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[GreatWyrmGold]

Is there some trick to get two or three soldiers to spar with each other instead of all doing individual combat drills?

And yes, the minimum was less than the number sparring and all drilling dwarves were in the same squad. Actually, several squads, each with twoor three trainers, but that doesn't seem like it would matter.

[Quietust]

Probably a silly question, but do the dwarves actually have Military professions?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Do you mean, are they in squads? Yes.
Do you mean, do they lack other labors? No.

[Quietust]

No, I mean "do they show up as Recruit/Wrestler/Swordsdwarf/Axedwarf/etc. or as Mason/Engraver/Potash Maker/Soaper/etc.?"

[GreatWyrmGold]

They show up as their civilian professions when they are not being ordered to kill small, furry animals. Otherwise, they are mainly recruits.

[RAKninja]

They show up as their civilian professions when they are not being ordered to kill small, furry animals. Otherwise, they are mainly recruits.

sounds like the squads are not active.  you'll need to go into the military menu, and (s)chedule the squads to train.  i take it you have also defined barracks?  i'm fairly sure the squad will need one designated for them to train, as well.

oh, when you schedule, you do so by alerts.  personally, i use the default "active/training" alert level for training.

[Kyle700]

I feel fairly happy about knowing this now, but its a bit tricky.  You open up the military screen, go to alerts, and then move down the Active Training.  This is important, you have to go to active training, THEN move to the squad and hit enter.  It basically makes them active.  It took me a while to figure that one out.  Then you go over to the scedule and set their training schedle and patroling scedule ect.  (Scedule is eluding me today, the spelling)  Then the dwarfs will set up lessons and sparring sessions.  I've found it works best to have 2 dwarfs in a squad to get them to train, otherwise you have to have all the dwarves participating and nothing gets done  

Hope that helped.

And yeah you need to have a barracks that needs to have training for that squad activated.

[RAKninja]

i KNEW i was forgetting something... actually setting the squad to the alert you just made the schedule for!

considering how often i use that particular interface, you'd have thought i would have remembered.

[GreatWyrmGold]

They show up as their civilian professions when they are not being ordered to kill small, furry animals. Otherwise, they are mainly recruits.

sounds like the squads are not active.  you'll need to go into the military menu, and (s)chedule the squads to train.  i take it you have also defined barracks?  i'm fairly sure the squad will need one designated for them to train, as well.

oh, when you schedule, you do so by alerts.  personally, i use the default "active/training" alert level for training.

At least two from each squad must be training at each time. I did have barracks. The alert thing...yes, I think so. I don't remember, the fort in question was lost on my old flash drive and I'm just asking for next time.

I feel fairly happy about knowing this now, but its a bit tricky.  You open up the military screen, go to alerts, and then move down the Active Training.  This is important, you have to go to active training, THEN move to the squad and hit enter.  It basically makes them active.  It took me a while to figure that one out.  Then you go over to the scedule and set their training schedle and patroling scedule ect.  (Scedule is eluding me today, the spelling)  Then the dwarfs will set up lessons and sparring sessions.  I've found it works best to have 2 dwarfs in a squad to get them to train, otherwise you have to have all the dwarves participating and nothing gets done  

Hope that helped.

And yeah you need to have a barracks that needs to have training for that squad activated.

Uh...I'll make sure my dwarves are set to active/training next time.

[frodo0800]

i've noticed that when there are more than 1 squads on the same barrack they never spar,this ever happened to any of you?

[drkpaladin]

Nope, the number of squads in the same barracks shouldn't matter.  However, I've never gotten more than 2 dwarves to actually "Spar" at the same time who are in the same squad.  I have however gotten 20 squads with 2 dwarves in each squad to 'spar' in the same barracks.

Basically, I recommend small squads to keep dwarves sparring more often.  I use 2-dwarf large squads so that those two dwarves will constantly spar with each other, it helps if the two dwarves are similar in skill or both unskilled.  A legendary swordsdwarf paired up with a novice will lecture that novice and train him, but two dwarves constantly hitting each other seem to be more efficient.

[RAKninja]

A legendary swordsdwarf paired up with a novice will lecture that novice and train him, but two dwarves constantly hitting each other seem to be more efficient.

it depends on the "teaching" skill of the legendary, and the "student" skill of the novice.  i think observer may play a part for the student as well, but i am unsure.

[Tiruin]

I could confirm some things about sparring and the skills of the soldiers.

Started with a 2 man squad, one was a skiller hammer user, other was my expedition leader - dabbling user.

Got some kills racked up for the leader and as time passed, I managed to get both to nearly the same skill level. Military was activated and training was set to minimum of 2 (whole squad)

They then proceeded to teach each other for half a month and then sparred the year out.

Comparing that to when it was master and student (save-scummed to test), it was mostly teach and learn from there (novice-leader, skilled-soldier) no sparring whatsoever.

[geoduck]

I've found it works best to have 2 dwarfs in a squad to get them to train, otherwise you have to have all the dwarves participating and nothing gets done  

You can set the "start training" order to any number of dwarves instead of leaving it at the default ten. I usually set it to about half the number of dwarves currently in the squad.

[Darkweave]

Having dwarfs with similar military skill levels appears to encourage sparring but I don't know of any solid rules. I've had 8 dwarfs sparring at once with 3 squads of 10 before so it definitely isn't limited to 2 maximum per squad. Personally I just make squads of 10 and have them all train in the same barracks all year round. Early on little sparring get's done but as they all increase in skill over the first two years or so they seem to start sparring a lot more often.