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[deknegt]

I am building a Dwarven castle on the top of the earth with houses and such being build inside a walled off area.

I build a little pond that is protected by a grate so water isn't a problem but those blimey dwarfs keep running outside of the castle to drink and faff about which prevents me from closing the gate.

I also have no outstanding orders like pick up items or gather plants / Chop down trees and such.

Its getting annoying and i am pretty much becoming raged up because in case of a ambush or siege a lot of my population is screwed.

Is there any way to order all my dwarves inside and prevent them from going back outside when traders come around?

[racingspider]

You can restrict them to a burrow that covers the area you want them to remain.

[Grumbledook]

3 other possibilities you may have already tried:
- Make the place you want them to drink a drinking zone/pond under 'i'
- Build wells on the bit you want them to drink from (since I think they'll go the wells by preference)
- Seal the fortress! Only unseal it for traders (except for stinky elves). I guess that means locked doors or a raised drawbridge.
But the warren plan is probably best.

[deknegt]

Lol nevermind guys.

Just as i posted my question a group of baddies decided to siege my fort, my two swordsdwarves decided to take a nap in front of the gate and got utterly decimated before even waking up and then they just happily skipped into the fort and slaughtered everyone.

Next time i will simply just seal the whole damned place up for ever. Because its not worth this shit -_-

[agatharchides]

I usually use burrows and have a couple ways to seal off the fort. Can't be too careful where dorfs are concerned. ;P

[deknegt]

The thing with burrows and me is.

I define the burrow and the dwarves are pretty much sticked to the burrows and won't venture anywhere else e.g. the mines.

So everytime it is safe i need to remove the burrow and set it up again in case of danger.

I am pretty sure i am doing something completely idiotic and needlessly stupid. :/

[agatharchides]

That's way more work than you need to do. If you go to the military screen and look at your (a)lerts, you should see a column with all the burrows on the far right side. Select the alert you want and then go over and hit enter to turn it on. Then, whenever you set CIV to that alert they will respect the burrow and when you want to sound the all-clear you can set CIV back to inactive. 

[Malibu Stacey]

my two swordsdwarves decided to take a nap in front of the gate and got utterly decimated before even waking up

So you've got 1.8 dwarves left?

[deknegt]

That's way more work than you need to do. If you go to the military screen and look at your (a)lerts, you should see a column with all the burrows on the far right side. Select the alert you want and then go over and hit enter to turn it on. Then, whenever you set CIV to that alert they will respect the burrow and when you want to sound the all-clear you can set CIV back to inactive. 

ah, i knew i was doing something completely foolish and intricate whilst it is quite perfectly doable like that.


Is it also possible to set the space in front of the gate as No walk zone?

[agatharchides]

You can set it as a restricted traffic zone (d-o) so they won't go there unless it is the only way to get a job done. I don't think you can outright forbid it short of designating the whole rest of the map as a burrow. But somebody else may know something I don't.

[ral]

See here about civilian alerts and forcing everyone to return to a burrow area immediately:

http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Alerts#Alert_Levels

[Malibu Stacey]

Is it also possible to set the space in front of the gate as No walk zone?

Yes use the traffic designations (d -> o) to restricted where you don't want them to go. That won't completely stop them going there but they will be deterred as it makes their pathing very expensive to go through there. If they're trying to get somewhere & they have no other way to get there they will still path through restricted tiles though (e.g. if a fisherdwarf dies out there & they want to go claim his socks or something). You're probably better off using burrows if you want them to never go somewhere though as dwarves restricted to a burrow will never leave it voluntarily.

Your water drinking problems were simple to fix BTW. Designate a pond which covers the area you want them to drink from and the adjacent tiles then in the orders menu set "dwarves prefer zone drinking".

[deknegt]

Thanks for the link Ral, i will finally be able to have my dwarves do at least a couple of sane things instead of just running around like utter idiots all the time when there is danger.

And M Stacey, thanks for the zone drinking idea, i already had drinking zones set up but of course forgot to set the order to ''drink from the zone''.

Thanks for all the help dudes.