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After an unfortunate series of events, I have a problem that I can't seem to solve. The current circumstances:

  • My fort is walled in.
  • The outside is swarming with zombies.
  • There are two zombies within the walls, one of them a very dangerous mule foal.
  • Half of my surviving dwarves are running around on the wallsin panic because of the zombies.

I'd really like these dwarves to get down and run inside (through the blood-stained stairs), but they aren't, despite the civilian burrow I placed underground. How can I solve this problem?

enter image description here

The teal Ñ are zombies, and the white Ñ on the wall is a harmless ghost. < > are up- and down-stairs, respectively.

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(if someone finds this question too localized, just change the title to "How to handle dwarves in panic?" or something) –  Anna May 8 '12 at 9:02
That's a very amusing image. Are you sure you are using the burrows correctly? Do the zombies have a path to dwarves? If they don't, you could try drafting the dwarves and ordering them to go inside. If you have some other dwarves you could try equipping them with crossbows and just killing the 2 zombies. –  kotekzot May 8 '12 at 9:19
I did let my crossbow squad go at them. They managed to kill all but these two. After having depleted their arrows against the foal, they tried to bludgeon the undeath out of it with their crossbows, which didn't work. The other zombie is chained, but the foal can path to the dwarves. I don't think that wall is going to get completed. I didn't think of drafting the wall dwellers; will do! –  Anna May 8 '12 at 9:36
If you have some dwarves who aren't being total babies it should be trivial to produce some more bolts (and crossbows, in case they are irretrievable at the moment). –  kotekzot May 8 '12 at 9:40
Drafting and stationing them got them down, and now the wall is complete. Thanks a lot! Please post an answer so I can accept it :) –  Anna May 8 '12 at 9:44
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2 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Drafting and stationing the dwarves elsewhere should stop them from being scared by the zombies.

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Civilian dwarves are scared beings. Anything that is hostile will scare them.

Dwarves in an actvie militia are almost completely fearless. The times they will run away are few and far between, so if you need your dwarves to stop running around in a panic and go somewhere, you can try to put them into militia squads and then order the squads to go where you want. Just keep in mind that as soon as the dwarves militia squad is activated, they go into fearless mode and may decide to attack what was previously scaring them. If they aren't armed and armored well, this means they will probably get hurt or killed.

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Is there a way to make sure they don't attack? –  Anna May 8 '12 at 16:31
Unfortunately, not. So you get your choice of "run away" or "attack anything dangerous to the others". Note that even scared dwarves WILL fight back if they are attacked. They just prefer to run away at any opportunity. –  StarPilot May 8 '12 at 16:40
Considering OP's dwarves did proceed to their station instead of charging the dead(ly) foal, there must be some factor that triggers their murder-thirst. –  kotekzot May 8 '12 at 16:44
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