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[JarinArenos]

Alright, I'm at a bit of a loss here. I've got a burrow set up as "inside" to call the civilians into the fortress in case of an attack, and a military squad of near-legendary axedwarves set to active/training (the civilian burrow alert was toggled on under 'inactive' in alerts).

Spring, year 3, goblin ambush shows up. I call the dwarves inside, and they run for the doors like they're supposed to (aside from a few stragglers who were too close to the goblin spawn location). I figure I'll let the ambushers slaughter themselves on my traps... but no! At just the wrong time, those damn tree-hugging hippies show up. And of course, they're FAR too pansy to bring anything like caravan guards. So I quickly command my axe squad to go rescue them.

Axe squad: "Zzzzzzzzzzzzz"
Needless to say, the goblins got some new elfskin leather boots.

A bit of experimentation reveals that the military were following the burrow command as well, and refusing to go outside. This somewhat defeats the purpose of the setup. How can I command my civilians to stay indoors, while still allowing the military to move freely?

[varangian]

Could your squads have been left at the off duty alert level and thus counted themselves as civilians? Or possibly when you set the alerts you accidentally confined your squads to the same burrow so they couldn't obey the move order. The alert interface is true to the DF paradigm of horrendous confusion wherever possible and it's not difficult to get things wrong.

[FuzzyZergling]

When you make an alert burrow, do not set military squads to use it.

Just for clarification, you are using thw [m]ilitary [a]lerts screen, yes?

[JarinArenos]

Yes.

I made sure civilians were set to inactive, and then hit [=>] twice to select the burrow for them. Then went to active/training and [=>] once and set the squad to active.

[Quietust]

Yes.

I made sure civilians were set to inactive, and then hit [=>] twice to select the burrow for them. Then went to active/training and [=>] once and set the squad to active.

Technically, the proper way to order your civilians inside is to create a new alert state ("Siege" or whatever) and assign citizens to the burrow for that alert, then just change your civilian alert state whenever you want your dwarves to stay inside.

[FuzzyZergling]

Then went to active/training and [=>] once and set the squad to active.

This may be the problem.
When you set alerts, you should not assign your military to the alert, as this will cause the military to defend the selected burrows, and not take orders.

[JarinArenos]

That was the thing, it was the "inactive" alert listing that had the civilian burrow. The military was assigned to "Active/Training" (I hadn't created any new alerts, so I just had the default two). I'll create a new "Goblins! Hide!" alert and test it.

[FuzzyZergling]

It was the "inactive" alert listing that had the civilian burrow. The military was assigned to "Active/Training".

Only one alert may be on at a time, and I believe the "inactive" alert has the military assigned to it automatically.

I'll create a new "Goblins! Hide!" alert and test it.

This should work well.

[JarinArenos]

Only one alert may be on at a time, and I believe the "inactive" alert has the military assigned to it automatically.

The Inactive alert had the [CIV] tag next to it, but if I looked at "active training" the military squad had the [A] tag, which they didn't have under inactive (I'd assigned them to active so they would train, some time before).

[JarinArenos]

Nope, no matter what the alerts are and no matter what alert the squad is assigned to, if the [CIV] civilian alert has a burrow attached, my military retreats to the burrow as well. What am I doing wrong?

For reference, my military settings:
Squad:


Civilians:

[NecroRebel]

Just a question, what orders, exactly, do the soldiers have? I've noticed that some, especially patrol routes and defending burrows, have latency between when you set the soldiers to the proper alert and when they actually start following it. They'll even go back to civilian status temporarily, even if both their old alert and their new one have active military orders.

So, are your soldiers actually active soldiers? If not, you might try waiting with the soldiers on the proper alert for a bit. They might just not be paying attention at the moment.

[JarinArenos]

Specifically, I gave them a move order to station at a specific point. They wouldn't leave the burrow. So I disabled the burrow order and moved them outside. Then I re-enabled the burrow, and they went charging back towards the gate. Note that the burrow order was NEVER enabled for "active/training", only for "Goblins!".

[JarinArenos]

Much searching through the forum and nobody else seems to be having this problem, so it must be me doing something wrong. This seems like a fairly standard sequence of commands to set up (civilians to a safe zone, military out to fight), so I can't be the only one attempting it. I really don't want to have to manually assign all dwarves to a burrow individually for the temporary duration of the attack...

[FuzzyZergling]

I'm not sure what's causing your problem, I did this recently and it worked fine.
Sorry for not being able to help.

[JarinArenos]

S'alright. If those military screens look right to you, then I guess all I can do is fiddle with it and hope I discover what's wrong.