v0.31:Military

Just a quick aid for confused players, please reformat this, anyone who knows more:

You can load dwarves into a squad from the 'm'ilitary screen, after you've defined a military commander. The squad defaults to training all the time (see its 's'chedule on the military screen). To actually make them train, though, you need to activate them: 's'quads from the main screen, then press the letter of your squad, then 't' to change it from inactive to active. You also need to create a barracks from a bed, then assign the squad to train in it with the 't' key. This makes them immediately start to train there.

Alert levels

The alert level is a fundamental concept of military management. In each alert level, you can program instructions for your military and civilian dwarves to follow. The game contains two alert levels by default - 'Inactive' and 'Active/Train'. In 'Inactive', all squads are assigned no orders. In 'Active/Train', all squads are assigned to train the entire year.

Your entire fortress is always set to exactly one 'Civilian alert level'. This restricts where civilians may go. To define the restriction area, you must first create a Template:L encompassing the area you want to restrict your civilians to. Then, go to the alert screen (m then a), create a new alert level (call it something like 'Danger'), highlight it in the left pane, then press enter on the correct burrow in the right pane. You can change the currently active civilian alert level by pressing enter on the correct alert level in the left pane.