Post by: Urist9876 on January 26, 2018, 12:07:32 pm
So I avoided wrestlers until now.
In this fort I have ran wrestling training over 10 years and only 1 minor injury so nothing to worry about.
What made it interesting is the huge stats the wrestlers gained after this training: incredibly strong, absolute indefatigable.
It looks like if you have the time it is very advantageous to start with wrestling training and only much later hand them weapons to train with those.
Anyone has similar experience? I might just have been lucky with the dwarfs that I choose for my wrestling squad (several were trained as wrestler when they immigrated to my fort).
Post by: martinuzz on January 26, 2018, 12:20:50 pm
Wrestling skill is real important, it enables dwarves to free themselves from being grabbed / bitten / impaled.
The wiki is wrong. Sparring accidents do not exist. Maybe there was a version long ago that had sparring accidents, but nowadays you can give the noobest noob dwarf an adamantine sword or silver warhammer and there will be no accidents.
Post by: mavj96 on January 26, 2018, 12:36:38 pm
Post by: martinuzz on January 26, 2018, 12:41:17 pm
Dodging can happen with any combat type. Unarmed, or armed.
There's this bug where military can dodge through walls, ceilings and floors. If there's a few z-level drop too close to your barracks, your dwarves can dodge into that and fall to their death.
WRESTLING IS AS SAFE AS ANY OTHER COMBAT TYPE. DO NOT SHY AWAY FROM WRESTLING JUST BECAUSE RUMOURS
Post by: vjmdhzgr on January 26, 2018, 01:06:14 pm
That doesn't mean you shouldn't train wrestling, it's perfectly fine. As said above there was 1 minor injury in 10 years.
Post by: Urist9876 on January 26, 2018, 02:24:38 pm
So wrestling teaches you how to break free. Grant you skills when you drop your weapon. And makes you really strong and durable on top of that.
Also the biter skills were highest on my wrestlers (8 vs 4 biter when I compare wrestlers with my axe squad). I hope I don't have to rely on that skill though :P
Post by: Sutremaine on January 26, 2018, 03:43:52 pm
Post by: h27kim on January 26, 2018, 03:44:12 pm
In the df wiki wrestling training is described as somewhat dangerous as it can cause injuries while sparring.
So I avoided wrestlers until now.
In this fort I have ran wrestling training over 10 years and only 1 minor injury so nothing to worry about.
What made it interesting is the huge stats the wrestlers gained after this training: incredibly strong, absolute indefatigable.
It looks like if you have the time it is very advantageous to start with wrestling training and only much later hand them weapons to train with those.
Anyone has similar experience? I might just have been lucky with the dwarfs that I choose for my wrestling squad (several were trained as wrestler when they immigrated to my fort).
Post by: catoblepas on January 27, 2018, 02:22:31 am
Post by: anewaname on January 27, 2018, 03:48:08 pm
If you make your training rooms out of a low density material like candlenut or feather tree wood should cut down on injuries from wrestling throws even further, I seem to recall the density of walls/floors etc having an effect on how much damage creatures take from impacts, such as occur from being thrown.Yeah, I've read many references to flooring the barracks with low density wood to help reduce training injuries. As well as the references to flooring death pits with high density materials to cause more damage from the fall.
Post by: Sarmatian123 on January 27, 2018, 05:17:08 pm
I made captain with his guard the most weakest 10 Dwarves I could find. I gave them adamantine crossbows, armors, leather/wooden shields, and I rather not have them unbelievably strong. So now, I am worried. Should I disable their training in barracks? Hm...
Post by: hertggf on January 27, 2018, 06:21:50 pm
you train up dodge first.
Post by: strainer on January 27, 2018, 07:08:55 pm
Post by: jecowa on January 27, 2018, 07:12:06 pm
I wouldn't recommend training without armor, it'll make it harder for you to raise your armor user skill later if
you train up dodge first.
Thank you for explaining the pros and cons of armor. I had been wondering what the point of training without armor would be. So first you have them wear armor to train their armor skill, then you remove their armor and that helps them learn to dodge?
Post by: Immortal-D on January 27, 2018, 07:17:17 pm
Post by: hertggf on January 27, 2018, 08:06:05 pm
Thank you for explaining the pros and cons of armor. I had been wondering what the point of training without armor would be. So first you have them wear armor to train their armor skill, then you remove their armor and that helps them learn to dodge?Just leave the armor on. As their armor skill increases they'll become more able to dodge and it'll work itself out organically.
Post by: catoblepas on January 27, 2018, 09:34:13 pm
Perhaps wooden floors could help in barracks ?
Yes, Feather Tree wood looks to be the best material for that, if you can get it. It's density is half that of cotton candy, at a mere 100. Candlenut is almost as good at 160, and Kapok has a density of 260, so should be pretty good as well.
For perspective, Silt has a density of 1450.
Conversely, if you are of evil intent, and want to do some sort of horrible 'training from hell' thing, you could make your sparring floors out of something dense, like metal. Iron has a density of 7850, so I'm sure you'd get more injuries out of that. Platinum is the densest metal, at 21400-use that for your sparring rooms if you want to turn them into a doctor 'training room'.
Post by: Colonel Sanders Lite on January 27, 2018, 11:06:11 pm
Dwarves typically don't start with super-strength (though I have had a few odd migrants). If you equip your rookies with a full kit of iron & steel, they will move with all the speed of a dwarven syrup roast.
I've also noticed this problem with raw recruits and full sets of armor. My approach is to give them a relatively minimal armor set until they're stronger and/or have built up some armor skill. Basically: Weapon, Shield, Mail Top, Greaves, Boots. Leave the Helm, Breastplate, gauntlets, and cloaks off of them. If a recruit is particularly severe, I might have them training in civ clothes + weapon + armor until they're a bit stronger.
Another option would be to do something that improves strength, like forced swim training, before combat training.
