well think about it, the only place they are going to meet enemies on this map is where I put the last few patrol zones outside of the wall and if you only have 1 party this usually works fine as long as everyone gets hungry at the same time and goes back to town all at once instead of 1 at a time, leaving the last guy alone- I don’t think this should ever happen and wish it was something the player could customize or improve with soldier training and discipline.
this also limits the size of your initial “zone” for a new town because you don’t want your soldiers patrolling too far from your main gate but its still a lot bigger than what you would be forced to play in without placing those 1x1 stockpiles.
I think the biggest advantage of this other than fixing the enemies spawning directly on top of you is also that it gives the player a little bit of extra time to notice an enemy has spawned somewhere before they begin attacking as the hearthlings fail to notice enemies unless they are within like 20 feet of them and then there is nothing you can do to save them.
its still entirely possible for a camp to spawn next to my hearthlings on patrol, so it still doesn’t really fix the problem but it makes it a lot less likely to end my game immediately so I find myself not rage quitting as often.