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[Lungfish]

Someone, unaware of burrows, was suggesting this as a way to call in the dwarves during an attack. It got me thinking of how cool town bells are.
It would be cool if you needed a town bell in order to alert dwarves to get to their burrows. It solves the question of how the hell Urist McBeekeeper on one side of the map knows to run to Burrow 3. And it adds another element of urgency to the game. Although I suppose dwarves might be able to yell out to eachother, but this is just the first time I ever thought of dwarves having voices; despite having "conversation skills," it seems the only talkers are traders and diplomats.
 
You should be able to designate burrows at any time, but perhaps in the military screen it could tell you that you need a town bell in order to activate the civilian alert.

[Max White]

hey all I've only been playing for a week or 2, i love DF its really addictive to say the least, the only thing that keeps bothering me when i play, is the stupidity of dwarves when you get sieged, now i know you can pause the game and try to cancel orders. (even though i'm only a week old noob i know that the therapist tool is pretty much mandatory).

basically theres a reason i started this thread to put my voice in there, to make sieges less of a slaughter fest when you have 3-5 dwarves out cutting wood or fishing. or better yet merely hauling. would it not be a good idea to have some kind of town bell you can construct that, when you ring it, any dwarves out in the wilderness will run back to a preset zone.

this would really make the tedium of pausing the game whipping up the therapist and scanning around crazily to see if any dwarves are stuck outside and doomed to die.

don't get me wrong i'm still a scrub i have much to learn i'm sure, yet the only way i've been able to prolong a game so far is to completely wall off the outside and try to open it up for caravans and migrants. most of the time i find the waves of goblins just aren't worth contending with and best left alone to play with my moat and myriad of traps. yet this idea I've had would maybe save some lives. Also guess that this has probably been suggested (since theres 400+ pages woot), or there is a way to prevent this being a problem, yet it seems to be the only problem i have, farming up stocks and then turning into a turtle fortress is pretty much the only way i see of out lasting sieges. at least until you can setup a half decent military force. for lols i tried taking on a wave of goblins and trolls with my 2 squads of iron clad warriors which turned into a pretty nasty bloodbath. it was hilarious tho

Thread is here. Read it to answer all your questions.

[Lungfish]

yes, well, it was locked. And anyway I don't have questions about the use of burrows, but the suggestion that it be required to build a town bell in order to get the most functionality from the burrows system. Given the extreme value of the burrows system to avoid being totally slaughtered, perhaps there could be a dwarf assigned a miner noble role of Fortress Crier who alerts all the dwarves to get to their burrows, but the bell would be necessary for distant or above-ground dwarves.

[Max White]

yes, well, it was locked.

Was it? I wonder why! Maybe it means something, some sort of lesson perhaps? A lesson that may very well be applied here, to this thread.

[Granite26]

yes, well, it was locked.

Was it? I wonder why! Maybe it means something, some sort of lesson perhaps? A lesson that may very well be applied here, to this thread.

Chill

The reason the threads are left open is so that people can add new aspects to the ideas, flesh them out a bit, and add their own spin.  Town bells are a pretty popular suggestion, but I'm not sure I've seen one that has integrated the reality of burrows into it.

[Lungfish]

Uh, so anyway, all the other threads relating to this idea are 6 months old or older.

It might be nice, maybe as a future interface option, to have a new structure for announcing different alerts, though.

This task could be passed around by word of mouth in a small fort.  A Manager or Military Commander could be made to order everyone to general quarters, for example.  This, on a larger fort might become worrisomely slow, so an alert bell(s) could be used instead.

The constructed structure could have options on it to trigger different alerts, and would be loud (at least as loud as placing furniture is now) with the intention of passing the information to dwarves (in a less than immediate fashion) that they should move to particular burrows.  It would also possibly wake sleeping dwarves (who are entitled to negative thoughts, fatigue, etc.)

I could see fun uses for this, too, not regarding military threats.  An impetuous manager wants things built right now, so wake all the dwarves up to get to their workshops in time for the caravan!

I like the idea.

Please search the Suggestions forum before posting.  This idea has already been suggested many times:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=27570.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=5097.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=35846.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=5968.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=33332.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=5220.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3587.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=5555.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3116.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3993.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3723.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3607.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=6079.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3436.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=2841.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=6372.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=27631.0

The closely related concept of alarm traps is also a popular suggestion:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=57719.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59608.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=31216.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=5890.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=4050.0

Spoiler: tags (click to show/hide)

bell gong horn drum alarm alert siege attack ambush civilian safe safety quarters stations trap plate lever ring mechanism

As Footkerchief points out, this has been proposed in one way or another before. In many of them, Capntastic lets the OP know (with amusing regularity) that it's been proposed already. A lot of those threads predate burrows or are by people who weren't aware of burrows. I am aware that this was a weekly/monthly suggestion.

The burrow system works great, but I'd love it if a dwarf pulling a lever is what brought everyone to a burrow, or a dwarf "spreading the word" instead of simply setting the alert and communicating magically and instantly to all the dwarves everywhere on the map.

Bell towers are also inherently awesome. Maybe should even be a requirement to become a capitol.

[Granite26]

What, you didn't read the entire backlog of suggestions before posting your own?

Capn is kinda the keeper of the orthodoxy, which is great when people are suggesting ridiculous things that totally break the vision of the game, but not so great when you've got one tiny change that would make everything unicorns and rainbows (Urist likes galena for it's majestic horn)