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[lastofthelight]

Burrows are a pain in the butt. I don't want to have to worry about spending an hour or two looking where every last dwarf needs to go to live and work for all of his jobs and making sure he has his own damn burrow set.

But unless I do that I can't order all dwarves to stay inside, because toady removed the command because we have burrows now.

Bring back order all dwarves to stay inside!!!


In fact, I'll go a step further and say the burrow system needs a complete overhaul, or at the very least an Official Instruction Manual, because right now it seems worse then useless. The only thing I've found a use for it thus far is not using it at all, and the only thing that has forced me to use it is the need to set my -entire fortress- as a burrow so as to keep my dwarves from going outside to meet their death.

Which makes having burrows completely useless. Especially since, given the new migrant system, most dwarves do multiple tasks and there is no real way to ever hand sort through each and every dwarf to make unique burrows for them.

[Tarran]

I, too, want the 'stay inside' state back, without it I'm going to lose a lot of dwarves, because I simply don't have the patience to tell everyone not to go out!

[lastofthelight]

Worse yet, you have to then go back in and unselect specific military dwarves from the burrow to let them go outside!!!!!

[Footkerchief]

You're not supposed to mess with dwarves' burrow assignments every time you want them to go inside.  You're supposed to use a civilian alert state, from 'm'ilitary -> 'a'lerts or something.  I haven't tried it yet, though, so I'm not sure it works.

[Mephansteras]

It does, I've tested it. I don't have DF with me here at work, but you can designate a burrow (inside, the core of your fortress, up in a tower, whatever) and create an Alert state that has all civilian dwarves stay in that specific burrow, even if not assigned to it. You can also have your military have orders to defend that specific burrow if you want (or whereever else you need them)

[Tarran]

Haha! neat! ...too bad it's, you know, just more work, I don't mind it, it's just not as easy to remember as o-i.

[Mephansteras]

No, not as easy. BUT it does let you do a lot more.

For example, you can have separate Alert states for attacks from different areas. Goblins at the gates, everyone get behind the walls! Antmen from the mines, everyone get to the outer fortress areas! And so on.

Plus, you can have dwarves head to, say, an above ground castle instead of hiding out in the mines.

I haven't tried having a burrow split into multiple areas yet, but I'm planning on trying out watchtowers out in the hills near my fort that I can send all of my hunters/woodcutters to during attacks. Hopefully they'll go to the closest one.

[G-Flex]

Quick question: How does that interact with other burrow assignments?

Like, say I have a bunch of dwarves set to separate burrows, some in different areas, some outside, some inside, etc.

Then I set the alert state telling everyone to get inside this one main burrow taking up the interior portion of the fort.

Will they still respect those other burrow assignments during the alert state?

[Mephansteras]

I don't think so, but I haven't tested it yet. I *think* that they'll all go wherever the Alert state tells them to go.

[G-Flex]

What I'm saying is, it would be nice if they could respect multiple burrow assignments simultaneously. Of course, this only works if the burrows actually overlap.

[nenjin]

Burrows are great for the simple fact that you can have siege operators outside now, without having half your fortress charge out to their deaths.

[Silverionmox]

A standard burrow, generated at startup, for the outside would be practical - especially in cliffy areas.

Also negative burrows - go anywhere except there - would save lots of work.

[Pilsu]

A bird's eye view would be extremely useful, assuming it'd work with burrow designating.

We don't need stay inside to come back just because you haven't figured out the new feature though. It was terrible, doubly so if you didn't immediately dig underground.

[Safe-Keeper]

A compromise would be to have a kind of "dynamic burrow" that at any time covered anything inside, and a pre-set alert status that assigned all civilians to this burrow.

As it is, though, I must say I love the burrows system, not to mention the awesome squad menu and kill order system.

In fact, I'll go a step further and say the burrow system needs a complete overhaul, or at the very least an Official Instruction Manual, because right now it seems worse then useless

There are at least two guides to the military and burrows system in the Wiki already.

[G-Flex]

The military screen and squad stuff is still a tad impenetrable, though. I feel like I shouldn't really need a wiki to tell me how to operate something whose instructions are ostensibly right on the screen for me to look at.

The functionality seems great, but I just plain couldn't figure out how to do some things.