Post by: Sarmatian123 on January 28, 2018, 06:10:02 am
To ferry 9 metal mine carts up and down to set up 21 magma things above ground takes like 1 season.
The issue that takes me longest, like 5+ years is to build 3 floor fortress above ground, so I can house tavern, library, temple and barracks on 1st floor above ground.
Adamantine is 200 in density. Just in raws remove "waffles" from adamantine and you're shiny for adamantine clad and weaponized 100 Dwarves strong kick ass legendary skills army.
Issue could be platinum bars sold by merchants though, as it is better for hammers and maces then copper. You may need to use 1x500coins-Depot-500x1coins trick combined with melting to get 50 platinum bars out of each platinum bar you own. Same with adamantine, if you feel too lazy to dig for more. :)
Post by: martinuzz on January 28, 2018, 09:26:22 am
Issue could be platinum bars sold by merchants though, as it is better for hammers and maces then copper. You may need to use 1x500coins-Depot-500x1coins trick combined with melting to get 50 platinum bars out of each platinum bar you own. Same with adamantine, if you feel too lazy to dig for more. :)Have you ever played Dwarf Fortress? You can't make weapons out of platinum. Only a strange mood can do that.
EDIT: sry if that sounded grumpy. I just keep getting baffled, after spending 2 years mostly in the lower boards, with how much desinformation / half information / failed grasp of mechanics is being spread in the upper boards nowadays
Post by: daggaz on January 28, 2018, 10:21:04 am
One thing is that they quickly get out of sync and one or more will end up individually training, at which point they teach themselves fighting and striking etc.. and this inevitably dilutes their training regime. Oh well.
Once I have some migrants trained up I will add armor and weapons.
Post by: strainer on January 28, 2018, 10:24:15 am
A quiver full of metal bolts is the heaviest thing to not equip new recruits with, weighs around 40L.
A mail shirt is probably the most important bit of kit to get onto new recruits, gives significant protection to head, body,arms and upper legs for about 20L, which is worth it.
Metal cap, and gauntlets weigh 1L each. A Helm weighs 8L - and only improves on a cap by protecting the face. Two caps and a bone/leather helm is possible.
High boots weight 4L each but only equip them when ready to fully replace clothes.
Train wrestling by removing weapons from a squad - if you have a squad to spare from werebeast/monster/kea alert readiness. (If a werebeast turns up and you have a squad of unarmored excellent wrestlers - that going to be alot of fun ; )
Wrestling training could be good for civilians since improved stats boost productivity alot, and most civies like to train a bit anyway. But for military security, I think the priority is getting them good at their weapons.
Post by: Sutremaine on January 28, 2018, 11:40:09 am
Adamantine is 200 in density. Just in raws remove "waffles" from adamantine and you're shiny for adamantine clad and weaponized 100 Dwarves strong kick ass legendary skills army.Waffles? XD
Back when wrestling sparring did cause injuries, I found that leather armour was sufficient to protect dwarves. I don't think I ever bothered with flooring the barracks area in something lighter.
Currently, dwarves will train Armour User even in just clothes. I can't comment on how quick it is compared to training with actual armour.
Post by: strainer on January 28, 2018, 02:53:33 pm
Intresting - maybe its still good for padding then. I just noticed as far as cuts and piercing its virtually irrelevant.
Post by: Sarmatian123 on January 28, 2018, 03:26:57 pm
Have you ever played Dwarf Fortress? You can't make weapons out of platinum. Only a strange mood can do that.
Oopsie!
Somehow [ITEMS_WEAPON][ITEMS_WEAPON_RANGED] ventured inexplicably into my platinum definition in raw/objects/inorganic_metal.txt and settled there down. Indeed normally it is not present there by default. It had to magically appear there, when I was busy chopping down this "waffles" nonsense clutter from adamantine definition after pushing adamantine definition to the top of the list over the iron definition for some inexplicable artifacty reason there. Ha!
Post by: anewaname on January 28, 2018, 05:40:29 pm
I noticed "leather breastplates" mentioned which dont exist. Cloaks and hoods weigh almost nothing. "leather armor" protects little better than a cloak.The item type "leather armor" will always be a weak protection because it can only be made from the material "leather", but it is "shaped" "armor" and a "cloak" is "cover". This could change the type of protection it provides and the circumstances it provides the protection in.
I suspect "shaped" armor items are considered inflexible enough to reduce overall impact trauma to muscles and bones by increasing the impact area applied against the underlying mail, clothing, and fat layers. I also suspect that DF's "leather armor" item is intended for materials that are more flexible than metal and less flexible than cloths (compare the UBSTEP, LBSTEP, and Shaped values between breastplates, mail shirts, and "leather armor"). In current times, rubbers and plastics might be materials available for use to construct "leather armor" (seen any post-holocaust movies where guys have partial armor made from car tires? And today's riot armor suits that have thick rubber layers?). Also, the linen/glue composite material suggested by the University of Wisconsin Green Bay linothorax tests could fit into this material category.
Post by: Ulfarr on January 29, 2018, 12:47:57 am
Do note that:
a) I'm still playing on the 43.05 version so there might be some differences with the most current one
b) I'm using Dwarf Therapist to monitor my dwarves.
Experiment 1: Wrestling training before weapon training.
I managed to get my initial dwarves at level 10 in both wrestling and armor (they started with 5 at armor) when a wereantelope attacked and pretty much killed them all. Their equipment at that point was a full set of iron armor (breastplate,mail,helm,high boots, gauntlets, greaves and cloak). As you can tell , my results were quite disappointing, however they are not conclusive.
Experiment 2: Weapons and armor training.
Using the same starting skillset (5 at armor), I gave each of my initial dwarves a full set of iron armor plus a weapon of their choice and let them train. When they all reached 20 at their weapon skill, I also gave them a shield. At that point, their armor skill was between 10 and 15, wrestling was ~ 15-18 and most of them had already reached their limit on strength, agility, toughness etc.
