Military Dwarfes tend to Hate fighting

[scheidermarkus]

Hello fellow dwarf lovers,

often when I train one of my dwarf-at-arms who looks promising into a skilled fighter I discover a trait that the dwarf hates war, bloodshed etc. With each real fight his mood suffers.

How can I train dwarfs to actually love figthing/defending their home?

Thanks for your help!

[Fel]

Select them after reading their personality traits.
For example dwarves that value martial prowess and sacrifice tend to do well in the military.
Both beliefs and facets have things that can mesh with real battles.
https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Personality_trait

Try to also give them enough time for training before sending them to fight and avoid having death on your side, since it can easily become a trauma.

[Graknorke]

changing their personality is possible but rare and unpredictable. being exposed to something traumatic could make them come to terms with it or hate it even more, so it's not really a thing you can use the way you are asking. although i'm not really sure how much values matter for combat, i've never seen a dwarf who doesn't get upset by the conflict/injury/seeing death and they tend to get to the "doesn't really care about anything any more" level after not too much live combat anyway

[Fel]

I'm pretty sure I had a few dwarves over the years that were quite happy with the fighting itself but it's fairly rare to get those I think.

[scheidermarkus]

Originally posted by Fel:

Select them after reading their personality traits.
For example dwarves that value martial prowess and sacrifice tend to do well in the military.
Both beliefs and facets have things that can mesh with real battles.
https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Personality_trait

Try to also give them enough time for training before sending them to fight and avoid having death on your side, since it can easily become a trauma.

Thank you for the Link.

Until now I selectet my dwarfs for sehr fighting skills. Do I have to ignore the fighting skills and choose my soldierdwarfs for their attitude?

No worries they are well entrenched and trained.
But after three defeated sieges without losses two of my stout warriors get sadder and sadder.

[LaChouette]

Originally posted by scheidermarkus:

Originally posted by Fel:

Select them after reading their personality traits.
For example dwarves that value martial prowess and sacrifice tend to do well in the military.
Both beliefs and facets have things that can mesh with real battles.
https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Personality_trait

Try to also give them enough time for training before sending them to fight and avoid having death on your side, since it can easily become a trauma.

Thank you for the Link.

Until now I selectet my dwarfs for sehr fighting skills. Do I have to ignore the fighting skills and choose my soldierdwarfs for their attitude?

No worries they are well entrenched and trained.
But after three defeated sieges without losses two of my stout warriors get sadder and sadder.

Even the most garbage of dwarves can be trained to legendary skill level eventually. A dwarf who hates fighting is not likely to change that any time soon. So yeah, better to get dwarves in the military with the right attitude rather than the right skills.

[malthenielsen]

It works fine to just ignore their personalities.

What I do is just create squads and then add dwarves that are either peasants or have a not-so-usefull skill like cheesemaking or animal dissection.

[LaChouette]

Originally posted by malthenielsen:

It works fine to just ignore their personalities.

What I do is just create squads and then add dwarves that are either peasants or have a not-so-usefull skill like cheesemaking or animal dissection.

It works fine until your legendary wrestlers punch everybody to death during a tantrum.

[McOrigin]

I usually have an "all men must serve" approach. Thus every migrant wave is screened and every flimsy, clumsy skinny whimp is immediately expelled. So are dwarves who worship too many gods, more than six is the threshold I am looking for.

As the military training does improve the body attributes, but only on a limited scale depending on the initial values, it is more important to check for the body attributes rather than traits and values.
Of course a mighty and agile dwarf who loves fighting, is generally not afraid and has a useful preference for a weapon, shield or armor piece is the best option. But they are extremely rare.
But a very clumsy dwarf will never get as agile as his team members. A weakling will never get might and will always suffer from heavy armor.

After some initial fighting and beeing exposed to dead enemies, they will gain a trait "does not care about anything anymore" which makes almost immune to blood and gore.
And as soon as they are legendary in any fighting profession, they will not get bad thoughts from training anymore, but rather the opposite.

Until then, manage them carefully: If your initial militia has a very low happiness, it may be caused by other unfulfilled needs. Maybe they need some time off to be creative (stone crafting), to acquire something or be extravagant (high value clothing), or pray to their gods.

[malthenielsen]

Originally posted by LaChouette:

Originally posted by malthenielsen:

It works fine to just ignore their personalities.

What I do is just create squads and then add dwarves that are either peasants or have a not-so-usefull skill like cheesemaking or animal dissection.

It works fine until your legendary wrestlers punch everybody to death during a tantrum.

Their personality really will not matter a lot.

Even if their values are totally anti-military, it still matters more that they have some free time, a nice bedroom, no ghosts, can pray, not wearing old clothes and so on.

You can on the other hand pick the perfect personalities for military, but if you're not taking care of ther happiness in all the oher ways, it doesn't do anything.

In both cases, check if you have any red faces = angry dwarves, and if it is a trained soldier, he gets expelled or sent to a holding.

[Fel]

How you chose military dwarves really depends on the situation.

If your fort has enough defenses to not need your military all that much you can pick dwarves that are suited for it.
It includes dwarves that have preferences like steel or a weapon you intend to use since it usually gives them a decent boost when they get such item(s).

Ideally you want to make squads with a weapon type for all members and not a mix and match since there is the teaching part as well.

If you can, try to have a skilled dwarf as the squad leader at least for a time (even if that dwarf is not going to stay in the military), teaching those skills to new recruits makes it significantly faster for them to pick up the first few levels and get to the sparring part.

After a few years of training, even previously untrained dwarves should be good enough to fight.
If they are suited for the military they will also need less off time to relax, meaning more training and faster levelling of the various skills.


On the other hand, if you know you will need your military in a state where they can fight against invader after grabbing their gear (often "whatever you can find") then skill levels matter a lot more obviously.

[jellybelly1998]

if you dont mind using dfhack, you can filter out dwarves that dont like combat

[Fel]

It is true now, but back then dfhack didn't have that function yet.