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[AncientEnemy]

1. Snatchers keep making off with my fortresses kids, I don't get how. My military spars right at the entrance to my fort can the snatchers somehow sneak past them? that's the only way in and it's stuffed with like 10 soldiers and any given time

2. how do you watch the specifics of what an individual dwarf is doing? i keep reading these stories about how "oh my legendary so and so ran into the middle of 5 goblins and stabbed 3 in the heart before she got shot in the neck"... how do you get such detail of what's going on in fights or with individual dwarfs. whenever i see a fight all i can really do is look at the survivors afterward and see what injuries they have, and the dead ones are just dead (and i have no idea who killed who or how)

[Mook]

1.)  Kids in DF are really annoying if you want to keep them safe, especially the younger ones.  Younger kids tend to follow on the heels of their mothers constantly, so if you have a woodcutter with kids, then the kids usually end up following her out into the wilderness.  The same applies for haulers with kids who have to venture outside for something.  I've noticed most kids get snatched while the kids are wandering around outside.  The good news is that the older the children are, the less they will follow their parents.  At this point you can keep them fairly safe unless you remove a floor or something outside of the fort.

What I would suggest is that you locate the dwarves with young children, and assign war dogs to them.  Kids and dogs move at about the same speed, so while the dog won't be able to protect the mother very well, it will generally be close to the kids in case they get snatched.  The only problem with that is that if the dog isn't close enough to reveal the snatcher, then the kid would still be taken.

2.)  By using v, and then w, you can check the wounds of individual dwarves.  A lot of people download an extension which allows you to see injury spam (as in adventure mode) in fortress mode.  I'm not sure exactly which extension, though.

For my next world I'm planning on removing the snatcher and ambusher tags from goblins altogether.  I'd rather have additional sieges than random ambushers who drop my FPS constantly.

[Ivefan]

1. kid went outside, goblin snatched.

2. you need to look in legends

[greggbert]

Make sure that the entrance to the outside portion of your fortress is guarded by a long 3 tile wide hallway (wall on each side) with animals chained at the entrance.  That way your dogs will detect the snatchers before they have a chance to get inside your fortress.

[AncientEnemy]

2. you need to look in legends

care to elaborate?

[Topace3k]

Rather than using legends, what you want to do is follow fights closely and pause often to check on each combatant's status.  Use v-->w as stated before to see wounds and status.  v-->i can show you inventory, which can also be important in fights.  Especially when you can see your dwarf has three bolts stuck in his head.  During a fight, you can also use the period button as a 'one step' key to advance the shortest time period possible every time you press it.  Tapping it rapidly results in slow motion combat.

Edit:  Oh, and you can also check the what kills your individual dwarves have by going to their profile and pressing k.

[numerobis]

Another reason for kids to end up outside is if their parent is indoors, but is only separated from the outdoors by a single-tile-thick wall.  If the parent stands next to the wall, the child will sometimes walk miles and miles to get to be only 2 tiles away... on the other side of the wall.  This is most noticeable with meeting places and bedrooms.

[ZeroGravitas]

Another reason for kids to end up outside is if their parent is indoors, but is only separated from the outdoors by a single-tile-thick wall.  If the parent stands next to the wall, the child will sometimes walk miles and miles to get to be only 2 tiles away... on the other side of the wall.  This is most noticeable with meeting places and bedrooms.

happens with pets, and squad members following their squad commanders, too. very annoying.

[LegacyCWAL]

And if you have a pet following a child following a soldier following a squad leader...

[ZeroGravitas]

And if you have a pet following a child following a soldier following a squad leader...

and the pet's offspring following the pet... it can get hairy.

[betamax]

DF Companion allows you to turn combat reports on.

[Oksbad]

I've never lost a child to a baby snatcher. To get to your fortress a thief should go though the following: Traps, chained dogs, at LEAST 1 squad on duty at the entrance, A floodgate/Drawbridge system that can be closed on notice.

[Deathworks]

Hello!

The basic setup I suggest (confirming what others have mentioned):

* Meeting areas only deep inside the fortress
* Food and Drink stockpiles only deep inside the fortress
* Parents only assigned to jobs deep inside the fortress
* Farming and deconstruction only deep inside the fortress

That should increase the chances of the kids staying inside

Once you have that:

3 layers of weapon traps with 2 - 3 menacing spears in each on every entrance to the fortress.

Done.

Goblin snatchers do not have trap avoid, so all you need to do is regularly clean the traps and dump the corpses.

Deathworks

[galmud]

DF Companion allows you to turn combat reports on.

Unfortunately DF companion combat reports doesnt seem to work with the latest DF versions

[Jim Groovester]

Designating high traffic zones outside should also increase the chance that a snatcher is discovered, as there will be many dwarves walking along a single path instead of all over the place, depending on how much work they do outside.