At about the same time I started training a second squad, using the same training plan with one exception, I would give them shields when they all had reached 20 at weapon and 15 at Armor.
Conclusions:
1) Focusing on wrestling seems to be inefficient as a training method. It seems to perform worse as an attacking skill than weapon skills of the same level and most importantly dwarves will train it automatically when sparring with their weapons anyway. As far as attribute training is concerned, both wrestling/weapon training seem to be equally effective.
2) Shield is probably the easiest/fastest skill to train. Both of my squads achieved a skill level of at least 15 by the time they got around 15/18 (from 10 and 15 respectively) at Armor. From experience on previous fortresses, giving them shields from the start, seems to result in very slow armor training. I suspect this is due to dwarves getting too good with shields and blocking most of the incoming blows with them instead of using their armor.
3) There have been no injuries in any of these 3 squads during training. However, on a previous (kobold) fortress, I did have a couple of deaths during training but I'm not sure if it was due to sparring or because they got into a fight among themselves (I think it was always one particular kobold involved).
Post by: Sarmatian123 on January 29, 2018, 07:00:39 am
2) Shield is probably the easiest/fastest skill to train. Both of my squads achieved a skill level of at least 15 by the time they got around 15/18 (from 10 and 15 respectively) at Armor. From experience on previous fortresses, giving them shields from the start, seems to result in very slow armor training. I suspect this is due to dwarves getting too good with shields and blocking most of the incoming blows with them instead of using their armor.
They still train armor. Leading and taking part of armor demonstrations. Sparing. [my training schedule: 10-2-2-2-2-2-10-2-2-2-2-2.] It takes longer because all their shoes and mittens have to rot away first to make place for high (preferably) boots and gauntlets. Then it takes you time to fit them with all armor pieces including breast plates and graves. This is why. Else armor skill would skill up normally like all other skills.
However starting training without weapon and shield... :D What a colossal Titanic failboat. :D Ban that thought! :D
Though with last changes to DF, I think metal shields are preferable over leather or wooden, what breaks my heart and hearts of all those Dwarves who trained with their beloved shields and then sneakily :o got them even named and listed among my fortress's artifacts. :o Those sneaky little... ehem! :o What was it about again? Right. I trailed away again. Right. Good this is not bug report page. :D :P :D
Post by: martinuzz on January 29, 2018, 07:14:02 am
However starting training without weapon and shield... :D What a colossal Titanic failboat. :D Ban that thought! :D
Just no.
Training without weapon and shield is a good idea to start with. Near impossible to get anywhere near decent wrestling skills another way. And while wrestling may suck offensively, it is a lifesaver to prevent having your head bitten off or your arm ripped out.
Add weapons once they have some wrestling and dodge skills. Add shields once they have some armor skills. Armor skill will almost stop training if every sparring move is either dodged or blocked by a shield.
The only reason to forego training without weapon and shield is when you are playing a rushed style, and sending rookies out to fight for reals. In that case, yeah, I could agree on starting them with weapon and shield right away. But if you are training at leisure, start without.
Post by: Ulfarr on January 29, 2018, 08:48:28 am
Training without weapon and shield is a good idea to start with. Near impossible to get anywhere near decent wrestling skills another way. And while wrestling may suck offensively, it is a lifesaver to prevent having your head bitten off or your arm ripped out.
Weapon skills seem to become reliable (against goblins, werebeasts, rocs etc) around level 10 -12. I' m fairly new to DF (I've been playing for less than a year) so, what would the equivalent for wrestling be? If it needs to get way above legendary, before it can be considered a decent level then yes a wrestling focused training is needed to achieve it, despite the fact that dwarf train it in parallel with their weapon skills.
Post by: strainer on January 29, 2018, 12:29:18 pm
They shoot pests and chase kobolds when necessary. Hunters, weavers and woodcutters, wont wear armor while working but herbalism seems most compatible.
I keep the professional security squad sizes at just three or four units large, training 1+1:captain prefered. This optimises sparring and makes the forces easier to split.
Post by: h27kim on January 29, 2018, 03:51:03 pm
Hello everyone, having done a couple of experiments on that same subject during the past couple of weeks, I 'd like to add my two cents in the conversation.
Do note that:
a) I'm still playing on the 43.05 version so there might be some differences with the most current one
b) I'm using Dwarf Therapist to monitor my dwarves.
Experiment 1: Wrestling training before weapon training.
I managed to get my initial dwarves at level 10 in both wrestling and armor (they started with 5 at armor) when a wereantelope attacked and pretty much killed them all. Their equipment at that point was a full set of iron armor (breastplate,mail,helm,high boots, gauntlets, greaves and cloak). As you can tell , my results were quite disappointing, however they are not conclusive.
Experiment 2: Weapons and armor training.
Using the same starting skillset (5 at armor), I gave each of my initial dwarves a full set of iron armor plus a weapon of their choice and let them train. When they all reached 20 at their weapon skill, I also gave them a shield. At that point, their armor skill was between 10 and 15, wrestling was ~ 15-18 and most of them had already reached their limit on strength, agility, toughness etc.
At about the same time I started training a second squad, using the same training plan with one exception, I would give them shields when they all had reached 20 at weapon and 15 at Armor.
Conclusions:
1) Focusing on wrestling seems to be inefficient as a training method. It seems to perform worse as an attacking skill than weapon skills of the same level and most importantly dwarves will train it automatically when sparring with their weapons anyway. As far as attribute training is concerned, both wrestling/weapon training seem to be equally effective.
2) Shield is probably the easiest/fastest skill to train. Both of my squads achieved a skill level of at least 15 by the time they got around 15/18 (from 10 and 15 respectively) at Armor. From experience on previous fortresses, giving them shields from the start, seems to result in very slow armor training. I suspect this is due to dwarves getting too good with shields and blocking most of the incoming blows with them instead of using their armor.
