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.

Equipment

When soldiers spar, they practise (and thereby gain experience) 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.

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 if precautions are not taken (see below). If your troops get injured frequently by sparring, it's a good idea to keep a solid proportion of your soldiers on duty so that you don't have too many injuries in case of a siege or ambush. If your troops are getting injured, however, you should take precautions.

Avoiding Injury

The following tactics can help your dwarves avoid sparring injuries:

• Equipping soldiers with good armor is always useful to protect injury, whether sparring or fighting real threats.
• Equipping soldiers deliberately with weak silver weapons is an excellent way to reduce the risk of injury. However, it can be time consuming to force them to switch back to good iron or steel weapons in the event of a siege or ambush.
• It is prudent to send soldiers through a basic training regime by allowing them to spar without weapons until they achieve Novice (or better) Wrestler skill, then begin 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.
• Likewise, the more training your soldiers get in Armor user and Shield user, the more likely they will be to avoid injury. Thus it is safest to give your soldiers plenty of Wrestling practice, while equipped with armor and shields, before cross-training them for weapon usage.
• You might also want to buff up a dwarf's stats before sparring -- for example by setting them to pump a screw pump that isn't attached to anything. This can increase a dwarf's Toughness (and thereby resistance to damage), although it may also increase Strength, which is believed to increase damage inflicted.

Target Practice

Soldiers armed with crossbows will not spar; the equivalent to sparring for a crossbow-armed dwarf is shooting at an archery range. As with sparring, the crossbow-dwarf's squad must be set to stand down. Unlike sparring, dwarfs do not need partners to practice archery. The dwarf must be equipped with a crossbow and a supply of wooden or bone bolts -- metal bolts will not be wasted on target practice.

Live Combat Training

Soldiers gain experience in martial skills from fighting in real combat as well. For obvious reasons, it is best to boost your soldiers' experience by sparring before they enter a real battle. An untrained soldier can easily suffer a career-ending injury from a goblin invader, whereas a Legendary weapon and armour user can cut a swath through an invading column without taking a scratch.

Miners use their pick when fighting unarmed, and get bonuses from their Mining skill. Because of this an expert miner can quickly level-up when sparring unarmed ^[Verify], and you run the risk of him or her becoming a heroic wrestler and refusing to mine anymore.

Military FAQ
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Recruiting, equipping, and managing your military
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