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[Raven]

so... I followed the wiki, equipped them, assigned a barrack, alert active training...

then I made three orders of train minimum 2 dorfs, the squad is composed by 7 dorfs, and in the order I selected all the squad positions

what went wrong?

[Shonai_Dweller]

What do you mean "3 orders of train minimum 2 dorfs"?
Just set training alert on. Training alert orders are already set to defaults.

Also, what are they doing right now? Are they not becoming military at all? Hanging out at the barracks doing nothing?

edit- You could try setting train minimum to 7. I do this every time out of habit and it works, but 10 probably works just as well. I've no evidence that 7 is any different to 10.

[Mostali]

This may not be the problem, but it might.  For "Training" (only), consider the "minimum" as a "maximum", since they have no issues leaving training to eat/drink/sleep.  Set your training minimum back to 10 and see.

Checklist:
There is an "A" next to the squad in the "Active/Training" alert of the alert screen.
"Train" is the order in the month of the schedule screen with minimum 7-10.
There is a "T" next to the squad when you Q the armory.

I'm suspect of when you say "Selected all the squad positions".  I have no troubles with training squads unless I've forgotten one of the above, but I don't select positions anywhere.  Try undoing whatever you mean by that and see if that helps.

Hope one of those helps, otherwise I have no idea.

[greycat]

What do you mean "3 orders of train minimum 2 dorfs"?

It's one of those pieces of ancient advice that isn't really applicable to the current game but nevertheless Simply Will Not Die.

Back when the current military system was first introduced, there were lots of bugs and even more confusion, and one of the things that people tried as a workaround was micromanaging the training orders.  Instead of letting the whole squad train under a single "Train" order, they removed the default "Train" order and replaced it with a series of "Train, minimum 2" orders.  This forces all training to be done in pairs, never in larger groups.

If I recall correctly, the original point of this was to discourage demonstrations, and to encourage sparring.  I have absolutely no idea whether it ever worked, but some people felt it did, and so it has persisted.

At this point it has become one of the DF "urban legends" -- false information that is repeated ad infinitum despite being useless, or even actively harmful.  E.g. some players incorrectly believe that if they leave their squad with the default "Train" order, the squad won't undergo any training whatsoever until the entire squad is present and ready to go.  This is utter nonsense, of course, but good luck trying to undo the misconceptions.

[Shonai_Dweller]

I wish someone would up some simple instructions for using the military screen. It's really not very difficult at all. But every single guide out there starts rambling about needless micromanagement techniques that just confuse the hell out of newbies (disclaimer: I haven't read what's on the wiki in a while).

Right now training dwarves, without any special techniques, is really fast. Too fast to be any fun really if goblins are still set to defaults and don't attack until population 80.

Make squad, select equipment, assign barracks, turn on training alert.

[Libash_Thunderhead]

I always use default settings for training.

[celem]

Thing is all those needless micromanagement things really were the only way to get it to work smoothly...once upon a time.

And yeah the old minimum two worked quite well to promote sparring.

But as said the system has moved on.  I find everyone trains fine if I dont touch anything.  Just the ubiquitous "set 'em active and assign the barrack".

[Raven]

What do you mean "3 orders of train minimum 2 dorfs"?
Just set training alert on. Training alert orders are already set to defaults.

Also, what are they doing right now? Are they not becoming military at all? Hanging out at the barracks doing nothing?

edit- You could try setting train minimum to 7. I do this every time out of habit and it works, but 10 probably works just as well. I've no evidence that 7 is any different to 10.

last time I checked, they were "waiting for combat training" like... for weeks... doing nothing. Sometimes one stopped and had "no orders" or something similar.

This may not be the problem, but it might.  For "Training" (only), consider the "minimum" as a "maximum", since they have no issues leaving training to eat/drink/sleep.  Set your training minimum back to 10 and see.

Checklist:
There is an "A" next to the squad in the "Active/Training" alert of the alert screen.
"Train" is the order in the month of the schedule screen with minimum 7-10.
There is a "T" next to the squad when you Q the armory.

I'm suspect of when you say "Selected all the squad positions".  I have no troubles with training squads unless I've forgotten one of the above, but I don't select positions anywhere.  Try undoing whatever you mean by that and see if that helps.

Hope one of those helps, otherwise I have no idea.

Are you sure? Even if I don't have a Squad of 10 people? Maybe I could set the maximum number of dorfs in squad...

The positions I meant, are in the order menù, on the right of the "o" option to choose train

Can't do screen atm

What do you mean "3 orders of train minimum 2 dorfs"?

It's one of those pieces of ancient advice that isn't really applicable to the current game but nevertheless Simply Will Not Die.