3) There have been no injuries in any of these 3 squads during training. However, on a previous (kobold) fortress, I did have a couple of deaths during training but I'm not sure if it was due to sparring or because they got into a fight among themselves (I think it was always one particular kobold involved).
Post by: daggaz on January 29, 2018, 05:33:08 pm
Anyhow, the latest thing I tried was 4 ranks of teacher, 1 rank of student, 1 rank of organizer, and 4 ranks of dodge or armor user or shields, on three starting dwarves. I skipped wrestling this time around because, well, it gets levelled really fast regardless of what you do, it seems. As soon as dwarves cannot go to a lesson, they start wrestling, tho it may be important to note that none of my dwarves had weapons equipped (or even associated skill ranks).
Last time I had tried 5 teacher 5 martial-skill. I didnt notice a big difference in the final skills, in fact in my new setup, everything that was trainable was up to competent by the time the first winter rolled around. It seeeeemed like the three were far more often involved in lessons (which was the point of giving them a starting boost in organizer) when I looked. A definite difference is that all three gained ranks in student (none of them did this before and we know this skill multiplies exp gain) as well as organizer (last time only one dwarf got organized). It could be down to personality/attribute differences, but I think its more likely that giving them novice ranks gives them a leg up for starting the whole process rolling.
The point here is to create three military masters who will train eachother up in the basics, each one bringing one particular defensive skill to the mix. This process should go as fast as possible, such that they can begin effectively training new recruits as soon as they arrive, and ideally be ready for splitting up into three weapon-specialized squads by the time the first big migration rolls around.
I cut the experiment short some time after a necromancer sent six or seven undead at my fort. I gave them steel battle-axes, mail-shirts, and helms, and a wooden shield each, then sent them off on their merry way. They mowed down the invading force in milli-seconds, with one dwarf getting a couple bruises on his naked legs (had to strip them they refused to wear their kit omfg that is annoying). With this one battle, they all got dabbling ranks in the otherwise locked skills of armor-user, axedwarf, and shield user. Had they not been interrupted, I was going to equip them first with some armor and train that skill up, and finally with shields. As it was, I was locked in my fort and running out of fuel for the furnaces, so I had to act.
Post by: Timmi on January 29, 2018, 08:06:22 pm
I usually want to open the cavern quickly and have a legendary dwarf ASAP so I always embark with bronze sword. If professional wrestlers can kill the threats then I think it'll be better if I don't bring him weapon when embark.
When I was playing adventurer mode the wrestle attack can be quite efficient that I can either grasp foe's weapons or strangle them at will with a high skill. Can fortress dwarf be smart enough make the same strategy?
Post by: anewaname on January 29, 2018, 10:23:33 pm
Can professional wrestler kill dangerous cavern monsters without weapons?Sometimes. There is no certain outcome. They will do better than dwarfs with no wrestling skill, for the reasons martinuzz posted.
Post by: Ulfarr on January 30, 2018, 03:16:17 am
Interesting. One reason I started the "no shield/no weapon" training program was that I'd often wind up with militia dwaves with ridiculously good shield skills and fairly minimal armor skills, but your findings suggest that starting with wrestling might delay shield training, but it may not too big a help towards armor training. I wonder if I should use no shield, but weapon training regimen instead.
I've started a new fortress yesterday to do some more testing on this. I'm currently on the process of producing the necessary amounts of equipment, food and drink to sustain a 10-20 year long lockdown with all of my dwarves (capped at 30) in a training regiment. Hopefully my wrestlers will survive this time and I'll be able to get some useful data.
edit: corrected the format of my answer
Post by: strainer on January 30, 2018, 10:16:32 am
Not saying observation isnt worth it, just beware the games level of detail tends to produce different outcomes.
Post by: Mostali on January 30, 2018, 12:03:24 pm
As long as I've been doing this, I've never had a sparring accident. Other than of course the Dodging/Teleporting through walls into open space and falling several z-levels. That part sucks.
Post by: Ulfarr on January 31, 2018, 01:16:44 pm
TL,DR:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Detailed version:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
This is already too long of post as it is, so I won’t post any charts or data tables. If anyone wants to take a look at the data I gathered then I’d be happy to give them to him/her.
edit #1: Added the "Training Suggestion" section in the "Detailed version".
edit #2 (5/2/2018): It appears I've made a mistake with my interpretation of Dwarf Therapist's attribute scale. As feelotraveller explained to me, it ranks attributes in relation with the rest of your population. That means that a dwarf with a stable score throughout the years hasn't necessarily reached his maximum in that attribute (as I thought) but that he remains in the same rank compared to his fellows. Due to the way that I've collected my data (taking screenshots), I sadly don't have access to the ingame attribute values so my observations on attribute groth is inconclusive at best and plainly wrong at worst.
edit #3 (9/2/2018): Updated to include the results from the "wrestler + shield" squad.
Post by: h27kim on January 31, 2018, 01:52:39 pm
I have the results from my training experiment and so… here comes the rant. In order to keep the post readable, I’ll post both a tl,dr version and a more detailed report, inside spoilers. If you believe that the more detailed version is outside the scope of this thread or it belongs in a different forum section please say so and I'll post it there.
TL,DR:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Detailed version:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
This is already too long of post as it is, so I won’t post any charts or data tables. If anyone wants to take a look at the data I gathered then I’d be happy to give them to him/her.
edit: Added the "Training Suggestion" section in the "Detailed version".
Post by: Ulfarr on January 31, 2018, 02:16:20 pm
Bravo! This is excellent. Much appreciated! :)
Thanks :)
Post by: daggaz on February 01, 2018, 01:42:12 am
Post by: se05239 on February 01, 2018, 02:28:23 am
I have the results from my training experiment and so… here comes the rant. In order to keep the post readable, I’ll post both a tl,dr version and a more detailed report, inside spoilers. If you believe that the more detailed version is outside the scope of this thread or it belongs in a different forum section please say so and I'll post it there.
