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[ShadowLop]

While Toady is working on new combat AI/Morale/etc systems, would it be too much to ask to have entities consider an area "safe" and attempt to run to that area when threatened, instead of directly away from the threat?

I cannot stress how often I've seen a dwarf run directly away from a dozen lashers, only to get killed after 10 minutes of follow-the-leader because they were too stupid to run back into the wide-open fort (with a bazillion traps the enemy has to walk over to get in...)

In Adventure mode, civvies would consider their towns/houses/forts safe, while bandits would consider their camps/commanders safe, while otheres...Idunno, whatever.
In Fortress mode, dwarves would consider whatever their assigned burrow at the time safe, or if not assigned, the dining room instead.

A safety mechanism to ensure that they don't attempt to run through the enemy to the fort would be necessary though, perhaps if the pathfinding route passes within 4-5 squares of an enemy?

[King Mir]

If it's an automatic instinct, then it makes sense for dwarves to run away in the wrong direction. If it's a conscious flee decision, then I agree that they should try to run toward the fort.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Of course, if the threat is something like a squad of goblin lashers or a hydra, and it's directly between the fortress and the dwarf...well, the A Note to Urist thread would be filled with notes of how dwarves ran directly past enemies to reach the fortress instead of staying out of range until the trap got them.
Dwarves should prefer running into the fort over running in random directions, but even if not panicking (in which case all bets are off, of course), a dwarf should be able to realise that running directly away from enemies is sometimes the best option.

[Itsdavyjones]

I think that this idea isn't that bad at all. I have had forts where my dwarfs get slaughtered because they ran away and not to the fort where there are traps, and when the goblins finally made it to the fort, most of my dwarfs were dead. The fort survived, but lost 50% of population, only to fall when a siege came.

[SuicideJunkie]

The best is when a Dorf opens the door to go outside, spots a gobin on his left, and runs out of the fort to the right instead of stepping back inside.
Then because he cancelled his job, more fools rush to do the same thing until the fort is empty.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I'm not sure if it's that bad, but I use bridges as gates.

[Sabreur]

Agreed. I've lost track of how many times I've lost a dwarf because he ran away from an ambush and ran right past the wide open gate before continuing to flee towards the nice open ground in front of the goblin archers.