40d:Sparring

Sparring is a form of non-lethal combat engaged in by soldiers to train their combat skills in fortress mode. Sparring takes place at barracks; off-duty soldiers will engage in mock combat with other off-duty soldiers, causing incidental injuries as they go but also gaining experience.

It is said that there must be a minimum amount of floor space in barracks before soldiers will spar there.^[Verify]

To assign a soldier to sparring, you must take his or her squad off duty. This is accomplished by opening the military screen, selecting the soldier from the list, choosing to view the selected squad, then toggling the duty status until it displays "Squad is standing down". You must have at least two melee soldiers off duty before sparring will begin, although they need not be of the same soldier class. If the conditions are met, the soldiers will automatically choose to spar at their own discretion.

Rotating soldiers between an always-off-duty training squad and a series of on-duty patrol squads can be an effective way of training soldiers without having to assign off-duty status to each soldier directly.

Sparring injuries

It is possible to severely wound a partner during a sparring session. When practising with wrestlers, the worst injury that is likely to happen is a broken bone, although even this can be fatal if unfortunate circumstances prevail, such as crushing the other soldier's throat.

In the event that a soldier is injured while sparring, the soldier will rest until he or she recuperates, just as with any other injury. In the event of a broken limb, it will take a full season before the soldier will be available for action once again. Mangled limbs and other injuries may take much longer, if they heal at all.

If a soldier accidentally kills another, the accidental murderer will receive an unhappy thought. However, killing another during a sparring session is not a crime and will not be punished by justice^[Verify].

Sparring injuries can be very brutal to a fort's soldier population, leaving many dwarves with moderate injuries. For this reason, it is never recommended to have all troops sparring at once, as all but one of the soldiers may be injured in the event of an assault.

Equipment

When soldiers spar, they practise with whatever weapon and armor they have been assigned, including shields. Thus, in order to train axedwarves, it is necessary to assign the recruits axes, and so forth with all other weapons.

It may be prudent to send soldiers through a basic training regime by allowing them to spar without weapons until they achieve Novice Wrestler skill, then beginning their training for weapons directly. This can help reduce the amount of injuries suffered, as Wrestler skill is used to determine the probability of dodging attacks in addition to its offensive purposes. It can also be useful to train soldiers in Armor user as well as in Shield user before cross-training them for weapon usage.