Who should I conscript?

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?

Solution 1:

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.

Solution 2:

The first thing you look for is if the dwarf have skills directly related to combat, like weapons skills or fighting, dodging, biting, ambushing, etc. If a dwarf does not have combat skills he will not like you for drafting him and loses happiness. Something like "Unhappy because of the recent draft" will show up within his thoughts.

Most of the time I start selecting dwarfs when I have about 25 to 35 unless I am playing near a tower or on evil grounds which make the game harder. Once you get that migration wave that brings you to around 25 to 35, start selecting conscripts. Most of the time I end up with lots of pump operators, masons, engravers and furnace workers, but these skills level quickly anyway and except for masonry add nothing to item value. Stone crafting levels quickly too with the abundance of stone and because you often get mood swings from other dwarfs that kick their skill up to legendary in any of the craftsman skills. All that means that conscripting immigrant masons, stone workers, furnace operators, and pump operators isn't any real loss of skills. The most important dwarves IMHO are weapon and armor smiths – don't conscript them.

When you have military on active and inactive states you should also make sure they have at least some skill in the normal labors or they will not be happy about going to civilian work again.