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[Leonidas]

Let's pool our knowledge on the effect of raids on the Military Tactics and Leadership skills.

My conclusions so far:
In raiding and razing, each mission generates 500xp in both skills for the raid's leader.

Each mission runs a tactics check towards the beginning of the battle. From the wording, this seems to apply an overall modifier to the rest of the battle. This tactics check might be a comparison of your leader's tactics skill vs the enemy's skill (?). There is no indication that anyone else's tactics or leadership scores influence the battle.

The raid leader is the leader of the squad that's highest on the list of squads selected for the mission. The order in which you select the squad is irrelevant. If you want a specific dwarf to be the leader and soak up the XP, then you must assign him as leader of the highest squad that will go on raids.

[Grand Sage]

What about Commander vs captain? Does it respect the commanders rank in these situations?

As I stated in another thread, I'd also be interrested in if this affects the asking for tributes mission, though I don't know if you have any experience with that (cause I don't).

Great initiative! May I add that I read (on the wiki?) that the organization skill also effects raids similare to Tactics and leadership.

[Leonidas]

What about Commander vs captain? Does it respect the commanders rank in these situations?

You're right. The militia commander is the one getting the XP.

[Grand Sage]

Thx! thats gonna be usefull!

You seam to have played with this a little. Any idea if Millitary tactics get "taught" when the squad is on active/training?

[Splint]

Thx! thats gonna be usefull!

You seam to have played with this a little. Any idea if Millitary tactics get "taught" when the squad is on active/training?

I was curious about this myself. I have decent soldiers, but being forced to tank casualties because of that seems a little... Sub-optimal.

[Leonidas]

You seam to have played with this a little. Any idea if Millitary tactics get "taught" when the squad is on active/training?

Definitely not. I've trained around 100 dwarves up to super-soldier. The militia commander got 500xp per mission. Two random dwarves got a single xp point, maybe from participating in the raze mission.

Leadership goes up very, very slowly from training. After several years, my squad leaders have reached Novice. Some other dwarves have XP, but they're still Dabbling.

[Leonidas]

Looking at Legends, the Military Tactics check is definitely between the leaders:

In 134, midspring, (10th of Slate) the dwarf `Sgt` Relicrampart entirely outwitted the elf Thalu Lobsterbasins, and the attackers had a strong positional advantage in Fightembrace during The Riddled Attack as part of The Conflict of Razors.

This means that worlds generated before 44.06 (such as mine) may be super-easy to conquer, because those leaders would have been generated with no military tactics skill.

Has anyone noticed whether leaders in newer worlds have military tactics skill built in?

Edit: Looking through Legends, I found a war leader for a human civilization with some military tactics skill. He had exactly 3500 each for tactics, leader, and organizer. His history shows that he led seven successful raids, so he got 500xp for each.

[Insert_Gnome_Here]

I thought they built in tactics, but only as a placeholder.

[Splint]

I thought they built in tactics, but only as a placeholder.

It was in the game, but had no use until now. Just sort of there, and could sometimes be seen on various fightin' dorfs and leaders from time to time.

[Leonidas]

Results from my latest raze mission. I figured out how to export a spreadsheet from Therapist, pre and post mission. Then I subtracted the two spreadsheets.

The arithmetic is a little tricky, because Therapist's export spreadsheet shows percentage progress within the level, rather than total xp. So I might be a little off on these numbers.

Military Tactics The mission leader gets a 500xp boost per mission, Pillage and Raze tested so far. Nobody else gets any xp to Military Tactics.

Leader The mission leader gets 500xp per mission. Each squad leader who is mentioned in the report gets 100xp.

Organizer The mission leader gets 500xp for the mission.

Edit: I just got a mission report that specifically noted a squad leader's poor leadership. So the leader skill definitely plays a role.

[Sanctume]

I haven't sent out a "raid" yet.  But my setup is as follows.

1 Dwarf "Captain 1": Tactician+5, Leadership+5. 
2 Dwarf "Captain 2": Tactician+5, Leadership+5. 
3 Dwarf "Captain 3": Tactician+5, Leadership+5. 

4 Dwarf "Commander": Fighter+3, Discipline+3, Teacher+3, Organizer+1.
The objective here is to train the dwarf captains Discipline and Fighter skills soon. 
Observation is that Fighter 2 + Discipline 2 makes them spar sooner, thus faster skill gains.

Organizer+1 seems like an ok investment to have more "Lead Demonstration" going early on. 

Tactician becomes flags as rusty in Dwarf Therapist even when in a full time training schedule.

5. Dwarf "Axe Teacher": Axe+5, Teacher+5. 
6. Dwarf "Spear Teacher": Spear+5, Teacher+5. 
7. Dwarf "Hammer Teacher": Hammer+5, Teacher+5. 
These are also put in the Commander's squad to learn some Fighter and Discipline.
They will not teach Axe, Spear nor Hammer if the uniform does not have the weapon.

--
For power leveling up Organizer skill, set each one as Manager. 
And make all orders as single.
Instead of order 10 beds, I profile a carpenter's shop and order 1 bed, 10 times. 

Dwarf Therapist does not seem to update the Organizer skill because I've seen Novice Organizer jump to Legendary Organizer even when there are multiple saves and load game in between playing. 
In a span of 2 years, I have dwarfs that are Organizer 10, 13, 16, and even a 23. 
Smelt 1 ore, make 1 bolt, and work orders to 1 process plant, 1 make thread, 1 cloth, 1 robe adds up fairly fast for the organizer skill.
--

Question: So raids can be split into 1 squad each, and each raid captain will gain 500xp?

[Leonidas]

Question: So raids can be split into 1 squad each, and each raid captain will gain 500xp?

Yes, that's my theory. And Pillage missions seem safer than Raid missions, for pretty much the same XP. So pick a few tiny villages, and just pillage them over and over with single squads. Your squad leaders will get 500 Leader/Tactics/Organizer xp for each mission. The key number is Leader because that's what each squad leader uses in a big battle if his squad gets picked for a squad-on-squad confrontation.

The big risk of raiding right now is that your soldiers are vulnerable when they return. They appear in a random edge square as if they were migrants with a New Arrival task that you can't control. So if you're constantly raiding, you're constantly running the risk that one of your squads will return into a seige or ambush. I'm open to ideas about how to reduce or eliminate that risk. Right now my best idea is segmenting the map edge with drawbridges.

Leaving for the raid also carries some risk. In a multi-squad raid, the squads can seek two or more exit zones, which raises the chance that your soldiers will march out into a siege or ambush. You can control their exit path somewhat, but I've seen squads refuse to leave the map when confined to a narrow exit zone.

[Sanctume]

I prefer controlled underground (z-2 below surface) hallway passages that are remotely locked via central control room. 

I would start with 4 main passage NSEW.  Then add t-sections toward corners. 
The idea is when the squad arrives (I assume a pause), the nearest hallway passage will be unlocked to enter back safely.

This also requires some above ground funnel system to a more defended entrance.  With archer towers.  And baits to help attract siegers to move towards the defended entrance. 

[Grand Sage]

Pls confirm this for me (Im still not in a position to test it myself).

When you send out 1 squad on a mission, does the squad leader (mission leader) also get 500 xp in tactics?

it just seems a little odd that leading 1 squad can make you good at leading an entire army.

[Leonidas]

I'll do some more testing soon. Right now I'm re-working my surface to minimize the chances of a returning squad getting caught in a seige.

Another interesting question will be who counts as the mission leader when the raid includes multiple squads, but not the militia commander.