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Author Topic: How long does it take to get decent soldiers?  (Read 5554 times)

lavenders2

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How long does it take to get decent soldiers?
« on: June 27, 2011, 05:32:11 am »

I have been playing dwarf fortress for about 1 to 2 hours now since I started my military. My dwarfs are doing individual combat, watching demonstrations and occasionally sparring. However, my dwarfs have been "dabbling" fighters for a really long time now. I'm just wondering if I am doing something wrong or is it meant to take a long time? Or does it get quicker later? Help would be highly appreciated. 
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kaijyuu

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Re: How long does it take to get decent soldiers?
« Reply #1 on: June 27, 2011, 05:34:05 am »

They get the best experience by, well, actual experience. Also, the training sessions aren't that productive until dwarves have a good teaching skill and a good knowledge of the skill they're teaching.


If you want good fighters, suit them up in adamantine and send them against real foes. The survivors will teach the replacements.
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lavenders2

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Re: How long does it take to get decent soldiers?
« Reply #2 on: June 27, 2011, 05:45:24 am »

Thanks for the info. My fortress is just about gone because I forgot about booze production... its quite fun. Anyway, who should I put the military up against? I haven't actually gotten any intruders or anything like that. Can they just fight wildlife and get lots of experience?
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kotekzot

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Re: How long does it take to get decent soldiers?
« Reply #3 on: June 27, 2011, 05:55:49 am »

Wildlife works, as long as it doesn't kill your trainees. Make sure your live dummies are sufficiently weaksauce.
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Triaxx2

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Re: How long does it take to get decent soldiers?
« Reply #4 on: June 27, 2011, 06:04:41 am »

Killing Rhesus Macaques works very well. :D
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lavenders2

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Re: How long does it take to get decent soldiers?
« Reply #5 on: June 27, 2011, 06:17:58 am »

So everything gives different experience? What factors affect experience (things like how many hits/dodges the dwarf makes, the creature that is being attacked etc.)? Thanks for all your responses so far.
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Dutchling

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Re: How long does it take to get decent soldiers?
« Reply #6 on: June 27, 2011, 06:29:19 am »

Every action (like stabbing and dodging) gives experience. I don't know if it has to be successful at the action though.
This is why bashing naked goblins with wooden sword is the best training (they last a long while before they die), and sparring the worst (real combat is probably way faster than normal sparring and thus consists of more actions*).
*This is just a guess though ^^
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malvado

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Re: How long does it take to get decent soldiers?
« Reply #7 on: June 27, 2011, 07:41:42 am »

My experience is that real combat is much faster than sparring, however allowing your soldiers to train in small squads also seems to be "ok" as long as there's some teacher skill involved.

I usually throw a couple of decent dwarves into Hunters whenever possible, and also have them in an inactive Archer squad , as long as there's wildlife they will be gaining relevant skills for their later military job. If you have a lot of nasty wildlife around ,then I'd advise to get the marksdwarves to have some decent gear on (leather is pretty ok since its fast and thats quite important for them , later on when they are more of a pure defense subtype switch them to some real good metal armor).

As for the soldier training, if it has proved to be hard to get any decent ores I throw them inn leather as well and have training swords on them and get them to kill wildlife or cavelife. Just remember to switch the squad back to metal swords when real danger comes he he...
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Mimidormi

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Re: How long does it take to get decent soldiers?
« Reply #8 on: June 27, 2011, 09:06:46 am »

Normal training is meant to take a long time, yes. It doesn't help that the less experienced they are, the harder it is for them to learn, teacher and student skills can only do so much.

-A no-military-skills dwarf may take up to 3-6 years (counting breaks in) to become a legendary in his/her weapon skill (mining as a weapon skill is the exception, given the very easy way to train it). They usually level up first the fighter skill, given the many ways to gain experience in it.