Back when the current military system was first introduced, there were lots of bugs and even more confusion, and one of the things that people tried as a workaround was micromanaging the training orders.  Instead of letting the whole squad train under a single "Train" order, they removed the default "Train" order and replaced it with a series of "Train, minimum 2" orders.  This forces all training to be done in pairs, never in larger groups.

If I recall correctly, the original point of this was to discourage demonstrations, and to encourage sparring.  I have absolutely no idea whether it ever worked, but some people felt it did, and so it has persisted.

At this point it has become one of the DF "urban legends" -- false information that is repeated ad infinitum despite being useless, or even actively harmful.  E.g. some players incorrectly believe that if they leave their squad with the default "Train" order, the squad won't undergo any training whatsoever until the entire squad is present and ready to go.  This is utter nonsense, of course, but good luck trying to undo the misconceptions.

infact I read that stuff on the wiki

It was on the markdwarfs page but I thought it could be useful for melee squads too

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Advanced_Marksdwarf_Training_Guide

Thing is all those needless micromanagement things really were the only way to get it to work smoothly...once upon a time.

And yeah the old minimum two worked quite well to promote sparring.

But as said the system has moved on.  I find everyone trains fine if I dont touch anything.  Just the ubiquitous "set 'em active and assign the barrack".

tomorrow I'll try the basic system, maybe adding some other dorfs to the squad and see what happens

thx all

[Mostali]

I'm sure.  I've done very little else with military, but I get my dummies to train like nobody's business.

The "minimum" value is a target.  If your squad of 10 has a minimum setting of 2, then normally only 2 dwarves will ever be training.  If your squad of 5 has a minimum of 10, then normally all 5 will be training.  "Train" differs from other assignments in that they have no problems taking care of themselves, unlike "Defend" et al, where dwarves can drop out from thirst because no one takes their place.  So unless you really do only want 2 of your dwarves to train at a time, there's no need to set it to anything other than 10.

And your mentioning the "Waiting for..." makes me think that this minimum is actually the issue.  When I've seen "Waiting for..." as a job, it's usually waiting on another dwarf to come along and "Lead..."  If your minimum is 2, and 2 dwarves are waiting, there is no other dwarf coming.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Also, just to check, are you actually sure that they're 'waiting forever'? Dwarves won't move at all if they're just 'training'. The only time they move is when they spar (which isn't very often at first). They'll do a lot of waiting if you've got equipment being produced too. With two-person squads, one of them will probably be out collecting new equipment or upgrading his old stuff.

Wiki is written by veterans mostly. Who, while well-meaning, get things wrong sometimes because they don't realise things have changed, or because they don't have time to update when new versions come out. Dwarf Fortress is a big game.

[Raven]

ok, in the afternoon I'll try setting all as default, train with 10 people and see what happens

[Raven]

So...

I did as you told me, filled a squad of 10 people, mostly complete newbies without a weapon (i'm workin on it) and some do a demonstration, some other watch the demostration, others wait for a demonstration, another does an individual combat drill and the last one sleep

But at least it looks better

Quick question about shields, metal shield are better than wooden shield? I'd like to save some metal where I can

[Shonai_Dweller]

Good job on getting your military set up. As they get better they'll spar more. Still even now they're training dodging and stuff, so it's all good.

For your next assignment, try getting a crossbow squad to work. Don't forget to ignore the wiki!

Shields are all the same right now. Except if you hit people with them.

[Raven]

lmao at the wiki part

So I have to modify the uniform to accept shields of all kind

And they are useful for xbow squad? Could they use them while defending from enemy arrows?

[Mostali]

This isn't necessarily advice as I may be under the impression of some dwarf fortress urban legends as mentioned before, but I thought I'd share how I train mine which seems to work fairly well.

I start off newbies with no shields and no weapons.  This will force them specialize in wrestling, armor user and dodge.

Once their Wrestler is up to a certain level (proficient-professional) I then assign them a weapon.  They'll continue to train wrestler, but their weapon will increase much faster.  So by the time they're legendary at their weapon, they'll also be professional-high master at wrestling.  (This works for sure.)

For miners I ignore weapons all-together.  I make them legendary wrestlers, and if they're legendary miners and happen to have a pick in their hand when they attack, even better.  (This is my work-around for the miner uniform assignment issues.)

Once Armor User is to a certain level (professional), then I assign shields.  An assigned shield will keep armor from increasing as armor only increases when armor blocks a blow and shields check first.  (This may be urban legend.  I haven't kept track of this effect long enough.)

Yes, I'm aware of faster training methods like danger-rooms and such.  But the game is easy enough that I like to play non-exploity.  I'm glad you got your military working.  Have fun experimenting!