TL,DR:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Detailed version:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
This is already too long of post as it is, so I won’t post any charts or data tables. If anyone wants to take a look at the data I gathered then I’d be happy to give them to him/her.
edit: Added the "Training Suggestion" section in the "Detailed version".
That was a fun read. I think I'll probably start training my militia with a training weapon without a shield, just for the sake of it being a balanced middle ground.
Post by: Ulfarr on February 01, 2018, 04:04:02 am
How long did it take the respective groups to both begin showing appreciable attribute gains, and to reach the maximum in those attributes?
Define "appreciable", please. :D
In general, all three groups would start showing some progress within a couple of months from the start of their training, however it would be in fairly small increments, so I'd say that it would take at least a year before their training will have any noticeable effect in the game.
For the second part of your question I'm afraid, I don't have a better answer than "it depends". Some dwarves in each group would not have reached their maximum in some attributes even by the end of the fourth year, while they would have maxed their other attributes within 1.5-2 years (unbelievable strong but clumsy dwarves). One specific case was a dwarf who started with a very bad score of 11 strength (unquestionably weak ?), and would reach his maximum of about 62 (strong) sometime before the end of year three. Other dwarves would reach their max even sooner than that either because they would have spawned with their attributes near their limit or because they would spawn with low scores but they would have low limits too.
For more specific numbers, I'll post a table with their attribute growth over the months, when I get back from work.
Post by: daggaz on February 01, 2018, 04:09:37 am
Post by: martinuzz on February 01, 2018, 04:10:32 am
I think we might have forgotten one thing. Wrestling and shields. There's a little voice nagging in the back of my head saying 'wrestlers and shields are bad combo, less free grip to wrestle with'.
Remember reading that somewhere, but can't find it.
Wrestlers are probably more effective offensively without shields than with shields. More vulerable though, since they don't have a weapon to parry with, they'll rely solely on dodge (and armor).
Post by: daggaz on February 01, 2018, 04:15:51 am
I think Ulfarr, you also missing a basic control, which is to do dwarves with no shields, no weapons, and also no wrestling. I noticed in my own trials that wrestling quickly became a dominate stat regardless in these scenarios, as the dwarves had little else to do, but my trial was more limited than your own. In this instance, if wrestling is quickly auto-learned, it may be beneficial to seed embark dwarves with other military skills instead, like dodging, or armor.
Post by: Ulfarr on February 01, 2018, 04:51:30 am
Thanks for doing !!SCIENCE!! on this.
I think we might have forgotten one thing. Wrestling and shields. There's a little voice nagging in the back of my head saying 'wrestlers and shields are bad combo, less free grip to wrestle with'.
That would be the subject for my fort's youngest
I think Ulfarr, you also missing a basic control, which is to do dwarves with no shields, no weapons, and also no wrestling.
As far as I know you can't forbid wrestling, and by simply assigning no weapon or shield you'll definitely get wrestlers. The only way I can think that MIGHT result in no wrestling is to create one dwarf squads so they don't spar, assuming they can still perform individual drills.
No no, fair enough, you answered my poorly-defined question suffieciently, thank you. I asked because I want to train my smiths for stat-gain, and was curious how much in-game time it would take out of their smithing regimine.
If your goal is to minimize the time spent moving materials back and forth then I'd say you are better off with (quantum) stockpiles near your forges. Even the most optimistic projection of a 1.5-2 year training plan would still require your smiths to halt all production and focus only on training.
Post by: daggaz on February 01, 2018, 04:53:57 am
While high strength would minimize movement times, stockpile optimization is more effective. I was thinking more along the lines of increasing all the relevant physical skills which affect actual production time, thus increasing the speed at which they reach legendary status. If significant returns on attributes could be achieved in a short enough time-span, then an initial training regime would be indicated.
Post by: Ulfarr on February 01, 2018, 06:16:48 am
About the production times, in the DFwiki attribute page, it is suggested that attributes do affect the completion time of some labors, but (unless I missed it) doesn't say anything about how exactly they relate to one another. It could be tested though.
Post by: daggaz on February 01, 2018, 06:45:08 am
Might be best, if "natural" wrestling is nearly as good as "seeded" wrestling, to give them these other skill ranks and switch over once they are up to speed.
Another factor that plays into this is the difference between sparring and lessons. Dwarves will spar if they are close to the same level, and do lessons if the difference is large. Lessons are more effective IF you have teacher/student ranks to multiply in. Sparring on the other hand trains more skills simultaneously, and from what I understand, is what you need to do to get attribute gains.
So.... you can give dwarves different ranks in harder-to-train skills and if those skills are equipment related, you can turn them off completely. In the mean-time, dwarves will then train spontaneous military skills, including wrestling, striker, fighter, dodger and biter, and as they are all starting at zero (assuming no ranks given here), they will tend to spar and level it all up while gaining attributes. Once they are well rounded in hand-to-hand combat, you then turn on the other skills by allowing progressively more equipment. At this point, if you gave different skills to different dwarves, they will focus on lessons and more rapidly bring the other dwarves up to speed on their individual skill-focus. Doubly so if you spent a few ranks on teacher/student and even organizer. Once they are all starting to level out again with eachother, they begin to spar again and now you have some seriously well-rounded military dwarves.
If you are careful, you could even figure out a way to tier the system so that you start with boot camp spar-training, have some master-level skill teachers that focus a military class on one specific skill through advanced lessons, and the classes would graduate upwards until they come together into a large sparring group, at which point they would be seperated again into weapon-type for final training.
That's what I have been working on at least, looking at Teacher 4 Student 1 Organizer 1 Skill_X 4 as an embark seed for my master teachers.
