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[Avo]

Currently dwarves pick a direction and flee in that (even if its right into the creature their fleeing from). This works well for getting UristMccoward killed, but makes your dwarves seem stupider. If your dwarves started to flee to the nearest meeting area it would make them feel a little smarter and alot more human (after all, if your being chased by a man dwarf eating turkey you would run for the fortress right?). Dwarves would of course stop and head back to work once there done being chased like in the current system.

[EmperorJon]

How about 'Flee to Burrow'

[dwarfhoplite]

yeah... Now it's like your legendary armorsmith is having a walk outside your city walls. when he's done he returns to the gate and is almost inside already when he sees goblin ambush. He panics and decides to flee them in to the wild, not into the fortress. then you decide "damn legendary armorsmith I gotta save him" you put all military out and half of them die to other hidden ambushes and your armorsmith gets torn apart first.

[JanusTwoface]

Doesn't seem completely unreasonable the way it is. Someone truly *panicked* isn't exactly in a reasonable state of mind. Consider all of the times when large groups panic and trample people.

[EmperorJon]

Yeah but... if someone with a sword was running at me, and I was standing right infront of my open front door, I'd run inside and shut the door... not run circles in my garden and get stabbed.

[JanusTwoface]

Are you sure?

[Bohandas]

Doesn't seem completely unreasonable the way it is. Someone truly *panicked* isn't exactly in a reasonable state of mind. Consider all of the times when large groups panic and trample people.

The problem is that dwarves don't currently seem to have a state of mind between calm and panicked. Until they do, I think that it would make sense for them to flee to a meeting area or designated burrow, since most things that scare them aren't really particularly dangerous, even though many are.

The optimal solution, however, would be to have multiple levels of fear; there needn't be many, just two should suffice. An "afraid" fear level, in which they would flee toward the nearest meeting area and/or a specially designated burrow, and a "Panicked" fear level, wherein they would respond as they do currently. Whether they become Afraid or Panicked could be dependent on a combination of the stats of the creature that frightened them (either via the implementation of a new [SCARINESS_LEVEL:] creature tag or some kind of mathematical derivation of the creature's other tags), combined with the Dwarf's personality traits (and in particular, one or more of the following personality traits (in descending order of potential relevance): ANXIETY, VULNERABILITY, SELF_DISCIPLINE, SELF_EFFICACY, EXCITEMENT_SEEKING, and CAUTION)   

[JanusTwoface]

That does sound reasonable.

The [SCARINESS_LEVEL:] sounds like the big bads in a lot of RPGs. They usually have some sort of fear aura just because of how terrifying they'd be. A civilian dwarf that's never even held a weapon before sees a Dragon or Bronze Colossus coming for them? Rational thought is gone.

[Crioca]

A civilian dwarf that's never even held a weapon before sees a Dragon or Bronze Colossus coming for them? Rational thought is gone.

That's quite true, but instinct is still going to drive you towards to place that you associate with safety. Just because you're too scared to think rationally, doesn't mean that your brain stops working entirely.

[Starver]

Yeah but... if someone with a sword was running at me, and I was standing right infront of my open front door, I'd run inside and shut the door... not run circles in my garden and get stabbed.

I believe the old adage applies...

If in trouble,
          if in doubt,
Run in circles,
          scream and shout!

[Niseg]

you can check this thread if you want to control how your dwarves escape when the civilian alert is active. This takes advantage of traffic zones to prevent the dwarves from running home through your goblins.

It might be possible to manipulate the dwarf's escape route with traffic zone but it would have to calculate a new path in order to exploit them. You can probably lead the goblins into a trap that way.

I didn't test all the traffic zone in game in game except for civilian alert which works well. you can probably fool one of the dwarves to sacrifice himself so others can escape. I'm not exactly sure how the escape pathfinding is implemented and where dwarves path when they try to escape but it can be tested.

[astaldaran]

lol what is ironic about this is at least right now when you McScared Dwarf gets eaten by the McBeast at least he has (normally) distracted the beast and kept him away from others...with this idea McScared now leads the McBeast to your Great Hall and McBeast enjoys a savory lunch of more then just one dwarf. (though most of our forts would probably stop this...I still can see it leading to fun)

I like the idea of "scare level" and reacting differently based on how scared they are. I agree, most of the time a dwarf should run for perceived safety, only when he is totally overwhelmed by panick should he just freak out.

[tolkafox]

Are you sure?

This requires much testing.

I haven't had a problem with them not running into my fortress when burrows are active. If the goblin is standing right next to your entrance then ya they aren't going to try to run past the goblin for safety. If they are standing in the entrance and a goblin appears outside, they'll run inside. If they decide the goblin will be on them before they reach the entrance, they'll run. For good reason too, my woodcutter ran away from my entrance and for that he lived. Either way, my military will be outside in 15 or under steps. I also create a secondary defense with walls, so my dwarves can go outside and fish or woodcut without being bothered.

If they ambush my hunter, well, it sucks to be them.