skills (one was grandmaster armour user, the other was unskilled armour user), the grandmaster won 12 out of 13 times. Since I had given them no shields to test this, the grandmaster took hits too, but more blows were deflected. In some duels, the grandmaster also lost limbs during the fight, but they were in general smaller, less vital parts.

That's interesting, you might want to go to wiki and note it down in military and combat skills after testing it out with hammers and bolts.

[Erkki]

Train them in pairs, make sure the starting skills are as close as possible. You'll get them to "great"(lvl 12) in weapon and 5-10 range in other skills within a year. They'll be legendaries in 3 years... Perhaps a bit too quick. I've never had to use danger rooms, and traps only come after my barracks.

Hmm now that you mention it my macelord has a partner that is just one skill lower with his mace, way ahead of the rest of the field.

Do you have lots of of squads with two dwarves and a barrack per squad? I have to rethink my scheduling it seems.

Yes, its lots training pairs, once they're good enough you can move them to bigger, actual "combat squads", or make big squads of complete noobies, where only 2 train at a time(that is, IF you need those haulers, and want them to not get the negative thought of being too long in patrol).

Regarding armor user skill: doesnt faster speed(=less penalty for carrying heavy armor) also make the dwarf shoot/hit more often, and hence also give a bonus in combat, not just in movement?

[Mechatronic]

Train them in pairs, make sure the starting skills are as close as possible. You'll get them to "great"(lvl 12) in weapon and 5-10 range in other skills within a year. They'll be legendaries in 3 years... Perhaps a bit too quick. I've never had to use danger rooms, and traps only come after my barracks.

Hmm now that you mention it my macelord has a partner that is just one skill lower with his mace, way ahead of the rest of the field.

Do you have lots of of squads with two dwarves and a barrack per squad? I have to rethink my scheduling it seems.

That's how I do it.

To start with I'll normally have all my military guarding my entrance in squads of two all in a barracks around an armour stand. Come year two or three I'll have a main barracks guarding my entrance with highly skilled and well equipped troops, and then a training barracks inside my fort where dwarves train up.

[cephalo]

Right now, my original steel clad axedwarf squad has been active for 50 years or so. Their skills are mostly maxed out and they never get hit by anything ever. One isolated guy can take out a whole squad of goblin bowmen. I once saw a guy take out a group of spearmen while under fire from a group of bowmen during a siege, and then killed all the bowmen when he was done with the spearmen. The rest of my army was fixated on a squad of ogres.

They won't drop their weapons, so I made a new squad of candy armed axemen. They have much less success. If I use only them during a siege I'll lose 2 or 3. The skills matter alot.

[dwarfhoplite]

I had a goblinite dorf using copper spear and he could take down a squad of goblins while his mates  with same equipment were crushed like bees

[Africa]

Isn't candy the worst option for armor?

[AutomataKittay]

Isn't candy the worst option for armor?

Only for the shield, at least as far as I can tell from a few tests in Arena mode. There was some analysis done on various armor materials some time ago somewhere that was more detailed, steel and candy was the top results.

[Rask]

For a quick and easy test, go to arena mode and give a dwarf candy breastplate, mail shirt, helm, greaves, 2 gauntlets, 2 high boots, grandmaster armour skill.

Then throw 10 goblins with steel short swords and armour of your choice at him. After five minutes of them wailing on him at 200 FPS, he was still alive, missing all his teeth, and has a few bruises. I added a goblin with a warhammer, who one-shot him with a blow to the head (He was unconscious from exertion at the time). Candy armour is just awesome.

[krenshala]

Train them in pairs, make sure the starting skills are as close as possible. You'll get them to "great"(lvl 12) in weapon and 5-10 range in other skills within a year. They'll be legendaries in 3 years... Perhaps a bit too quick. I've never had to use danger rooms, and traps only come after my barracks.

I'm using squads of 3 or 4 dwarves, currently two squads of 3 with two lvl 8/9 and a recruit in each.  The first four (all in one squad, taken from the first mirgrant wave of the fort) went from nothing to lvl 6-8 speardwarves/lvl 4-6 shield-users in eight months of training.  Six months of training spear + wooden shield, 2 - 3 months of iron spear + wooden shield, then they were issued armor (iron mail shirt, iron helm).  Month nine of training was interrupted by an elven ambush, in which my four dwarves killed 15 elves and a goblin thief with zero wounds on the dwarven side.  Six months later and they appear to be doing the same to the goblin ambush (just started that fight when I had to save and leave for work ... durn day job  ).

[Corneria]

Armor skill?  None.  It only makes them faster while wearing armor, and since candy is so light it technically floats in water (if DF supported buoyancy) this doesn't help. 

According to my tests in the arena, this is horribly wrong. In 13 one-on-one duels between steel-clad dwarfs with steel swords that only differed in skills (one was grandmaster armour user, the other was unskilled armour user), the grandmaster won 12 out of 13 times. Since I had given them no shields to test this, the grandmaster took hits too, but more blows were deflected. In some duels, the grandmaster also lost limbs during the fight, but they were in general smaller, less vital parts.

The armor user skill decreases the weight hindrance from armor - Those grandmaster armor users were likely considerably faster than their unskilled counterparts.