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[TheCoolSideofthePIllow]

Dumb dorfs... They realize the terrain is dangerous and cancel their tasks, but they do this only AFTER falling down the waterfall, breaking their legs and then drowning.

I have lost 5 dwarves trying to cross a river at the head of a waterfall. 2 Woodcutters, trying to cut a tree I accidentally designated on the other side, and 3 rangers/hunters trying to cross to hunt for food. Even though I set a high traffic area in a safe part to cross, and restricted a huge chunk of area on and around the head of the waterfall, they still seem to prefer the lethal route.

The only way I can think of to prevent any more accidents is to create a barrow that takes up the entire map EXCEPT the little island on the other side of the river. However, this makes expanding the growing fort impossible, and I really need to get a forge up now that the only two axes are at the bottom of a river under a waterfall. I am having them build walls around the cliff and a bridge across the river, but I need to keep the rest of the hunters away from it until then. Is there possibly another route to restricting a dangerous area from my dorfs other than the barrow method I mentioned?

[CodexDraco]

A burrow will not prevent dwarves to path trough the waterfall. The only way is walling or flooring that part of the river.

[TheCoolSideofthePIllow]

A burrow will not prevent dwarves to path trough the waterfall. The only way is walling or flooring that part of the river.

Dwarves will not go into areas not designated as the burrow you restrict them to; so if the area itself is not part of the burrow, and the other side of the danger zone is also not part of the burrow, they will not travel through the river since they have no reason to do so.

[Sphalerite]

Dwarves will not go into areas not designated as the burrow you restrict them to;

This is not true.  Burrows do not restrict the movement of dwarves.  Burrows restrict what dwarves can do - items, creatures, and buildings outside the burrow are effectively forbidden to a dwarf assigned to a burrow.  They don't restrict movement at all, and if a dwarf assigned to a burrow has to walk outside the burrow to get from one part of the burrow to another, he'll happily do so.

[GhostDwemer]

Not true. Normal, non alert type burrows only restrict where a dwarf will accept a task. They do not restrict where a dwarf will travel. But it sounds like there will be no jobs on the other side of the river so it might work. However, walling off or flooring over the river back to the point at which the water is consistently 4/7 or greater is even safer. Dwarves will only path through 3/7 or lower water. This is why they happily path across the top of the waterfall, but you get cancel spam after they fall into the deep water.

[Broseph Stalin]

Create a bridge and designate it as high traffic while simultaneously designating the entire river as restricted traffic. Burrow restrictions only effect jobs dwarves have no problem leaving the burrow.

[Martin]

Create a bridge and designate it as high traffic while simultaneously designating the entire river as restricted traffic. Burrow restrictions only effect jobs dwarves have no problem leaving the burrow.

This will stop the woodcutters but not the hunters. The hunters ignore traffic designations when sneaking so it'll reduce their deaths, but not eliminate them - plus anyone trying to flee a flier will still try to path through there.


Personally, I put nice wooden wall grates around areas like waterfalls. They'll get building destroyed from time to time, but the dwarves can still view the waterfall and won't plummet to their death.


If you don't want to ruin the aesthetics, you can also dam the river and remove the river ramps from where the 7/7 water ends so they can't step down into the river at all. Takes more work, but looks nice.

[TheCoolSideofthePIllow]

I got the bridge up now and walled off the area so now it's all safe and good.

The problem now, however, is that I am out of wood and my axes are at the bottom of the river. I am cutting open a cistern to hopefully pull the bodies into a drainable space so I can get the items back. Hopefully before it freezes; it just hit Autumn :X

[Broseph Stalin]

I got the bridge up now and walled off the area so now it's all safe and good.

The problem now, however, is that I am out of wood and my axes are at the bottom of the river. I am cutting open a cistern to hopefully pull the bodies into a drainable space so I can get the items back. Hopefully before it freezes; it just hit Autumn :X

If you have any wood laying around you can make training axes.

[Sabreur]

I got the bridge up now and walled off the area so now it's all safe and good.

The problem now, however, is that I am out of wood and my axes are at the bottom of the river. I am cutting open a cistern to hopefully pull the bodies into a drainable space so I can get the items back. Hopefully before it freezes; it just hit Autumn :X

Let it freeze. Mine the ice to recover the axes.

[Dorfimedes]

I heard somewhere that you can mine items in ice now, they don't just remove themselves from existence any more. You would probably have an easier time waiting until winter.

[GhostDwemer]

I can verify, you can mine items out of ice now.

[Broseph Stalin]

I heard somewhere that you can mine items in ice now, they don't just remove themselves from existence any more. You would probably have an easier time waiting until winter.

That isn't new, I remember having dwarves drown and mining their corpses and equipment when the ocean froze back in .31

[Starver]

Even though I set a high traffic area in a safe part to cross,

Knowing waterfalls as I do, were you trying to get them to cross at a safer 7/7ths deep area, at all?  They'll only ever attempt to path through... 4/7ths, I think... maximum depth (at the point at which they calculate their path), and from your more recent posts that now you have a bridge, it doesn't sound like there was anywhere to cross except the dangerous lip of the waterfall[1].

...and restricted a huge chunk of area on and around the head of the waterfall,

Restricted as in "Restricted priority"?  Much apart from burrows (as already explaining) not affecting the intermediate pathing of jobs (although by restricting the woodcutters to burrows without the unnoticed accidentally set-for-woodcutting tree, and the hunters probably to burrows that are only on the near of the river), Restricted Priority just makes it more costly to path through, not "never go here".  If it's the only route (and I still think it was) to try to path through the fluctuating low-water-level edging at the top of the waterfall, then the pathing solution going through that Restricted Priority area will still be as dangerous as without.


The quickest way I've heard of to prevent inadvertent nature walks across similarly dangerous rivers is to designate a floor or three to be constructed on the near-side bank, directly above the ramps that might at some point have formed part of the path down onto the river-bed.  These days, with ramps alongside all channelled-down surface water areas, the aforementioned floors (which will safely be built only from the top of the bank, not the bottom), the ramps underneath will be rendered unpathable (directly, in either direction) with the bank-side you have just extended, and thus no valid path at all will be experienced.

If you do have access to the other side, because of seasonal water fluctuations (e.g. freezing upstream at the source, zero/delayed freezing over the waterfall so that it drains away) then as soon as you have access to the other bank (and it is safe to do so) set another lot of bank-extending walls from the other side.  Or just make your bridge (whether the literal building, or composed of successive floor-constructions) all the way across the river at this waterfall/cliff-edge location from the start, thus covering up both sides' ramps.  (Modify according to your local circumstances, of course, because there might actually need to be a much wider length of bank protecting if the low-water values extend well up the river basin, and a bridge only at the end might end up attracting builders across the shallows that you had hoped to avoid.)


[1] Which also, as it goes above and below the 4..5/7ths dividing line, or whatever the point of decision might be, would have had even chances of causing travel-cancellation upon about to attempt to move into a now-too-deep bit.