Hi, I tried to build a house with an internal courtyard, inspired by greek / roman style buildings, with the possible idea of hiding my stockpile in the central area, however once a couple of layers of the wall were built the villagers inside could no longer get out, and gradually more and more joined them until it was almost all of my village (except the weaver and farmer). The villagers could move around within the courtyard and new villagers could climb the equivalently sized walls on the outside to get in but were then stuck too.
I Tried to build a ladder on the inside to try and help them escape, but although the ladder was built they remained trapped. I also got some lua errors, but don’t think these were related as they appeared at different times
At this point in development, I find when building complex structures it’s good practice to build ladders here and there along the smooth non-scaffolded sides. Scaffolding is climbable and a ladder on the other side will help them get back and forth until you place a door to the courtyard. Try it out, it might work
I sometimes get a worker stuck inside normal buildings, the courtyard seems to make it much worse!
Update: I tried building a courtyard building with ladders to test if they’d get stuck… They didn’t, but they can’t seem to find a way into the building to finish off the courtyard walls and stop working on the outdoor walls. Use the ladder, dummies!
Another interesting design - try building a spiral structure. You’ll end up with a roof over the whole thing, at least if the walls are close enough together. Adjusting the slope of the walls has no effect BTW.