-Squads with 2-4 members seem to level up faster. The annoying thing is the teaching of skills such as wrestling/biting/scratching/kicking/armor user, taking away valuable time from the teaching of the most important skills, such as dodging, fighting, shield user, weapon skill. If the squad members don't have the same kind of weapon, is pretty hard to make them reach Great in their weapon skill (to avoid them bad thougths about being on patrol duty) unless they spar or have some live target practice, but definitely doable.

-Individual combat drills are the slowest way to learn, they seem to barely prevent the rusting of skills.

-These two excellent threads are filled with useful information and research about sparring and skills gain:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=85255.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=85279.0

So yes, kickstart their training by putting them against unarmed and unarmored goblins. Be wary of hoofed animals, badgerkind, and aquatic wildlife.
And if you're training marksdwarves, don't do like me and forget to assign them ammo  ::)
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Thatdude

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Re: How long does it take to get decent soldiers?
« Reply #9 on: June 27, 2011, 10:59:28 am »

I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned danger rooms here.
The idea of a danger room is that combat of any form against any kind of attack will gain experience quickly. A danger room is just a room with a load of upright weapons loaded with training spears. The spears are then linked to a lever and fully armoured dwarves are locked in for a few months while the lever is set to repeat.
This, while takes a bit of setting up, makes legendary dwarves in a season. A few minutes of danger-rooming, a dwarf will have skills in all forms of defensive combat as well as his weapon skill (because the dwarf will parry the spikes and gain experience from it).
The drawbacks are that you need your squad to be fully armoured to be safe and even then civilians (especially children) and pets are often caught in the traps and repeatedly impaled but a bit of managing of burrows and doors solves this.
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Corneria

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Re: How long does it take to get decent soldiers?
« Reply #10 on: June 27, 2011, 11:12:27 am »

I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned danger rooms here.
The idea of a danger room is that combat of any form against any kind of attack will gain experience quickly. A danger room is just a room with a load of upright weapons loaded with training spears. The spears are then linked to a lever and fully armoured dwarves are locked in for a few months while the lever is set to repeat.
This, while takes a bit of setting up, makes legendary dwarves in a season. A few minutes of danger-rooming, a dwarf will have skills in all forms of defensive combat as well as his weapon skill (because the dwarf will parry the spikes and gain experience from it).
The drawbacks are that you need your squad to be fully armoured to be safe and even then civilians (especially children) and pets are often caught in the traps and repeatedly impaled but a bit of managing of burrows and doors solves this.

Forbidden not pet-passable door. Stop level, unlock door when they need to exit.
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Mushroo

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Re: How long does it take to get decent soldiers?
« Reply #11 on: June 27, 2011, 12:13:27 pm »

Military training is very much a matter of personal play style. Some players never even have a military; they use traps, moats, and drawbridges to keep their dwarves safe. Others have a huge military force with training schedules, barracks, training rooms, etc.

Personally I find the biggest single factor (other than danger rooms, obviously!) is what I choose on embark. If I am embarking in a hostile biome or planning a military-centered fortress, then choosing the right skills and equipment on embark can jump-start the process by 1-3 years! As an extreme example, embarking with 7 ambushers (they get free crossbows and bolts) is a formidable military force right from day 1. A more balanced approach is to embark with 1 or 2 highly-skilled military dwarves with the teacher skill, they will train up your migrant military much quicker than if they have to figure it out on their own.

To answer your specific question, you should have a military able to take on goblin ambushes with moderate losses within 5 years at the most, if not, you're doing something wrong. ;) These forums and wiki are chock-full of suggestions to speed up that process!
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du3lingdragon

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Re: How long does it take to get decent soldiers?
« Reply #12 on: June 27, 2011, 12:14:08 pm »

giant scorpions are easy to kill...really
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Mechatronic

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Re: How long does it take to get decent soldiers?
« Reply #13 on: June 27, 2011, 01:10:15 pm »

This is a previous post of mine:

I can say what I do and what works for me, but whether people want to do that is another thing. There are a few guides to the basics of the military interface and how to set up squads and barracks, so I won't go into that.