Post by: Staalo on February 01, 2018, 06:46:05 am
Post by: Ulfarr on February 01, 2018, 10:07:58 am
I would definitely give them hard-to-train skills instead of weapons/wrestling. In terms of time saving, the pre embark bonus, is very big for skills like armor user/dodger, and HUGE for other (arguably less useful) skills like bitter/kicker. Following is the time (minimum-maximum, in months of constant training) needed for a squad to reach an average level of 4 and 5 from having no skill at all.
Skill lvl 4 lvl 5
Armor 17-23 20-28
Dodge 16-19 18-24
Bitter 35-46 42-50
Kicker 27-36 35-42
Weapon 8-12 12-14
Wrestler 14-19 15-23
The idea of using veterans, to teach others, is very interesting. In all my fortresses so far, I was always reluctant to use them that way, mostly because I tend to rely on them for fortress defence (damn you weapon-breaking-in-trap bug >:() and I wanted to keep them ready for action at any time. How effective are demonstration as a form of training? Will the students' level reach that of their teacher through demonstrations or will they always need to spar after a point? How much do teacher/student skills affect the results of demonstrations?
Post by: daggaz on February 01, 2018, 10:25:35 am
Search the forums, there are quite a few interesting threads on the topic. Ive basically paraphrased everything I have read in the post above, however, but I havent been searching the topic for more than a week (I do read fast).
Toadyone is on the record saying that teaching and student directly modify the efficiency (xp gained) of lessons. I posted some of my preliminary results on the matter in my thread on this forum section about optimized embarks, check the last few pages.. I didnt run it very far but one thing I noticed was that student and organizer was learned slowly from zero, (with the exception that my primary teacher, the only one with a teachable embark skill in that setup, got a couple organizer ranks). But if I gave them each a rank each of student and organizer, then both skills progressed in short time to competent which was significantly more than the earlier trial... i did not check for behavioral problems but I tend to pick my military dwarves to avoid those anyhow so I doubt that is a major issue.
In this case, I wanted the teachers to teach each other all their skills, but the more I think about the setup the more I wonder if that is necessarily a good thing. I am pretty sure that teaching is dominated by having a large skill gap and by the highest skill available, so better to have a strong focus perhaps than round these guys out. They are never meant to see battle after all (which allows you to recruit female dwarves who lust for families, as well as not worry about traits like slow healing). So you could forgo the student rank, perhaps (they will learn it anyhow eventually) and you could also not have them train with each other period, but wait for new students to arrive and slowly build them up that way, keeping their abilities seperate. Organizer you would want to keep, it cuts down the time wasted setting up the teaching lessons and I imagine the gains become significant with time due to compounding problems that can be avoided by small reductions in time taken to start the lesson.
Ideally I would want one teacher who was extremely good at armor (first class), one teacher who was extremely good at shields (second class), and one teacher who was extremely good at dodging (third class). Doging is a funny one because all students (and teachers) will learn it spontaneously, but as long as they suck at it compared to the last teacher, then it should be ok. Its important because as we all know, it is a major source of defense.
For second generation teachers, I would pick the most advanced teacher/organizer student in a given squad and have them teach future squads in their given weapon of choice.
In the end, it might not be possible or even optimal to try to seperate their skill sets in this manner, but here you could at least control lessons thru equipment restriction. The problem being dodge, of course (which will make shield blocking and armour user lessons less efficient).
Speaking of armor-user, one poster here uses a cool pillar scheme for his barracks, so dwarves (MUST use full armor!!!) fall down 2 z levels (fighting level - free space- landing level) and learn armor the hard way. Results in miner bumps and bruises. He also put water down in the path back to the barracks to force swimming lessons. All in all it gave a slight slow down on sparring efficiency but boosted armor-user skill which was the big problem in the first place.
Post by: Timmi on February 03, 2018, 11:46:48 pm
Post by: Ulfarr on February 04, 2018, 02:29:18 am
On the other hand, if you just want to get some good-enough soldiers in a somewhat short time, then weapon+shield is perfectly fine.
Post by: Colonel Sanders Lite on February 04, 2018, 06:00:33 am
Disclaimer:
This experiment does NOT test the combat effectiveness of each build, only their training capabilities. For example, just because using a shield stuns the progress of the Armor User and Dodger skills,it doesn't mean that you shouldn't give shield to your dwarves when they do have to fight. In fact, i would argue that the very fact that it does that, is a testament to the effectiveness of shield user as a defensive skill.
FWIW, I suspect that this is a very overlooked statement in this thread. It may be a personal philosophy thing, but my goal is *always* to have soldiers capable of being combat effective with their actual combat gear as quickly as possible. Doing the weapon only method and then training shield later may result in a higher overall level of training over 4 a period of years, but that doesn't much matter if your guys can't survive fighting off an attack in the middle of the second year.
That being said, you're making me very tempted to try out training starting with weapon + shield, and then switching to weapon only once I feel their shield use is reasonably competent. Their shields can be stored in the barracks which will let them grab their shields very quickly in the event that there's a military emergency.
The idea of using veterans, to teach others, is very interesting.I haven't measured the results in any kind of science, but I can say that I *always* do this these days and, subjectively, it seems to help a lot. I pick the best teacher for each weapon and give them the special job title "Drill Instructor" and assign them to lead training squads when I'm training a batch of fresh recruits. Once I feel that the recruits have reached a certain level of combat readiness, I mix them into the squads with the veterans so that they will continue to learn from them as their military careers progress.
I'll tell you what though. I have some raw recruits I need to train up soon. I can post some comparative numbers.
Post by: Splint on February 04, 2018, 09:24:47 pm
He got thrown on three separate occasions while sparring and on each occasion something would skid, resulting once in a broken wrist, once in broken ribs, and once in a broken ankle. After this last one, he did the same tot he offending recruit who kept using wrestling and his unhelmeted head skidded on the floor and his brain was damaged, killing him. I stopped having these incidents occur once I added some leather armor to the squad's uniform, with the armor deflecting the impact.
No incidents happened to the squad with their weapons, only when doing wrestling throws and they lacked any sort of protective gear.
