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[blu]

Ive been playing quite a bit, but I have now started to get ambushes on my fortress. This has proven to be a big problem for me as dwarves will travel outside of the fortress and far down the local brook to get their drinks, despite the fact that the brook is also right outside the fortress and they dont have to travel so far to get a drink. To make matters worse, they rarely use the well ive installed. They do use it on occasion, but i would really prefer that they stay inside my safe fortress, and not venture far outside and risk dying from an amubsh. Several have already suffered fatal attacks from angry goblins. Is there a remedy for my situation, like forbidding the brook as drinking water so they will be inclined/forced to use the well?

[Magua]

You can set a 'water source', and then tell dwarves to use that.

'i' -> designate an area next to your preferred water source (like you do with mining or cutting down trees) -- if you do it right, you'll see the 'Water Source (0)' change to some other number.  After you've designated the area, while still in 'i' mode, put the cursor over it, verify you see 'Water Source (some non-zero number)', and press 'w' to highlight it.  You can now use space to quit 'i' mode.

Now, from the main menu, press 'o', and then 'z'.  You can use 'd' to toggle off whether they simply prefer to drink from there, or whether they will only drink from there.

As far as your well: Only one dwarf can drink from a well at a time.  So if there's a dwarf drinking at the well, and another dwarf gets thirsty, he'll wander off to another source, even if it's across the map.  Either restrict them to only drinking at water sources, as above, or build more wells (even if they're right next to eachother).

[The Navigator]

I think that your dwarves are so depressed by the lack of booze that they want to be ambushed. End the pain, so to speak.

You can try designating (i) the area around your well as a drinking zone, and then forbidding non-zone drinking with o -> z -> d.

Edit: Arg, magua beat me to it.

[Derakon]

I've never seen water zone restrictions really work. However, they should prefer your well over the brook, so I don't know why they're still going outside. Maybe another dwarf was already using the well? Try making more wells.

If I recall correctly, the preference ordering for drinks is booze => well => brook/river => lake => pond.

[Quietust]

Er, I've seen multiple dwarves drink from the same well at once. The only time "one at a time" comes into play is when giving water to wounded dwarves, since they insist on filling their bucket with a stack of 10 water rather than the 1 unit that's actually required for the dwarf. When they're drinking straight from the well, up to 10 can drink before having to wait to refill the bucket, and the act of drinking water from a well is always instantaneous anyways.

[blu]

All of this has been extremely helpful. But unfortunately I did not read this thread soon enough, as I suffered a huge slaughter. I'm sure my next fortress will be more successful.

[Psychoceramics]

the issue is less where they're getting from and more that they're getting water at all. Work on booze production so they don't go drinking from the stream.

Also, make sure the well water isn't tainted.