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[pulsusego]

I'm not exactly asking for help with this, as I doubt it really can be helped short of boarding up the entire problem with floor tiles, but instead I'm sharing an idiotic, enraging, and, in retrospect, amusing little story.

I've been building my fortress for a year now, and have accidentally let in beasts from the caverns, which my brave dwarves fended off with crossbow, axe, and pick, until it was boarded up for good. I've been attacked by vicious wild badgers and ravens galore, as well as a lion for some reason, and held them off valiantly. There has been loss, though; 5 of my dwarves have been killed by... a waterfall.
The deathtoll includes;
-both of my former fisherman (I quit bothering with a fishing industry after that.)
-my almost legendary woodcutter
-my replacement woodcutter
-and for some godawful reason, my cook.

This is probably the toughest adversary I have ever faced in this game, believe it or not, because no matter what I do, the silly dwarves seem to see the 2 and 3 deep water at the edge of the waterfall as passable terrain, and attempt to a. drink water from there (when I run out of booze, hence my latest ragequit as my legendary +5 miner drowned himself with my only pick when i didnt realize wine production had ground to a halt) and b. pass to the other side of the map by the waterfall, instead of the conveniently built bridge i have.. I'm going to wall it off soon, but as of right now i don't have the resources. So until I can, I guess I'm just saving a lot, and preparing to get angry and throw things as my most valuable suicidal idiots dwarves kill themselves.

[Gigaz]

How can you "not have the ressources"?  It takes about 10 stones and 3 days ingame time for a mason to build a wall on one side of river that prevents unnecessary accidents.

[pulsusego]

Less so a lack of resources, moreso my military consists of a guy with a wooden training axe, and a hunter (albeit a very good crossbow user) and i need to improve it. Not to mention my difficult food supply since a gremlin flooded my farms by pulling a random lever, and the lack of bedrooms (still, after an entire year ingame..)

Basically, ive hit a lot of bad luck this game ;P and still need to get my fortress up and running and sustainable before i can worry about the wall. I'm honestly expecting to get slaughtered in my first siege at this point.

*edit
and this a why i love this game because hopelessness = !!FUN!!

*edit again
oh i see what you mean, just building the small wall to solve the problem. but that would look funny, and isn't in the dwarfy master-craftsmanship spirit. Once i start building a wall its going to have to be the entire wall for my fortress.

[Kamamura]

oh i see what you mean, just building the small wall to solve the problem. but that would look funny, and isn't in the dwarfy master-craftsmanship spirit.

I am totally with you on this one. Silly walls and railings are for elves - drowning by matching into a waterfall, on the other hand, is uber dwarfy. If you can, make them march in a column, and try to get some decent music for the event too.

[Loud Whispers]

Silly Pulsusego, if your Dwarves like water, you don't have enough booze!

[Also this thread again]

[pulsusego]

Yeah I've got more booze to satisfy them, but they still attempt to use the waterfall as a bridge instead of using the actual bridge i built as a, well, bridge. Nothin to do but hope -important- dwarves don't get killed until i've got the current jobs completed. shouldn't be too insanely difficult, as only about 6 or 7 of my current 13 dwarves matter (well, matter very much anyway), thats about a 50/50 chance. Wish me luck~!

[Finn]

Yeah I've got more booze to satisfy them, but they still attempt to use the waterfall as a bridge instead of using the actual bridge i built as a, well, bridge. Nothin to do but hope -important- dwarves don't get killed until i've got the current jobs completed. shouldn't be too insanely difficult, as only about 6 or 7 of my current 13 dwarves matter (well, matter very much anyway), thats about a 50/50 chance. Wish me luck~!

If they are actually using it as a bridge to get somewhere else then simple traffic settings on the river bank and bridge will fix the problem.  If they are going there to drink because it is the closest shallow water source then you need to make another shallow water source.

[Garath]

If they are actually using it as a bridge to get somewhere else then simple traffic settings on the river bank and bridge will fix the problem.  If they are going there to drink because it is the closest shallow water source then you need to make another shallow water source.

I have no clue how that rumor got started. If there is no alternative route, dwarfs happily path through restricted areas. How it got started is probably that if you have a bridge, higher walkway or other way to cross the river marked as high traffic zone and the waterfall edge as restricted, they'll prefer the safe passage. If you only have the waterfall edge, setting it as restricted will do as much as trying to divert a storm using a fan. good luck

[Dorfimedes]

Hah, I've had a bit of trouble with the water fall at my site too, OP. I walled it off in desperation, but in hindsight there would have been an easier and less drastic way to solve the problem. Simply build a bridge a little upstream from the spot your dwarves are trying to path through, then use traffic designations to restrict the deadly fall and make using the safer bridge preferred. It might not stop deaths from dwarfs trying to dodge into the river, but it should curb the total accidents sharply. If you're in a cold biome you could probably dam the river completely, and never suffer another death again. Or possibly redirect the river into the caverns.

A funner option in the long-term is to teach your dwarves to swim. If they're adequate in swimming they should stop drowning as soon as they recover from the fall.

[terko]

I thought it's well known already that the first thing to do on a map with waterfall: floor it over or wall the tiles that 'invite' to cross the river here.

[SirAaronIII]

To get them to not drink, you could put a water source zone somewhere safer and then set them to only drink from zones in the orders menu. I'm not sure how closely they follow those, though.

[Old Greg]

Traffic designations generally work for me, but I've resorted to a more concrete solution in my fort. I've made a burrow that includes everything except the waterfall area and assigned all my dwarves to it... It's a bit work-intensive, but they'll completely ignore it for the purposes of pathing.

[thegoatgod_pan]

Traffic designations generally work for me, but I've resorted to a more concrete solution in my fort. I've made a burrow that includes everything except the waterfall area and assigned all my dwarves to it... It's a bit work-intensive, but they'll completely ignore it for the purposes of pathing.

This.

It doesn't have to involve the burrow--traffic designations are your friend.  Mark the bridge you built and two wide (safe) paths on either side of the bridge as high speed. Mark the waterfall and everything near the waterfall restricted.  Now pathing will be calculated to take significantly less steps across the bridge and hundreds of steps across the waterfall. Pathing being king your dwarves will stay well enough away. it is d-o-pick the zone, if you've never done it before

Edit: and make a well for the drowners!

[pulsusego]

Wow, I always use pathing restrictions, and yet I forgot I could use them here. nevertheless, I tried it, and it would have worked perfectly, if not for the invasion of carp..

Not so much an invasion as they had already been in the streams on the lower end of the waterfall, but they didn't bother my dwarves from there. But somehow they migrated to the upper part (I assume from spawning onto the map from the river's edge) and are now attacking all dwarves who use my convenient little bridge. I've not lost anyone to it yet, but eventually someone with a higher dodge skill will give the cross a shot... I need a real bridge.

[Corai]

I'd wall it off.



And Dorfimedes, defaq avatar?