Now, that being said, I feel like I need to start a fort and just train up a bunch of unarmored wrestlers to see what happens and if anyone ends up seriously injured or killed durring sparring sessions
Post by: daggaz on February 05, 2018, 02:41:16 am
Post by: Ulfarr on February 05, 2018, 03:26:50 am
With that in mind, I will set up a new experiment in order to study attribute growth. However I have a tight schedule these days so it might take a week or two before I can give you any results.
Post by: Larix on February 05, 2018, 08:16:09 am
With no starting skills (first two dozen), they used unarmed attacks only - mostly punches, but also a few kicks. They gained very little skill in wrestling itself and never used wrestling moves while i watched.
The second set of two dozen got "proficient" wrestling as only starting skill and grappled each other right away, but then continued by throwing punches again. No training injuries occurred.
It looks like the conflict levels code reserves the dangerous wrestling moves for higher conflict levels (i.e. no pinches/gouging/strangling/throwing in training), but that's just a mild confirmation of what others report from actual fort-mode training (if you want to know for sure what's going on in fort mode, only fort mode itself can be depended on).
Do these different training regimens really make a difference in combat? I only ever seem to face goblins and solitary wandering semimegabeasts, and for those, half a dozen soldiers trained with weapon and full armour all the way for ~a year and a half are more than adequate; i perceive no need for improvement, since i usually have at least two, usually more years before any assaults happen.
Post by: Colonel Sanders Lite on February 05, 2018, 03:09:45 pm
It appears I've made a mistake with my interpretation of Dwarf Therapist's attribute scale. As feelotraveller explained to me, it ranks attributes in relation with the rest of your population.
I'm gonna have to say citation needed on that one. They look like absolute numbers, right in line with the wiki numbers (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Attributes#Body_Attributes) to me!
Post by: Splint on February 05, 2018, 05:50:40 pm
And perhaps the conflict level stuff precludes any "potentially lethal" actions? I saw take downs as the norm even in newer versions when something couldn't/opted not to do a joint jock on a grapple, but it was when people got thrown and a body part would skid without at least leather to protect it that the injuries (and in one case, as mentioned, one death,) would occur. Speaking of which, time to fort since I'm now home from work. I'm kind of hoping I get a chance to see a gaggle of drunken brawlers break necks and choke out goblins.
I'm gonna probably have to make this an extended thing. I can't recall how long it was the unit was training, but it was pretty late in the settlement's life.
Post by: Ulfarr on February 06, 2018, 12:05:08 am
I'm gonna have to say citation needed on that one. They look like absolute numbers, right in line with the wiki numbers (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Attributes#Body_Attributes) to me!
Feelotraveller's explanation
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Because at the time of the experiment I didn't know that the 0-100 scale was a relative one and I also had issues with DT's export function (it would always crash), I had resorted to taking screenshots. Thus none of my data, on attributes, are on their absolute values and they can't be used to accurately monitor their growth over time.
Post by: h27kim on February 06, 2018, 01:10:32 am
Post by: feelotraveller on February 06, 2018, 03:04:52 am
Other than that it would be up to people wanting to see the raw attributes listed in a grid view to ask Clément nicely in the therapist thread if it would be possible to add this. You never know. :)
Post by: Colonel Sanders Lite on February 06, 2018, 06:05:20 am
I'm gonna have to say citation needed on that one. They look like absolute numbers, right in line with the wiki numbers (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Attributes#Body_Attributes) to me!
the 0-100 scale
Ah. There's the issue! We where talking about different numbers. I guess you have DT's "Skill Drawing Method" setting set to Text and that's where you're seeing a 0-100 number? I usually use Growing Fill and have to use the tooltips to see a number, as mentioned by h27kim.
For what it's worth, I would like to see the 0-100 thing replaced by something like 2.2 signifying a 2200 stat.
Post by: Ulfarr on February 06, 2018, 06:50:36 am
Post by: Sutremaine on February 06, 2018, 11:46:09 am
Do these different training regimens really make a difference in combat? I only ever seem to face goblins and solitary wandering semimegabeasts, and for those, half a dozen soldiers trained with weapon and full armour all the way for ~a year and a half are more than adequate; i perceive no need for improvement, since i usually have at least two, usually more years before any assaults happen.There's a difference, since dwarves and goblins still use unarmed moves even when holding weapon and shield. Whether it's a significant difference or not is up in the air.
Post by: Colonel Sanders Lite on February 07, 2018, 06:25:00 am
The setup:
10 recruits, split into 2 squads of 5. Squad A, The Orbs Of Oiling, is lead by a veteran soldier, acting as a drill instructor. Squad B, The Helmed Bowels, has no instructor. Each squad has it's own training room and sleeps in a shared barracks.
Recruit Selection:
All recruits have a score of 15 in the "values martial prowess" trait to remove that desire as a variable. From there, recruits where primarily selected by strength, to help reduce the variables relating to movement speed. Squad B got the strongest recruit, Squad A got the second strongest, Squad B got the third strongest, and so on. Looking at the strength, agility, and endurance stats, squad A has the a slightly worse batch of recruits than squad B. This was done so that we know that, if Squad A pulls ahead of Squad B, it was not likely due to initially better stats.
It's worth noting that most of the recruits have ranks in marksdwarf and kills. This comes from grabbing a crossbow and getting on the ramparts when goblins attack. Besides just taking pot shots at goblins, they have no prior military training. A few recruits have a few xp from dodging/blocking the occasional stray arrow during goblin attacks. These recruits are evenly distributed across both squads.
Equipment:
All recruits are equipped with:
Battle Axe
Shield
Helm
Mail Shirt
Gauntlets
Greaves
High Boots
Dwarves are set to replace clothing and wear exact matches only. All equipment is masterwork quality steel, to eliminate any variables caused by uneven equipment.
