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[Anathema]

As the title says, I'm looking for thoughts on how to keep my civilians out of ambushes/sieges/etc.

Before I continue, yes, yes, I know burrows are "the" answer - but I have this sprawling underground fort, constantly expanding, I really don't want to paint the entire thing a burrow and have to add every single level of each mining shaft, ever Armok-blessed vein I dig out, onto the burrow.

I only have this one surface exit, covered in traps, with a lovely magma-flooding-and-draining system, and just past it is the barracks with a pretty decent military if all else fails. I want to leave it open, and funnel all sieges and caravans and whatever else through it, I just need some way to keep my civilians out of that one entrance without needing to paint the entire underground expanse a burrow.

I've manually mass forbid everything aboveground, I have no hunters/fishers/woodcutters/herbalists/etc, I've done everything I can with the 'o'rders menu to persuade my dwarves not to collect enemy or friendly corpses or any item they drop, not to mention any refuse outside. Anytime someone/thing manages to die outside, I manually mass forbid it too. I even have indoor water sources. Yet somehow my treehugging elf-sympathizing beardless civilians find some reason to wander around outside, usually to "store item in stockpile" - even though, as I've said, I've forbid everything on the surface. I never do find out what any of them are after, since they don't live to get far from the fortress. Although sometimes they just wander out there with "no job" or "on break" just for the fun of it.

Is there a way to "forbid" that one entrance somehow, we're talking about a single tile here I need to keep civilians out of, while still allowing sieges/ambushes/caravans/new migrants to pass through? Without painting who knows how many z-levels of underground as part of a massive burrow, and painting more every time I dig a little deeper?

Edit: I've also tried forbidding a door, but that seems about as bad as raising a drawbridge - it keeps invaders and caravans and migrants out as well as keeping my own dwarves in.

[NecroRebel]

You could just paint the whole underground as one big burrow... You can paint burrows into areas you can't see, even levels you can't get to, so you could just make one giant burrow that covers everything from the surface to the glowing pits. That would let you do what works out to a "dwarves stay inside" order from 40d. This process is much faster if you make a macro to just select one whole z-level of map, then go down a level. For instance, make a macro that starts at the upper-left corner of the map, hits ENTER, goes to the lower-right corner of the map, hits ENTER, goes back to the upper-left corner, then goes down one z-level. That would let you paint whole-map burrows very quickly, and would also enable you to forbid everything on the surface easily as well.

[bobhayes]

As the title says, I'm looking for thoughts on how to keep my civilians out of ambushes/sieges/etc.

Before I continue, yes, yes, I know burrows are "the" answer - but I have this sprawling underground fort, constantly expanding, I really don't want to paint the entire thing a burrow and have to add every single level of each mining shaft, ever Armok-blessed vein I dig out, onto the burrow.

Just FYI, burrows can be designated in 3D, and the designation covers the squares whether they're dug out yet or not. IE, start the designation in the upper-left corner of level Z-2, hit ">" fifty thousand times to get to the bottom of the world, scroll to the lower-right, and close the designation, and all fifty thousand Z levels in between are designated as being in the burrow - even if they weren't dug out or revealed yet.

You have to do some micropainting on the top couple levels of your fort, but not every individual dig or new level breached.

[Anathema]

Yeah.. I'm afraid I'll have to do the burrow method. I can't do entire z-levels, since there's a fair amount of overlap with the outside (sloping embark, about a dozen levels are 'underground' on part of the map and outside on the rest). It's just a pain - you'd think there'd be a way to keep dwarves out of one tile instead of telling them the thousands of tiles they are allowed to be in.

Just FYI, burrows can be designated in 3D, and the designation covers the squares whether they're dug out yet or not. IE, start the designation in the upper-left corner of level Z-2, hit ">" fifty thousand times to get to the bottom of the world, scroll to the lower-right, and close the designation, and all fifty thousand Z levels in between are designated as being in the burrow - even if they weren't dug out or revealed yet.

You have to do some micropainting on the top couple levels of your fort, but not every individual dig or new level breached.

Knowing that helps quite a bit actually, thanks. As bad as the mixed above/below ground levels near the surface will be, at least I could paint the entire 100+ z-levels below it all at once to cover future expansion. Knew you could do unexplored areas, but not multiple z-levels at once.

[Girlinhat]

Wait, you can do multi-Z burrows en masse?  That makes things a lot easier!

Also, if it's any consolation, you only need to define the burrow one time, and assign your important Urist McArmorsmith to it.  Urist McHauler can go bleed on the grass.

