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[Vhorthex]

Hello fellow dorfs!

A good dwarf recently told me about using alerts and burrows to have civilians automatically go hide whenever the military would be activated (based on alert status).

Just to make sure i understand it correctly. If I set "Alert 3" as the civilian alert. And select "Burrow 1" for that alert. When I set a squad to "Alert 3" will that trigger the burrow assignement? Just want to make sure exactly as to how the civilian alert kicks in.

Thanks in advance!

[AdeleneDawner]

You will have to set your civilian alert separately from your military alert, but it's just an extra keypress or two on the same screen. (The civilian alert level is marked in the first column on the relevant screen; the military alert levels are in the second column.)

[Fredd]

You do have to set the Civ alert from the military screen. But when you created that alert, it opened up a new menu on each squads scheduling screen. You can assign what you want them to do during that alert. Have archers, melee troops rush to their fighting positions. Just assign the same order for each squad, each month of that yearly alert schedule. The archers defend a tower, the melee guard a position. When problems happen, go to military screen, activate civ alert, then go to squad screen, activate each squad to that alert. Alerts have priority, over previous orders.
 Giving the same order each month(copy/paste) just works.This is DF, lol. When the alert is deactivated, they go back to scheduled programming, active/inactive training schedule,and the civvies go back to work

[Vhorthex]

Hmm...

I think then I can't do what I wanted.

What I wanted to do is create a "Danger" Alert. Which activates my military, and sends my non military units to a specific burrow.

Would that be possible, by the alert being set to the squad? If you open the squad menu, and select a squad. You can toggle it's "schedule status" with "s". If the civ alert would be set to "Danger".

When all my squadrons are set to inactive all the dwarfs can run around. But if I switch my squad to Danger, then they run inside.

Is that possible? Or is it truly based on the schedule menu? Rather then the alert menu, in which you only select which "Schedule" triggers the "civ alert"?

Sorry if i'm being confusing, i'm confused too. D:

[AdeleneDawner]

You can definitely do that. You'll just need to tell each of your squads individually, plus your civilians, to use that alert level, rather than being able to tell everyone at once. And since you tell them all from the same screen, it's not that big of a deal.

You do have to use the 'alert' screen rather than the 'schedule' screen, though, to set which alert the groups are using.

Breaking it down a bit:

First, make the burrow you want to have your civilians retreat to when there's danger. Name it something useful.

To make the 'danger' alert level, press 'm', then 'a', to get to the alert screen. Then press 'c' to add an alert and 'N' to name it. Once you've named your alert, press the left-arrow twice to get to the column with the list of burrows, select the burrow you want your civvies to stay in, and press enter. To set what your military will do on that alert, press 's' to go to the squads screen, then press '*' until the heading says 'Squad Schedules:' and the name of your new alert. From there you can set up the orders for each of your squads for that alert, as usual.

When you want to activate that alert, press 'm' and then 'a' to get to the alert screen, select the alert, press enter to set your civilians to that alert, then press right once and go down the list of squads, pressing enter on each one to set the squad to that alert. When the danger is over, use the same steps with the 'inactive' or 'active/training' alerts to set your dwarves back to their regular schedules.

It's also worth noting that you can mix and match: Say you have two entrances, one of which is building-destroyer-resistant and the other of which isn't. Your main danger alert might send three squads to each entrance. But then if if turns out that there are no building destroyers, you might want to let the dwarves guarding that entrance go back to training. You can do that without disturbing the dwarves at the other entrance by just setting the three squads for the entrance in question back to 'active/training'.

[Vhorthex]

Ahhh!

Ok, so just to make sure I get it.

The 'Civ alert' tag that you put in the Military>Alert menu, is basically setting all civilians to THAT alert. And if there is a burrow assignment they will go there, if there isn't, they will simply go wherever on the map.

Just focusing on the civs.

If I make both a "Danger" and "peace" alert. (Peace has no burrow assignment, and Danger has one.)

Then from the Military>Alert Menu, selecting peace would flag the Civ Alert to "Peace" and so all my dwarfs will roam freely.

And if I select Danger, then the burrow assignment kicks in.

So the military has nothing to do with it, I could set my army to another alert or schedule, and my civs will always remain on the alert I flagged in the military> alert menu. Right?

I'm pretty sure i finally got it!

Thanks!

EDIT:

Although, what takes precedence, the Squads Schedule? Or the manual setting of the squad in the Military Alert Menu?...

[AdeleneDawner]

You got it, yep!

As to squad schedules, they're alert-specific. That's why you have to press * on the schedule screen to switch alerts. I think it defaults to having you set the active/training alert, so if you just use 'inactive' and 'active/training' it's pretty intuitive, but when you start adding more alerts you have to go in and set them up specifically to make everything work how you want it. There's nothing to overrule anything else at this level - each squad can only have one alert at a time ('active/training' and 'inactive' count as alerts).

Giving squads specific orders, like 'move here' or 'kill this monster' will overrule any alert scheduling, though, if that's what you meant.

[UnrealJake]

My burrow that I assign civs to in times of danger is most of my fort, however I have moved it a little away from the bridge, as they tend to leave the burrow, realise they're not allowed out there, and repeat. "Hey, I'm not allowed here! Back inside!.... What was I doing? Oh, I need to pick up that log! Hey, I'm not allowed here! Back inside!"

[LoSboccacc]

what happens to dwarves that are assigned to a burrow via the burrow menu when militari alerts restrict civilians to another set of burrows?

[AdeleneDawner]

In .12 and .18, they ignored their normal burrow assignment and used the military-alert burrow - meaning that your mason who was usually limited to a specific corner of the fort could roam freely through the entire safe area.

Military alert burrows seem to work differently in .19 and above, though, so that may have changed. A more obvious change is that while dwarves won't take jobs that involve things outside the military burrow, they will freely walk through un-burrowed areas to get from one part of the burrow to another, if that's fastest - they've always done that with civilian burrow assignments, but it used to be that they would try not to set foot outside an alert-based burrow at all. Hopefully this is a bug that will be fixed soonish, but it does seem to be an indication that Toady messed around with that part of the code, and other things might have changed.