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[nickbii]

All mothers in my military get to be crossbowdwarves so  that their kids don't run headlong into battle. This turned out to be brilliant planning as dozens of the little red guys (including 2 legendary woodcrafters) follow my crossbow squad around the map. Dozens. My fortress (pop 79, pop cap 60) has 24 kids and they all seem to belong to soldiers.

I have to send them out of my keep pretty frequently to protect my Trade Depot. They're fairly safe because the depot is behind a trench.

But I can't station them right by the trench. The problem is the cluster around the square you station them, so half walk around the trench to the dangerous side, followed by dozens of suicidal little twits.

My current workaround is to station them 10 squares behind the moat, but that means my gobbo besiegers get much closer before they turn into pincushions.

Is there any way to get them closer to the trench without sending some to the unsafe side?

[Albedo]

For this reason and so many more, don't use squads.

Separate them into "squads" of 1 dwarf each, and you can stack scores on the same tile. 

Plus, you have pinpoint control, and they don't all wander off with their sergeant each time he has to take a dump.   

[nickbii]

I might try that.

It's a bit more management than I like, but it would work.

[Albedo]

It's an unsatisfactory work-around, but it's the only one we have atm.

Toady has acknowledged the problems and stated that the whole "squad" thing will get dumped in favour of a complete overhaul for next version. 

[bluea]

They do seem to manage to stay on the correct side of walls/moats if they're -actually- patrolling. That is: with routes set so they're always marching, not standing around 'on station.'

[KenboCalrissian]

Are you sure kids will follow melee dwarves into battle?  I've never seen this happen, period, and I had a champion macedwarf with three kids and a baby.  Babies always come with the mom (lost one, lost the arm of another) but the kids don't seem to follow.

[Jim Groovester]

If you have dwarves set to stay inside, then they won't follow their mothers into battle.

But if you don't have that order, then yes, some of the children, maybe depending on personality, will follow their mothers, sometimes into battle.

Champions tend to be considerably faster than their children, so maybe your champions are killing the goblins quicker than the children can arrive, but they do follow if they're able.

[nickbii]

Are you sure kids will follow melee dwarves into battle?  I've never seen this happen, period, and I had a champion macedwarf with three kids and a baby.  Babies always come with the mom (lost one, lost the arm of another) but the kids don't seem to follow.

Not positive about kids, but ever since an Unfortunate Incident with a drawbridge cost me a legendary wrestler, her baby, and her husband I haven't risked it.

But I do know that, with this squad, the kids follow their moms around in a huge pack. And they're all best friends with eachother, moms too, so I figure that when one of them dies I might enter a tantrum spiral.

Patrolling didn't really work  in this case. I stationed them 10 squares from the trench, patrolled right by it, and still several dwarves (including kids) walked around the dang trench. Moving the patrol route inward three squares, and moving everyone who still insisted on going around into their  own squads fixed it.

BTW, these particular kids are NOT slower than their mothers. Most of the moms aren't champions due to a shortage of Bone Bolts. The kids are doing great, OTOH. The youngest is already Agile and Tough, has novice in all the social skills, and has apparently helped with the harvest a few times. She's about 4.

The best is Tun -- legendary woodcrafter via mood, accomplished grower, great in all social skills, Ultra-Mighty, Unbelievably Agile, and Superdwarvenly Tough. He's 10.

He might eat a besieging gobbo squad for lunch, but he's butt naked so I'm not keen to find out.

[Samyotix]

Is the patrol route more than one tile wide?
Dwarves hate pathing through another dwarf, since lying down and getting up takes lots of time.

You could also try d-o-l to set the side you don't want patrolled to be a low traffic area.