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[Civillain]

An undead siege approaches. Their numbers are simply too great for my military to handle, and I've already lost a few dwarves. My last line of defence? One single door separating the horde from my civilians. And someone has left a bucket in the door so it won't close.

Now, I've never really got the hang of micro in Dwarf Fortress, so I'm not really sure how to fix this situation. All my civilians are in a burrow deep underground, while the last shreds of my military guard the door. I don't want to release the civilians from the burrow, because they'll get their skulls mashed in by the walking corpses if I do. Is there a way to force my dwarves to move the bucket now?

I have a few backup plans if I can't move the bucket, but I'd really rather not have to go for them since my populace will probably starve to death if I do...

[KittyTac]

Create a garbage dump, remove one dwarf from the burrow, set the bucket to dump. If he gets mauled, GG. If not, you can close the door.

[anewaname]

You could also build a door or wall inward of where the blocked door is. I've destroyed stairs ('d' 'z') before and dug down to the caverns, to give me time to build up, and to gain grazing ground, water, and edible plants.

[PatrikLundell]

Or build a wall either inside or outside of that door. Since you're going to turtle the time it takes to tear the wall down when it's served its purpose (i.e. the siegers have given up) shouldn't matter.

You don't have to release any burrows to either dump the bucket or build a wall: just paint the bucket/door tile and the tile outside of it as part of the burrow. Since they have no reason to stay there they'd return to socialize or work inside the (rest of the) burrow when done. You can also remove the painted tiles when they've served their purpose (I dynamically change my civ alert burrow to include/exclude the cage traps invaders get caught in as I close/open the outer drawbridges so the traps can be reloaded and the cages hauled safely).

[Saiko Kila]

About the alerts: if you have such situations frequently (as mentioned above it happens with traps), you may consider doing two alerts or more for civilians, and switching them. I name them RED ALERT and ORANGE ALERT. The first one has the safe burrow. The second alert has two burrows - the safe one from the first alert, and a small additional one covering the traps.

Use the RED ALERT to keep them safe, and switch to ORANGE ALERT to allow them remove things or reload traps (it's under assumption that there's a pause in siege, for example because outlying bridge is closed). I repaint one of the burrow sometimes if need be, but generally use the smallest and easier to manage one, and switch to an alert containing it.

Also for doors, in critical places it's good to have more than one, intermixed with hatches if possible, just for situations like this. Personally I make a door-one tile bridge-door sequence if on one level, and a hatch and another hatch over two close staircases if two levels are possible (this keeps the building destroyers out).

[PatrikLundell]

I've got one civilian alert for each level (surface + each of the caverns). However, I have 4 entrances, and so shift which ones I want to clear and which are to be open for new "customers". In addition to that, I try to paint only the things that need attention, so as not to generate needless hauling of junk dropped by slain invaders. I find if fairly easy to just paint and un-paint the zone (although it's a bit too easy to forget to clear the temporary bits after the invaders are routed).

[absimiliard]

Oh no, and after all that effort to get over the whole training axe thing.

I'll cross my fingers for your dorfs.

[Civillain]

Thanks so much for the help everyone! I'm going to give it my best shot if nothing else...