What works for me is: I usually embark with four military dwarves, each a Novice Axeman and Competent in Shield User, Armor User and Dodging. Defensive skills increase the slowest so I put most points into them, except for one in Axeman to prevent a bad thought from being drafted. I've tried bringing dwarves with Teaching skills and I haven't seen much difference. I bring along four copper battle axes and quickly make four wooden shields after embarking, either bringing along some logs or cutting down some trees, as well as an armour stand for a barracks. I place these dwarves into two squads of two. Squads of two dwarves are the fastest to train, perhaps 25-50% faster even than squads of three. I set them to Active/Training, which they remain in for the rest of their lives. Sometimes one or more will become unhappy but I can't remember any becoming very unhappy, and eventually sparring, drinks, food and slaughter makes them at least quite content. I normally don't bother giving them their own rooms, and it's only as a sentimental reward for my favourite dwarves when I do. However I do try to place them near food, drinks and beds. In fact I often place a training barracks directly over the drinks stockpile to reduce time spent running around, and another barracks guarding the entrance to the fort where soldiers end up once they are trained to a decent level. On average they reach Legendary in Fighting in less than a year, then in Axe in a little over a year. This varies, I had one pair take eight months to become Legendary Axedwarves in my current fort, while the other pair took about a year and a half.

I normally play with the Fortress Defense mod installed, so this is just the start of building up my military. However four highly skilled dwarves can deal with most invaders without that mod, at least I had five, I added an early migrant with skills to them original four, last about seven years with ever being injured in one fort before framerate took its toll. You'll probably want to build up a larger military though, at least in case your main dwarves run off chasing invaders leaving you entrance unguarded, and to do this you may need to train up unskilled migrants. I do this by exactly the same process as above, but it's important to ensure that both dwarves are carrying the same weapon as I've found different weapons can sometimes greatly reduce the training rates. The training times can take a little longer, more like two years to become Legendary in their weapon, but ordinarily this will be fine and you don't need to embark with military dwarves. After this is set up I normally have a training barrack, located over drinks/food, and a fighting barracks at my entrance. Once I have a bunch of skilled dwarves I promote them to the fighting barracks once they reach legendary in Shield User, since this is the most important skill in keeping them alive, particularly against ever-annoying archers.

The fastest way to train dwarves in the crossbow is by setting them hunt. The hunter will need a crossbow, a quiver and bolts, as well as animals to hunt. Hunters will not hunt humanoids such as Tigermen, Badgermen and Moosemen. Hunting provides a fair amount of meat and bones. You will need a butcher in a butcher's shop to butcher the corpses that the hunter returns and a bone carver in a craftsdwarf's workshop to make bone bolts out of the bones produced. Hunting destroys a large number of bolts so you will need these two workshops operating continuously to keep your hunter supplied. Note that hunting can be dangerous, animals rarely attack but some can badly injure a hunter, and it's possible for the hunter to dodge into deep water or off a cliff and die. Embarking with a dwarf proficient in Crossbow and Archery can lead to them being legendary in these skills in less than a year. Unskilled migrants about two years. You can have multiple hunters working at once, but you may need extra butchering and bolt making capacity. You'll eventually run out of animals to hunt, then you'll need to rely training, which I haven't been able to get to work particularly well. However training sessions led by a highly skilled Marksdwarf can lead to relatively fast increases in skills.
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thegoatgod_pan

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Re: How long does it take to get decent soldiers?
« Reply #14 on: June 27, 2011, 01:10:51 pm »

My strategy is--at embark get a dwarf who has teacher, dodge, shield and axe.  Get that teacher two mogrant axe-students.  With only three learning full time they should improve swiftly.  In a year make each one the leader of a squad and give them students.  Continue until army is trained or fort is dead,
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