The initial stats:
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4758/26257708368_719462411b_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/G1iBTN)
After the first season:
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4655/40098838902_b9b182f694_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/246p2Mq)
More to come! I plan to track them over a course of 4 years or so.
Observations at the end of the first season:
Squad A has gained 46 levels scattered across various skills. Squad B has gained 40 levels across various skills. Squad A is doing demonstrations and has yet to even start sparring. Squad B started sparring approximately halfway through the first season.
It's very early in the test yet, but the divergence that already exists in their skills is very interesting to me.
Post by: Colonel Sanders Lite on February 09, 2018, 09:32:08 am
Post by: Ulfarr on February 09, 2018, 12:33:08 pm
On topic now, I've just finished the first year of experimenting with the wrestler + shiled set up and I believe I already have conclusive results. The set up was the same as the rest of my experiments (full armor, 6 active/1 on leave, absolutely no prior experience) and the results of the 1st year are as follow:
Month Discipline Dodger Shield
|
And...that's it. They haven't trained any other skill but these three, they haven't started sparring and as far as I can tell they haven't had any demonstrations either. On the plus side, they did increase their attributes a bit and most importantly their shield skill is now almost 3 times higher than what the WS dwarves had by the end of the first year.
Comparisson of all squads (in their shared skills)
(WR: wrestlers, WO: weapons only, WS: Weapon + shield, SO: shield only)
Squad Discipline Dodger Shield
WR 6.86 2.86 -
WO 6.00 2.29 -
WS 6.00 1.71 2.14
SO 5.35 1.68 5.90
To be honest, it's quite dissapointing. Maybe if they weren't completely raw recruits and instead had enough wrestling to spar with, from the begining, it would be worth it as a training regime.
Post by: Sarmatian123 on February 09, 2018, 02:34:19 pm
Try using my militia 10-2-2-2-2-2-10-2-2-2-2-2 schedule. My militia after reaching lv3/lv4 in weapon skill always is sparing and shooting bolts at archery, which levels up their skills faster. So I hear, but prepare for lower fps as well. Also prepare to delete or renaming the gamelog.txt file often, as it gets in range of 10mb every season from sparing alone. Too large it grows the lower fps you get. Also do share the creepiest, cheapest and most lousy quality weapon and shield that you get named and put into your artifacts listing by those sparring Dwarves. From my experience it takes around 1 year to get most of 10 Dwarves to elite/lord/master rank with their weapons.
Is sparing outperforming teaching? If so, then should teaching maybe be boosted?
Post by: Larix on February 09, 2018, 03:16:21 pm
You training full military Dwarves with 10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10 schedule? I think I read somewhere that schedule with 10 Dwarves mostly take part in demonstrations. Not sparring.
That information is four years obsolete: in older versions, large squads on a unified schedule had trouble getting both sparring and demonstrations going.
I've trained each and every of my militia squads on "minimum 10" in DF2014 and always had massive sparring sessions start after one to two seasons, generally resulting in weaponmasters in a year. "10 minimum" doesn't hinder, let alone prevent sparring (PSA: yes, even if the number of dwarfs in the squad is less than ten, they'll train/spar perfectly adequately with a "min. 10" setting; i always do that and never run into trouble).
@Ulfarr: Can it be that the dwarfs were carrying two shields each? It appears that they blocked their ability to deliver strikes, which seems to be the only attack type skill-less weapon-less dwarfs train by themselves. And did they really not organise demonstrations? That sounds like they weren't properly activated for training and just did spare-time "individual combat drill".
Post by: Ulfarr on February 09, 2018, 04:11:19 pm
You training full military Dwarves with 10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10 schedule? I think I read somewhere that schedule with 10 Dwarves mostly take part in demonstrations. Not sparring.
Is sparing outperforming teaching? If so, then should teaching maybe be boosted?
I use a 6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6-6 schedule (if you mean the number of active dwarves each month) with 7 dwarves/squad. I use the exact schedule on 3 other squads and they do both sparring and demonstrations, so it works properly. You should follow Colonel Sanders Lite's thread for more info about teaching, I haven't done any science with teaching so far.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169487.0 (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169487.0)
@Ulfarr: Can it be that the dwarfs were carrying two shields each? It appears that they blocked their ability to deliver strikes, which seems to be the only attack type skill-less weapon-less dwarfs train by themselves. And did they really not organise demonstrations? That sounds like they weren't properly activated for training and just did spare-time "individual combat drill".
No, I don't think they used dual shields (but I didn't check that to be honest). Also, I'm NOT 100% sure that they didn't do any demonstrations but I just never saw them do any. Every time I would check on them, they (all of the active ones) would always do individual drills. And they were properly activated (or at least they showed as activated on the {s}quad screen).
I think dwarves* would teach themselves only the skills they need for their current equipment during the first months of their training, at least until they are forced to use new skills due to sparring. Yet to start sparring they need a certain level (maybe a combination ) of fighter/striker/weapon/wrestler, and since they haven't teach themselves these skills they never sparred and just stuck with their individual drills.
*Without initial attacking skills or maybe a veteran to teach them.
Of note is 1) 1-2 months after I removed their shields from their uniform they would start sparing as wrestlers (with only dabbling striker and fighter) 2) when I gave my legendary wrestler squad, shields they started sparring (again) after only doing a few demonstrations with it (it took them about a month for that).
Post by: Colonel Sanders Lite on February 09, 2018, 04:55:53 pm
I've trained each and every of my militia squads on "minimum 10" in DF2014 and always had massive sparring sessions start after one to two seasons, generally resulting in weaponmasters in a year. "10 minimum" doesn't hinder, let alone prevent sparring (PSA: yes, even if the number of dwarfs in the squad is less than ten, they'll train/spar perfectly adequately with a "min. 10" setting; i always do that and never run into trouble).
I can confirm this as accurate. I honestly can't remember if that info was ever truly accurate or if it was just an old myth that later got debunked. Either way, it's dated.