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[Kestrel]

The wall around my central staircase above ground has no access to the top... As far as I can tell...  I've built no up/down staircases on the levels below that they could've ridden up but not back down again..

Yet somehow, two dwarfs made it up there and starved to death.  They got up there, as far as I can tell, shortly after I killed all the elves at my nearby trade depot.  I can't imagine they dodged up there during the fight.

Thoughts?

[nil]

You're not the first person to note this (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=79499.0).  The nature of the problem is such that people tend to be skeptical--no one ever sees it happen, only the after-effects, plus it sounds like the sort of thing that would happen to a newb who just forgot or didn't understand that there was normal access at one point.

But I'm a believer.  It's happened to me (multiple times, and going all the way back to 40d) in circumstances where there's no other explanation.  My guess is that somehow dwarves occasionally get tangled up with flying pets, use the latter's pathfinding, and get hoisted up onto these otherwise inaccessible areas.

[Kestrel]

Unfortunately, my combat logs for that scrape are wiped, BUT I did find the arm of one of the slaughtered elves on the same wall.  Hmm a clue, mayhap?

[xeivous]

Unfortunately, my combat logs for that scrape are wiped, BUT I did find the arm of one of the slaughtered elves on the same wall.  Hmm a clue, mayhap?

Did the elves bring any war-animals?

[Kestrel]

Nope, just the usual stuff.  No flying animals either, or at least that are still living.

[Cyroth]

I, too, had this once.

I was lining my road, leading from the forts main gate to the edge of the map, with gold block pillars (single tile walls), with 3 free tiles between each, and then a few years later I got the message that a dwarf had died of thirst. Utterly confused I zoomed in on him, and found his body on top of one of the pillars. I never found out how he got there, no way to climb up from below, and he can't have dropped down on it because those pillars were the highest ground around.

[xeivous]

Nope, just the usual stuff.  No flying animals either, or at least that are still living.

Hmm, cus I was thinking that maybe he could have been knocked up there by something like a bear...

[varnish]

Huh. I've had this happen several times as well, and it's generally been when I was building walls next some sort of building, like a wagon or workshop. The very first time I saw it was when I was building a wall around my wagon shortly after starting. The dwarfs and animals were packed in tight, and there were only three open squares next to the wagon. I wonder if that affects it in any way.

Either way, I do think it can happen. I had not built a single ramp or stair, and no animals had attacked. There was simply no way for the dwarf to get up there, but get up there he did.

[FrisianDude]

Didn't you notice them before they died? :/

[Saiko Kila]

Of course it happens. I even have one save shortly before (but during siege, so there's much happening) and after, with stranded guy. I have a place where it happens relatively frequently. It is in zigzagging narrow corridors with traps and two raised bridges, and dwarfs teleport on the top of a wall while apparently crowding for goblinite, cages or when rebuilding landmines. First time I noticed trapped dwarf, because he was One of Seven. I built a ramp to get him out, and left that ramp. Next time guy died of thirst. I have over 550 animals and 230 dwarves, and it is not easy to notice them starving. Next time I noticed another guy in time, being more cautious. I built a ramp, but it was giving some access to goblins, so I built retractable bridges afterward. After each siege I open them, and "disappear" only when dwarves have no business there. These bridges allow them to get out without my attention.

Previously I had a similar spot, but didn't know what was going on, and rebuilt it for other purposes. I think this bug also sometimes causes dwarves to go down to moats and waterways.

[LoSboccacc]

happened to me too. I'was building an outer fortress wall on a perfectly flat terrain, and some time later a ghost appeared in the meeting hall.

No trace of combat, no trace of anything. A search in the log revealed a dwarf dead line without any other strange announcement around and a visit to the stockpile pointed me toward his skeleton up the walls.


Those walls never had a ramp; I was thinking about a dwarf getting thrown here by a nearby drawbridge, so I disabled the bridges and simply added traps (there were quite enough masterwork steel disc traps by now so bridges were just no more needed for safety)

After a while a siege come, I got some injuries in the militia. As I was tracking their progress, I saw a dehydrated dwarf in the medical status screen.

Pointing to him, he was shown to be on the wall again.

So it may or may not be caused by construction (like standing on a tile at a bad moment, before the occlusion check but when the job ends).

It may or may not be caused by fighting near a wall (he was not part of the militia, but I noticed he being there after the fight) as a result of a dodge or a throw

It may or may not be the result of a bridge throw.

it may be something totally unrelated (like a path finding quirk)

[zephyr_hound]

I had it with a child that teleported to the top of a wall that did not and had never had access to anywhere while harvesting pigtails from the fields. There is NO way the child or anyone could have gotten up there because it was literally just a one level boundary wall on the surface, no ramps, no stairs, nothing. I zoomed straight to it as soon as I got the "so and so cancels store item in stockpile; cannot find path". There was a pet goose next to the child. The layout of my fort was such that the wall where the child got stuck was three z-levels directly above my farm. I assumed it was some variation of the old adventurer thing where you could "attack" an apparently invisible cavern creature and would instantaneously teleport from the surface to the caverns. Pathing not taking z-levels into account or something like that.

EDIT: it's my fort that I've been keeping detailed logs/storytime for a friend, have a pic

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

that is the instant after I got the "cannot find path" message.

[Kattaroten]

I can definately say this is NOT caused by fighting, traps or drawbridges; this happened in my fort when there were none of these things on the whole map. It does not exclusively happen to dwarves, ive found several turkeys on top of pillars. My guess this is caused by overcrowding, as it always happened right next to my fortresses central cleaning area...
Its kinda creepy thought, like those ghost stories where they find dead people inside statues and such, without any clue of how they got there...

[Psieye]

I've had it happen too, twice in this new fort. I was building an above-ground wall when I got the message "dwarves suspended construction of wall - cannot access area". They had somehow gotten on top of the wall.

[Kestrel]

Didn't you notice them before they died? :/

Notice my cheese maker and miller missing?

No.