Dwarves Don't Respond to Burrow Orders

[Mr. BlackChip]

I am curious the extent to which others are having issues with Dwarves respond to burrow order. Being a relatively long-time fan of DF, one of the first things I do when I get established in a new fort is set up an emergency burrow for my dwarves to retreat to when SHTF. In earlier releases, I'd set up the burrow, set an civilian alert when threats came (sieges, werebeasts, dragons, etc.), and close the main gate. The dwarves would drop whatever they are doing, run back into the fort if they were on the surface, and batton down.

They are NOT currently doing this. When I make the emergency burrow active (there is no civilian alert), the dwarves half-heartedly make there way to the burrow. In fact, most of them seem to prefer to loiter about, even on the surface. The folks in my bar/pub/tavern don't move. They have absolutely no hustle, and it is rather frustrating. I am not sure how to troubleshoot this problem, and I don't see all too many discussions on the Steam Forums here about this issue. Thank you for reading this and for your suggestions.

[Mr. BlackChip]

Please ignore typos.

[LastChime]

Is the little workshop box thingy checked? Turn that off used to be default off.

[jeetrix]

afaik burrow implement only prohibits 'new' paths being drawn outside the burrow, it doesnt interrupt active paths, has to be 'forced' by disabling standing zones/designations if theres urgency.

[Mr. BlackChip]

Originally posted by LastChime:

Is the little workshop box thingy checked? Turn that off used to be default off.

It is, and while it helps slightly, the dwarves still loiter.

Originally posted by jeetrix:

afaik burrow implement only prohibits 'new' paths being drawn outside the burrow, it doesnt interrupt active paths, has to be 'forced' by disabling standing zones/designations if theres urgency.

Thank you for the response, but it does seem strange that all active designations would have to be deactivated to get the desired behavior. This is particularly true, when the last iteration of DF had the desired behavior with the Civilian Alert

Also, none of my tavern patrons seem very interested in going to the burrow. You would think that they would be the first to book it to the burrow as they have no active paths at all (they're standing around).

[jeetrix]

Originally posted by Mr. BlackChip:

Thank you for the response, but it does seem strange that all active designations would have to be deactivated to get the desired behavior. This is particularly true, when the last iteration of DF had the desired behavior with the Civilian Alert

as i recall classic burrows had same function non-disruptive function and only controlled new paths.
civ alert was another function (military function) using the burrow as a parameter, and is not implemented (yet) in steam version.

Originally posted by Mr. BlackChip:

Also, none of my tavern patrons seem very interested in going to the burrow. You would think that they would be the first to book it to the burrow as they have no active paths at all (they're standing around).

yes they would have to get a certain occupation/target to draw a path as it doesnt interrupt activity (in this case, none).

i admit its fiddly and limiting currently to produce desired outcome of retreat/safety.

my solution is to have my inn within my burrow and to secure part of the surface with a walled perimeter to allow grazing pens and refuse stockpile and trade while burrow is active .

[db48x]

Burrows work more or less the same as before: citizens assigned to an active burrow can only take jobs located within the burrow. The primary difference is in the UI: there is no civilian alert any more. The civilian alert used to interrupt dwarves and make them go back to their burrow, which was a very handy direct control that people relied on a lot. You can now enable and disable any burrow, but enabling one doesn’t immediately interrupt everyone like an alert would.

The other change appears to be that some jobs, especially the ones for idle dwarves, no longer respect burrows at all.

[Mr. BlackChip]

Originally posted by db48x:

Burrows work more or less the same as before: citizens assigned to an active burrow can only take jobs located within the burrow. The primary difference is in the UI: there is no civilian alert any more. The civilian alert used to interrupt dwarves and make them go back to their burrow, which was a very handy direct control that people relied on a lot. You can now enable and disable any burrow, but enabling one doesn’t immediately interrupt everyone like an alert would.

The other change appears to be that some jobs, especially the ones for idle dwarves, no longer respect burrows at all.

Why Toady would have disabled alerts in this release is quite beyond me, and frankly it is rather difficult to properly run a fortress without it. Perhaps there was some sort of communication that I am unacquainted with which describes his reasoning.

[Balillo]

I have the same issue and I had reloaded my previous save a couple of times because a beast would decimate and kill the dwarf babies standing outsides... Making a massive burrow or activating the burrow weeks before prior the invasion doesn't work either.

We can just wait and hope the devs will fix the burrow issue

[db48x]

Originally posted by Mr. BlackChip:

Originally posted by db48x:

Burrows work more or less the same as before: citizens assigned to an active burrow can only take jobs located within the burrow. The primary difference is in the UI: there is no civilian alert any more. The civilian alert used to interrupt dwarves and make them go back to their burrow, which was a very handy direct control that people relied on a lot. You can now enable and disable any burrow, but enabling one doesn’t immediately interrupt everyone like an alert would.

The other change appears to be that some jobs, especially the ones for idle dwarves, no longer respect burrows at all.

Why Toady would have disabled alerts in this release is quite beyond me, and frankly it is rather difficult to properly run a fortress without it. Perhaps there was some sort of communication that I am unacquainted with which describes his reasoning.

As I recall it, all burrows used to be active all of the time. The civilian alert was a special exception; that one burrow could be activated and deactivated at will. I think they just changed the UI so that all burrows can be activate or inactive, rather than just the one. They may not have realized that the alert was actually an interruption as well, to cause everyone to suddenly stop what they were doing and pick a new task inside their burrow. Or perhaps they just considered that to be too much of a direct control over a dwarf’s actions.