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[Charlemagne]

I seem to recall, in a much earlier version of DF years ago, being able to give my dwarves an order to stay inside, which would cause them to all run to an interior area and could act as a sort of "run, goblins is coming!" command. Since I've come back to the game recently either it has been moved, I've forgotten how it worked, or it never existed at all. Does anyone know if that can still be done and if so how I might go about doing it?

[smjjames]

Three words, Civillian Alert Burrow.

Make a burrow of whatever size you want (I made one covering anyplace other than where I don't want my dwarves to be during such an alert), then go to military screen, then alerts, make a new alert and then while you have the new alert selected, mark the burrow that you want your dwarves to be in for said alert. When you want to scramble your civillians inside, just go to the military screen and mark that alert as being the current civillian alert state.

I also played years ago, so I know exactly what you mean.

[Brewster]

Create the burrow
 Hit w to go to the burrow menu and a to add a new burrow.
 Then hit enter to define it.
 Hit n to name it, I'd call it "Inside".
 Then hit Enter to start a rectangle and enter again to finish it, just like designating areas to dig. Except that you can start on one level and end on another and it includes that rectangle on all of the levels, inclusive. Handy. Make as many rectangles as you need. Note that the burrow symbol will only show in areas that you've dug out, but the burrow will actually extend into the unrevealed rocks, so you can still dig in those areas.
 Then hit ESC a couple of times to get out of the burrow menus.

Create the alert
 Hit m to bring up the military menus, and a for alerts.
 Now c to add an alert and N to give it a catchy name.
 Now move the cursor to the far right column, which should have the burrow you just created, and hit Enter to associate that burrow with your new alert. You'll see a green A next to the burrow when you have that alert selected.
 Then hit ESC a couple of times to get out of the military menus.

Activate the alert when invaders arrive.
 Hit m to bring up the military menus, and a for alerts.
 Now move the cursor back to your new alert and hit Enter, and you should see a green [CIV] move next to it.

Congratulations, your civilians are now confined to your burrow.
 Watch any civilians who were outside drop what they were doing and come running back inside. Yay.
 When the fight is over, come back and select "Inactive" and hit Enter to cancel the alert and let your civilians back out of the burrow.

That's all there is to it.
Note: dwarves will not leave the burrow for food or drink, so your safe room may become a death sentence.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Civilian_alert

[smjjames]

Note: dwarves will not leave the burrow for food or drink, so your safe room may become a death sentence.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Civilian_alert

Unless of course the burrow contains food and drink.

[Maw]

Unless of course the burrow contains food and drink.

Yes, but that implies simple logic.

Denizens of Bay12 are not known for the application of simple logic.

Convoluted, twisting, over-engineered, multi-chained, unnecessary, over-indulged, ultimately ineffective logic (with gaping holes you could drive a 9 tile wagon through) - yes,

...but not simple logic. 

[jaxler]

Just let natural selection take place.

[Baijiu]

I set a burrow, the dwarves respect it most of the time... But during a siege or invasion, after a few dwarves or enemies die... everyone runs outside to collect corpses and items. I do have gathering refuse from outside enabled? Does that make a difference in whether or not dwarves will respect burrows?

Edit: Nope. Didn't make a difference. I set the alert, opened my draw bridge and the civilian stragglers outside tried to run inside... and a bunch of dwarves ran outside to collect stuff and got slaughtered by goblins. >_<

[WhimsyWink]

we can 'rectangle' a mass forbid, can't we?  Likely a pain over a multiple z exterior.

[greycat]

I set a burrow, the dwarves respect it most of the time... But during a siege or invasion, after a few dwarves or enemies die... everyone runs outside to collect corpses and items.

Dwarves will not gather the dead, or their fat loot, if these things are outside of the CIVilian alert burrow.  If you're seeing them do such a thing, then you haven't defined the burrow correctly, or you haven't activated it correctly.

[Baijiu]

The burrow IS working though. I have some farmlands outside the burrow and when the alert is set, crops sit outside there and rot. But dwarves will still leave the burrow to gather their dead and some items.

I'm so perplexed by this. I'm using Masterwork, if that's an issue.

Edit: Another weird thing... The dwarves will only gather new corpses or items, that were made after the alert was set. They'll ignore corpses and items from before as usual.

[PkGamer]

A easy way to make sure the dwarfs stay inside and have food and drink and don't run outside collecting stuff is to create multiple 2 tiles wide corridors(to prevent traffic jams) and place doors.You order dwarfs to the burrow then you forbid passage through the doors and remove the burrow.Oh and hope no one got stuck outside.

[Garath]

you can also set items and bodies to be forbidden on death. That may be annoying sometimes, so you can change it back when the siege/assault is over

[Merendel]

you can also set items and bodies to be forbidden on death. That may be annoying sometimes, so you can change it back when the siege/assault is over

Not really that hard to do a mass reclaim over the site of a battle when its time to clean up, and maybe your hospital depending on how things went.  As long as you dont let enemies go and touch your civies in bad places you shouldnt have alot of random auto forbiden equipment scattered outside of where the battle happend.

[Garath]

I was actually trying to accomodate those people who might find it annoying, and tere is always someone. However, I was thinking about deaths not related to an attack. Starvation, accidents, stark raving mad, etc, even old age, all need to be manually claimed if you keep the settings. Some people may think that annoying. Those can turn the orders back to the original state after the emergency is done