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v0.34:Training
| This article is about an older version of DF. |
For information on training animals, see Animal trainer.
Introduction
Training is how you improve the combat skills of your soldiers in fortress mode. Training takes many forms, from solo practice to direct instruction to sparring to actual (controlled) combats.
Equipment
The weapons you wish your soldiers to use can be chosen through the military screen, and then the equip selection. When soldiers spar or perform weapon drills, they practice (and thereby gain experience) with whatever weapon (plus armor and shield in the case of sparring) they have been assigned. Your soldiers will put on their uniforms and grab their weapons once they are assigned equipment in a squad (and don't have any other civilian jobs).
Organized squad training
You cannot directly assign a soldier to train. Instead, you need to schedule his or her squad to train. This is accomplished by opening the military screen. Open the alerts panel, then assign the squad to Active/Training (or establish a more complex schedule of alerts). Now query the bed, weapon rack, and/or armor stand to designate a barracks. Highlight which squad you wish to train and press t. A T should appear on the right side of the screen beside that squad's name. Now your squad is set to be training, and has a place to train in. A squad set to the default Active/Training alert level (or a more complicated schedule using the advanced calendar system) will train in their assigned barracks. A squad with active orders delivered through the squad menu will carry out those orders, taking breaks to eat or sleep, but will not train.
- Define a squad with members (equip with whatever armor and weapons you like)
- Designate a barracks and have the squad set to train there
- Have an active training order for the squad
Sparring and demonstrations
Sparring is a form of non-lethal practice melee combat performed by two members of a squad. Sparring is a mostly safe way to get experienced soldiers. If you are training the wrestling skill, giving your soldiers a helm and body armor is advised.
Demonstrations are teaching sessions, organized by one dwarf, led by another dwarf (teacher), and observed by one or more other dwarves (student). Demonstrations tend to confer skill increases much more slowly than sparring, particularly with low teacher, student and organizer skills.
It is currently believed that the best way to encourage sparring (rather than demonstrations) is to use 2-dwarf squads for training. Both dwarves should have the same weapon, to minimize useless cross-weapon teaching. However, sparring management is still a poorly understood science.
Individual Training
Your soldiers will continue to do jobs outside the military if they don't have a place to spar or an active schedule. Motivated dwarves will also conduct individual training. This happens if:
- the dwarf squad has no scheduled orders
- the squad has a designated barracks to train at
- the dwarf is on break (dwarfs with no job do not go on individual combat drill)
Other Notes
Injury
Dwarves are very unlikely to hurt each other directly while sparring with any type of weapon. They can however have accidents due to certain wrestling move(s), namely throwing. A thrown dwarf will skid along the ground and sustain injury. It can be lethal to a dwarf if his head skids on the ground, so have your wrestlers wear helmets.[Verify] Also make sure they have a safe environment to train in. Avoid having your barracks near high cliffs or open water, because dwarves have a habit of dodging off of cliffs and injuring themselves or dodging into water and becoming stunned, which leads to drowning. Also, dwarves can dodge up one level if they are next to a wall. Make sure they can walk back down or build a roof, because otherwise you risk a military dwarf trapping himself and starving to death.
Default Schedule
The default Active/Training alert requires a full 10 member squad. This can be changed from the Scheduling menu, if for some reason you only want part of a squad to train.
Happy Soldiers
Be kind to your soldiers. Civilians with no military experience will get bad thoughts from going on duty. Soldiers will get a bad thought when going off duty if they don't have any civilian skills (if their title becomes "peasant").
Training on disarmed prisoners
A very effective way to train your dwarves is to let them fight stripped prisoners while heavily armored and carrying training weapons themselves. Keep in mind that a dwarf needs be attacked to increase his or her defensive skills up. In other words: if you're interested in having your dwarves quickly train as Dodgers, Armor Users and Shield Users, it'll be far more efficient to set-up multiple small pits where dwarves can train one on one against disarmed prisoners.
See Remotely Opening Cages for more information.
See also