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[dwarfed one]

Zombie dragon came to stay motionlessly in front of tower above fortress entrance. Marksdwarfs couldn't shoot him as he too close to wall, so I designated dig up small room in the hill nearby and carve fortifications. Miners did they part of work well and left rest to engravers. Soon I found engravers want to polish wall only from left to right and up to down. In my situation left wall is outside and facing dragon. Surely, they want to polish it exactly there.
I marked wide restriction zone around hill and high traffic road to that place from inside, but it doesn't help. Moreover, "only soldiers could go outside" was set and engravers danced around second entrance till I locked it. Only then problem was solved.

Does traffic zones works? Or "smooth wall" direction selection too strict?

[Exponent]

Traffic zones are working as intended.  Unfortunately, short of physically blocking off access to a tile, no tile is truly 100% restricted from being viewed as passable by a dwarf when it determines a destination and a path to get there.  "Only soldiers go outside" doesn't prevent a dwarf from picking a destination and path that goes outside.  But dwarves will cancel their job if they do happen to go outside while following a chosen path.  And restricted traffic zones only very strongly discourage a dwarf from walking through them, but if a restricted traffic zone is the only way to get to the destination (or it is the destination), then dwarves will gladly walk through it.

The complaint is understandable, but given the nature of the problem, fixes are more likely to be considered as part of a larger suggestion (smarter dwarf AI, give player manual control of build direction, et cetera) rather than bug fixes.

[Raumkraut]

I've found that dwarves will select the square they'll use to perform a task (construct a wall, etc.) regardless of any traffic preferences on the surrounding tiles. Once the destination has been chosen they plan the route, whereupon the traffic preferences come into play.
I've also found that they will often (though not always) pick the closest square to their current location when resuming construction of a previously suspended wall, but use the standard preference sequence (ie. starting from the west) when initiating. This doesn't help with engraving tasks though.

It would seem most logical for a dwarf to just plan a route to the tile in question, and stop one square short...
*pling*
...except that wouldn't work for tasks which can't be done diagonally. Dag nabbit.
Should've made the game hex-based.

[Draco18s]

Should've made the game hex-based.

No.  Making it hex-based only removes two of the orthagonal directions: E and W or N and S.  You STILL have 4 diagonals to deal with, they just happen to be at 30 degrees instead of 45.

[Raumkraut]

Should've made the game hex-based.

No.  Making it hex-based only removes two of the orthagonal directions: E and W or N and S.  You STILL have 4 diagonals to deal with, they just happen to be at 30 degrees instead of 45.

No. Making it hex-based removes any need for distinction between orthogonal and diagonal neighbours. If two tiles are connected at all, then they're connected by a face. In this instance, it means all neighbour tiles would be equally suitable building points.

That's why I'm going to make my own hex-based DF game. With blackjack. And hookers. In fact, forget the blackjack. Ah, forget the whole thing. I'm going back to playing DF.

[Gnomechomsky]

A way that DOES seem to work if you absolutely need (say) a wall constructed from one particular square: designate the wall, and also designate a wall on every adjacent square except the one you want the builder to stand on.  Immediately suspend all the other walls, but don't remove them.  The builder won't stand on them.

Once he's done with the one wall you want built, use X to clear the others out.