Caravans should still come after the siege, at least until one (or possibly more) caravans disappear, or one caravan flees after being attacked. They shouldn't magically know you are being sieged.
Yeah, this would make it more realistic.
Also, it should be based on the size of a siege. If the siege is a horde of 200 goblins led by their king with legendary troll strike squads around the perimeter, fine, don't send caravans. But if it's a basic 30 goblin siege against a fortress with no military, just send in more guards with the caravan and beat the everliving s*** out of the goblins.
Eh, now you have contradicted yourself a bit.
How should other civs know about the actual size of the sieging army?
How about this - caravan spawns on the map, sees the siege, turns tail and runs; then that civ knows about the siege and will send a caravan. Once this happens with _your_ [dwarf] civ, they may wish to send an army next season to break the siege.
Yep, that could work also.
The only big issue on this thread is the sapping. There needs to be a middle ground. Hence why I suggested it be a game feature, but off by default. Newbs have enough trouble with sieges as they are. I did. Please, think of the newbs. We don't want them (and their money ) running away from DF (and the donations button ).
You know I might put that last line into my sig.
Yeah, it should be turned off by default because of the newbies. I agree. However simply saying "OH NOES I DON'T LIKE THE IDEA, DO NOT CODE IN ANYTHING LIKE THIS" is just nonsense. Lot of people would like to see diggers/tunnelers. I hope you understand it.
Also 2 things.
1. Like I've said, stop talking about the goblins only. It looks like that everyone is saying "goblin" when the word "siege" appears in a topic.
2. Diggers/tunnelers shouldn't be a "siege system feature" only. