I'm setting up my first militia; I've got a nice moat and I need some dwarves to take pot-shots at the enemy in the event of a siege.
But who do I conscript? I'm staring at dwarf therapist and feeling a little overwhelmed. I can't find any obviously useless dwarves; everyone's got skills that I'd rather not see wasted in the trenches or on the training grounds.
And what about all those personality traits? Datan Elbelsodal is a fine hunter and marksdwarf, but he's also quick to anger and dislikes regulations, would he do well taking orders? I can't tell what is flavour text and what will affect my dwarves performance.
What are some things to look for in good militia recruits?
Whom should I not conscript because they're more useful somewhere else?
Best Answer
Wait for the next wave of immigrants. There's always a few who have either no skills at all, or high skills in utterly worthless things like "soap maker" or "woodcrafter". There are a lot of skills that sound good but are actually pretty useless.
For a melee squad, you can also draft your spare miners. Mining trains strength, so miners are usually pretty strong. Most fortresses don't have a lot of mining to do after the initial layout, so if a miner doesn't have any other skills you can afford to make them fighters. Also, mining picks aren't very good weapons, but they use the Mining skill to fight with instead of Axedwarf or Hammerdwarf or one of the other military skills, so you probably have a bunch of dwarves that are already highly skilled.
Personality traits aren't really implemented that much either, so Datan is a great recruit for a marksdwarf squad.
The other thing to look for is some immigrant who randomly has a decent teaching skill; these dwarfs make good squad captains.