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[gtmattz]

It really seems like they IGNORE the fact that there is water or magma once they are fighting.

Yes, this is exactly what they do, and I have a hunch that it is a design decision on toadys part.

Now I have not spent much time messing with the military in the new version yet so I am not sure if it made it over, but I know for sure that in 40d you could order your  soldiers to not chase opponents, which was key in keeping them from falling into water/magma/off cliffs etc.

[Chrissi]

A design decision to entirely ignore nearby dangers when fighting?

That's ridiculous when you can't (as far as I know) section off a specific area past which they can no longer fight.

Just read that edit... I can't find an option for not chasing the opponent, if there is one I'd love to see it.  If I tell them to "attack", then remove the order after they've attacked, they sometimes still keep attacking.

[gtmattz]

I think the root of the problem here is that you have yet to embrace the *FUN* that is this great game dwarf fortress.

[Chrissi]

Haha... fun.

Nah I have plenty of fun.  This is about the first sort of tragic misfortune i.e. fun that I have really been bugged about.  I just don't see what i'm supposed to do about it short of walling off all pools/magmas.  But then I couldn't fish.  And they are usually coming from near the magma BECAUSE I haven't yet been able to claim it it so that's not at all practical.  It's not fun to watch your well-prepared armies repeatedly kill themselves in a very silly way.

[Spreggo]

Yeah I think Toady probably just hasn't gotten around to making sure that the Dwarves at least dodge to solid ground when possible. Higher spatial awareness should correlate to it, as this is its most obvious application I think. Slipping or stupid dodging makes sense, but when a Dwarf who by all accounts should be capable of planning his movement jumps into magma when there are 3 or 4 other possible directions to safely dodge, that is just broken.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Raccoons: one or two rows of weapon traps with axes securing your surface entrance will solve that problem discreetly.

Snatchers: See raccoons.

Kobold Thieves: Ignore them. They are not worth the trouble. Usually, you will discover them before they get anything precious, and once discovered, they will without fail leave the map (or get stuck at its edge).

General retreating enemies: Use drawbridges and floodgates (I don't think either can be conquered unlike doors) to allow you to close their escape route. Of course, put the lever near your meeting area (quick response by idle dwarves) far, far away from any entrance of the fortress (no danger of interrupting).

Personally, I think stockpiles one layer away from the magma is still too close, unless the paths connecting the two are very twisted indeed. But unless you upload your map to the map archive, it is really difficult to give more concrete advice.

Deathworks

[marcbyrne]

You might try setting up a burrow near the magma, but still a good distance away.  Then set a squad of dwarfs to defend that burrow.  This may make them more likely to give up chase, but at the same time make them automatically attack anything that leaves the magma and heads towards your fortress proper.

It would also keep armed personal close at hand if and when you get around to building defenses or other things around the magma to make it safer to be near.

[amade]

I did try testing the dwarfs dodging skill in the arena and half the time they would jump into open space, then I wondered if the reason enemies don't dodge into open space often enough was because they usually don't have much dodging skill if any, whereas if you trained your military they're definitely going to get higher than average dodging and dodge more often. Some exceptions for the enemies is if they're charging, beak dogs that miss their charge would sometimes collide with obstacles so presumably if there was open space instead of obstacles they could charge off a ledge.

Maybe if enemies dodged more often it would be more "fun" than having only your high master dodger dwarfs doing it.

Still, do what you can to avoid your troops fighting at places they shouldn't be fighting. That burrow idea sounds neat, I also remembered that troops will also stick to traffic designations whenever possible so you could try putting high traffic designations that lead away from the ledge (hopefully the enemies will follow, it's a different thing if they're retreating or going after different targets).

[hasonish]

It seems you're having the problem of "turning off" your military dwarves.  So far, the only way I have found to make the dwarves stop chasing an enemy, is by setting them to Inactive.

This was the only way I was able to save my dwarves from an unkillable quadruped.  They had thoroughly beaten it, but since it was unkillable, I had to find a way to keep that thing from going anywhere, and get all 20 of my axedwarves back to safety.  So what I did, was just assign ALL of my wardogs, 16 at the time, to the weakest axedwarve in the bunch, wait till the dogs arrived, and turn the military back to inactive.  The dwarves turned back into civilians, and commenced to booking it out of there, while my 16 war dogs and their 30 puppies stalled the beast.  Then, to cutoff all possible threat from the beast, I just walled everything in, the beast, puppies, and dogs included.

