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[Jwguy]

This has happened twice, now, to great pains and annoyance. Each goblin siege that comes, I switch over to my orders screen, and switch on "Only Soldiers can go outside". Sadly enough, the result is that every single one of my civilian dwarves congregate outside of my fortresses' main gate. I had thought it might have just been because of items on the ground, and so I turned off all the resource gathering chores, which was ineffective, as well. To this point, I turned all dwarves to recruits, and assigned the civilian-recruits inside, way below, and my military units inside, just in front of the gate. The Dwarves still ignore these orders and go outside freely, despite all the announcements saying "Forbidden area". I even tried to mark all items outside as forbidden, but no dice.

At the end of it all, I end up losing about 20 more dwarves than I should have. This is entirely ridiculous.

[Jay]

They don't know it's outside until they actually get there.
So they go outside, and they realize "Oh cog, I'm outside!"
Workaround: Exterior courtyard BEFORE main gate.

[Jwguy]

That's the thing, though. They go out, then get the announcement (Forbidden Area), and then they continue going further outside

[Calvin]

Build a drawbridge at your main gate.


Close it.

[Jwguy]

I have a drawbridge, and it does indeed have the mechanisms in place to do that, though it's also attached to a small area which is designed as part of a complex trap. However, even if I did this, it would keep me from being able to harvest trees and plants, both important to my dwarves.

[Calvin]

Don't you not want your dwarves to get hurt during the siege?


Freaking put a lockdown on your fortress.


Make like Fallout, and be a vault.

[Jwguy]

You seem to misunderstand the entire situation, terribly.

For one, many dwarves can be/are outside the fortress when the siege begins, and therefore, I usher them all inside at the time. I have military units that are fully capable of destroying the siege, in both skill and armor, as well as many, many traps able to destroy the siege-layers. I also have a failsafe mechanism that will cause any potential dangers to be trapped, and dropped into a pit if somehow the enemy manages to survive being assailed beyond the first push. Locking the place down while they're out there contradicts keeping them safe, and even if I was to consider that, it's a terrible idea considering that as many that come in, more go out for whatever reason, despite the orders.

Also, Locking the fort down does two very dumb things: One, it keeps me from harvesting wood and plants, whereas I do have large stockpiles of each in case such an event occurs, of course, but they are still important to my fortress, as hunting is dangerous considering the odd biome around it, and fishing turns up a bit, but not enough to sustain the fort. Two, unlike in Fallout, I doubt goblins leave after an amount of time, so locking down the fort is one of the most ridiculous things you could do, especially when you can easily destroy the invaders.

These two things make such a suggestion ill-suited and short-sighted. I appreciate your effort, but please think over the entire situation before suggesting things. I am also more interested in reporting and why the dwarves ignore the "Stay indoors" and "Soldiers only can go outdoors" orders, rather than anything else.

[Rafal99]

'Stay inside' order works only (and still not always) if all your dwarves are inside. If someone is outside and picks a job, then after a few ticks he realizes that "By Armok! I am outside!", then calcels job, then becomes idle, then picks another job and the process repeats. This means that switching to 'Stay inside' causes all your dwarves who are outside to freeze, because they can't do anything cause everything around them is outside.

Yes it is a bug. And needs to be fixed. And we need something better than 'Stay inside' anyways...

[TrombonistAndrew]

This is related to my seeds under my floodgates problem I mentioned in another thread.

If all jobs which are outside didn't get put in work queues while outside is forbidden, dwarves wouldn't go outside.

I did end up having a dwarf who was "on break" go wandering outside, and suddenly he sees goblins and starts to run away from them . . . fortunately he was a bit faster than them, and my military grabbed the giblin's attention shortly. But I think that the dwarf wandering out "on break" is an intended feature.

[Jwguy]

I agree. Perhaps there should be a warning bell of sorts. When rung, all dwarves will head to a designated "Shelter Zone". Suspending all tasks in a hidden mask until the Warning bell is set to "All Clear".

Hopefully, that won't turn out like "Pull the Lever" without designated medic/pullers.

[Veroule]

My strategy involves a small amount of modding.  I replace the BENIGN tag with TRAINABLE on all the common domestic animals.  This makes them agressive to enemies.

I do not use a meeting area, as meeting areas cause the animals to congregrate as well.  I also do not assign any sort of party room (well/statues meeting area) as that will also draw the animals.  This lets the animals spread out accrossed the landscape and function both as early warning and distraction.

When the animals indicate a problem I dispatch my military, and the rest of my dwarves continue going about thier business.  A siege at my fortresses tends to be just another day for my dwarves.  In fact they often don't even notice.

Stay indoors definitely needs some improvement for it to be usable.

[Hamster Man]

I believe this bug relates to your stairs into the fort being designated as "outside" so they are unable to go to them. Haven't heard a reliable fix to this yet.

My only suggestion is to draft them all and station them inside. They should stay inside then once you undraft them.

[Captain Failmore]

This happened to me repeatedly during my latest fortress as well.

As an aside, the dwarfs also ignored pretty much all of my traffic restrictions.

[(name here)]

I've never had this problem with my dwarves and the stay inside order.

If you don't have an indoor meeting area, they'll either freeze in place or route to the initial site of your wagon when idle.

[Footkerchief]

You can also get problems with "stay inside" if you have items designated for dumping in ANOTHER inside area that requires them to cross an outside area.  http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=24070.msg267794#msg267794