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I just started out in what I thought was a pretty decent starting position. I'm pretty new to the game. Played a little in the old 2D days but only recently really got into the game, had a pretty successful first fortress and in the second one, lost a bunch of miners (and all my pickaxes) in an an attempt to cave in an aquifier without the materials for mechanics.
So anyway, after a while I checked the units list and saw a minotaur. I got worried for a while but when I checked where it was I saw that it was deep inside a cave a long way from my fortress where I didn't plan on letting my dwarves go.
Only, for some reason they did anyway.
One of them got killed by the minotaur and now every single dwarf is just rushing to their deaths trying to recover their dead friends in a spiral of doom.
It's a bit frustrating getting a bunch of immigrants and seeing them all die in a few minutes after arrival.
I've tried making the caves restriced as well as drafting a bunch of dwarves and sending them at the minotaur but to no success. I've tried building walls around the entrance to the cave but the death spiral seems to be higher on their list of priorities than the prevention of it. <_<
So can I solve this in any way?
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mark all items near the minotaur as forbidden, mark it as a restricted traffic zone, and turn off corpse hauling for your dwarves.
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Restricted traffic zones do not affect where dwarves go; they just affect how they get there. Once a dwarf decides to get a ropeweed thong that's hanging off the minotaur's left horn, he's going to go into that cave, regardless of how much he dislikes going into restricted territory.
Pretty much you have to mark the items as forbidden, kill the minotaur, or just prevent all your dwarves from going outside (hit the 'o' key to bring up a list of commands including inside/outside permissions). But that last one has a lot of unpleasant side effects.
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Forbidding everything worked.
One of my dwarves still ran to his doom afterwards, but now no one seems to care.
If I forbid the corpses, can I then safely activate burial on my dwarves again?
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Yup. If there's critters in there, you'll have to go and forbid the entire area pretty much every season, or your dwarves will seek out the dead giant rats to put them in the refuse pile before they start stinking up the minotaur's lair. It's pretty obnoxious.
Oh, and when your dead dwarves rot, that's OK; but when they turn to bones, you have to go forbid the bones.
[ March 27, 2008: Message edited by: benoit.hudson ]
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Well, now I've sucessfully walled the entrance in.. so as long as I don't accidentally dig my way into the cave I should be fine.. right?
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Yes, as long as there is no other way in there you have nothing to worry about from him.
I suggest getting a military of marksdwarves together so you can someday recover the bones though ;)
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Do you have magma, an aquifer or running water in your map?
If so, fill up the cave from above to do away with the minotaur.I did it on a much larger scale with a kobold-ridden canyon and magma. The flashing names of kobolds that burned to death brightened up my unit list.
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flooded a mole dog infested cave a while ago... had to use a small pressure tower becouse the water would evaporate before fully flooding the first part.