I successfully saved all of my military without any injuries, though the fight between the dogs and the quadruped was not going so well.  Since pets don't need food or water, they were stuck in an eternal life and death battle.  It became worse as the war dogs continued to have puppies during the battle, and the quadruped was unable to kill the dogs fast enough, so what started out as 16 war dogs and 30 puppies, ended up being 16 war dogs, 5 dogs, and 43 puppies, all agains one forgotten beast.  It totally destroyed my fps, so I decided I'd just drown them all in water, and let the unkillable beast lay at the bottom of a dwarf made lake for eternity.

[Sophismata]

Oh wow, this thread is kinda depressing.

The problem is caused by dwarves ignoring nearby hazards when fighting - the old carp fighting routine is the worst example. A dwarf can jump into the river with the carp when dodging one of its attacks, which makes no sense.

For the mostpart, seasoned military professionals jumping into lava (for ANY reason) is silly, and eventually needs to be looked at. Those claiming "it makes sense", or "it's supposed to be that way" are deluding themselves.

In the meantime, you need to wall off the lava and dig ramps into the pools.

[zwei]

Oh wow, this thread is kinda depressing.

The problem is caused by dwarves ignoring nearby hazards when fighting - the old carp fighting routine is the worst example. A dwarf can jump into the river with the carp when dodging one of its attacks, which makes no sense.

For the mostpart, seasoned military professionals jumping into lava (for ANY reason) is silly, and eventually needs to be looked at. Those claiming "it makes sense", or "it's supposed to be that way" are deluding themselves.

In the meantime, you need to wall off the lava and dig ramps into the pools.

You know what is depressing? Sending squad of 10 dwarves to kill one lion and have all but 2 dodge to 5 zlevels of drop in exactly same space. I can see it:
McMummy: If all yourrr frrriends jumbed frrrom the cliff, would you too?
McChild: Yep, I would. DUH!

Well, it is also hilarious but it has been known to mild case of savescumming.

[diriel]

You do realize that you can make walls that have doors right? That means you can still fish and all that. With a little bit of planning those doors can be "shaded" as it were, meaning you step into a protected area to open the door. So your dwarves will no longer dodge into deadly terrain and you can still get into that same terrain when you need to.

Just a few thoughts is all,
Have Fun 

[nomad_delta]

I know exactly what you're talking about, man.  I think that dwarves should still sometimes accidentally fall into pits/pools/magma/etc when dodging attacks, but they should display at least some mild self-preservation instinct so it doesn't happen almost every time.

I just lost a swordsdwarf that decided to chase a groundhog across the map during a patrol and somehow managed to fall into a 7/7 murky pool in the process.  I'm not sure if the groundhog tried to bite him and he dodged into the pool, or if he simply ignored the pool and jumped straight into it because the groundhog was on the other side.  Either way, it's silly. 

---

I just did some tests with my Swordsdwarves in 0.31.08 and it does look like they DO respect the "High/Low/Normal/Restricted Traffic" cost designations (Set via "d, o") when moving from one station to another.

You might try using "d, o, r" to designate a wide swath of "restricted traffic zone" around all of your murky pools, magma pits, and other places you don't want your dwarves accidentally falling into.  Note that the traffic restriction doesn't *prevent* them from going there, it just makes it cost way more when calculating routes so they're much less likely to go there.

I have no idea whether this has any effect when a dwarf is actively *chasing* something it's trying to kill, though.  I'll have to run some more tests.

--nomad_delta

[Hyndis]

Dig exit ramps or stairs from the water.

Don't fight next water/magma/cliffs.

[zwei]

Dig exit ramps or stairs from the water.

Don't fight next water/magma/cliffs.

1) Is not possible when around cliffs or magma (well possible, but pointless). Besides, dwarves that dodge to water end up stunned and  (I would point out that pools and possibly rivers should have edges lined by ramps naturally as them having straight drops does not really make sense).

2) Fleeing oponents will lead your dwarves there unless you babysit them and un-militarize them whe they are getting near some kind of edge. I hope i do not have to tell you that THAT is unacceptable micromanagement case.

You do realize that you can make walls that have doors right? That means you can still fish and all that. With a little bit of planning those doors can be "shaded" as it were, meaning you step into a protected area to open the door. So your dwarves will no longer dodge into deadly terrain and you can still get into that same terrain when you need to.

Just a few thoughts is all,
Have Fun 

It is decent workaround, yes, but it kind of looks very silly to have every edge lined by walls (well, fortifications) with access doors. Kind of reminding me of overprotective parents covering walls of kinds room with nerf.

What I am saying is that having whole squad sent to kill lion eliminated by their ninja dodging skills and not by lion is just not right. Getting their guts ripped out by him, sure. It is quite schizo to have fight outcomes only in "smashed it to bloody bits with my axe" and "dodged and died." categories. I'll go as far ahead ad say this is not fun even if loosing is fun.

This is just one of turn-off thread thing thou.