[Cameo]

Wait, you can do multi-Z burrows en masse?  That makes things a lot easier!

Also, if it's any consolation, you only need to define the burrow one time, and assign your important Urist McArmorsmith to it.  Urist McHauler can go bleed on the grass.

AFAIK Burrow allocation is the only thing that stretches multi-Zs. and you don't even need to assign anyone to the burrow, just have it set as the burrow for civilians for an alert in the military page, and then when you get sieged etc set that alert as the one that's on and all civs will automagically be assigned to it til you change the alert back.

[Girlinhat]

The problem there, is that ambushes are first known about when someone dies.  That's why I think ambushes are more dangerous than sieges, you can so very easily lose haulers and woodcutters to ambushes, while sieges you can very easily bunker down.

[Jingles]

The problem there, is that ambushes are first known about when someone dies.  That's why I think ambushes are more dangerous than sieges, you can so very easily lose haulers and woodcutters to ambushes, while sieges you can very easily bunker down.

Cats seem to discover most of my ambushers.  Just purposely stake them or dogs around your fort if it's a real problem (mine aren't staked they just seem to be out there more).  They're a dime a dozen anyways.

[Girlinhat]

Cats are a problem because a dorf will adopt it, and then go un-chain it.

[KojaK]

There's a way to increase the pathing cost of particular tiles, d -> o, and you can set the "restricted tiles" cost to 100... but I'm not sure if that tells the dwarfs not to use that tile or not.

[Girlinhat]

If they need to do something on the other side, and that's the only route, they'll path through it anyways.  For that matter, if they get scared and run away from something, they completely disregard all burrows and traffic markers, as proven by my latest snafu.

[Urist Da Vinci]

...Yet somehow my treehugging elf-sympathizing beardless civilians find some reason to wander around outside, usually to "store item in stockpile" - even though, as I've said, I've forbid everything on the surface. I never do find out what any of them are after, since they don't live to get far from the fortress. Although sometimes they just wander out there with "no job" or "on break" just for the fun of it....

Have you designated any meeting zones or halls? Dwarves who are idle or "on break", without a meeting zone, like to wander to random locations on the map.

Watch your front entrance, and find a dwarf who is heading outside who has "store item in stockpile". Pause, and read their name. Enter the jobs menu, find the dwarf on the list, and view the job to see what is the item that he is trying to store.

[Bererez]

o -> F -> :
p: Forbid used ammunition
c: Forbid your dead
i: Forbid your death items
o: Forbid other non-hunted dead
t: Forbid other death items
When someone dies, and you want to bury them, reclaim their corpse in the z menu (or d -> b - > c, I guess). Same for their items or goblinite.

edit: lol looks like you tried this... it works for me? I play with 0 idlers, though. I don't know!!! This crazy game.

[Anathema]

o -> F -> :
p: Forbid used ammunition
c: Forbid your dead
i: Forbid your death items
o: Forbid other non-hunted dead
t: Forbid other death items
When someone dies, and you want to bury them, reclaim their corpse in the z menu (or d -> b - > c, I guess). Same for their items or goblinite.

edit: lol looks like you tried this... it works for me? I play with 0 idlers, though. I don't know!!! This crazy game.

I ended up using a very effective combination of the above and a painstakingly created burrow that covers every inch of underground and nothing else (this takes a while on a map that's sloped) which is tied to a civilian alert. The automatic forbidding from the orders menu combined with manually forbidding anything it misses keeps most of my dwarves off the surface most of the time (some still go out there! Can't figure out why. Out of 100 there's 5ish on the surface at any given time doing Armok-knows-what), and I'm free to selectively unforbid corpses and anything else in particular I want to recover. The first sign of an ambush, I can turn on the alert, which is completely effective if you take the time to make that burrow. The forbidding+orders thing does work about 95% of the time, but I'd rather not lose 5% of my dwarves every ambush Turning on the burrow (via alert) seems to be the only way to be absolutely sure they all get inside and stay there. I wish I could find more volcanoes on flat maps..

[Urist Da Vinci]

... (some still go out there! Can't figure out why. Out of 100 there's 5ish on the surface at any given time doing Armok-knows-what), ... The forbidding+orders thing does work about 95% of the time, but I'd rather not lose 5% of my dwarves every ambush...

Do you have any meeting halls/zones? Do dwarves start parties at your fort?

If I disable all of my meeting zones, meeting halls, and statue gardens, some of my dwarves will wander outside or into random locations underground.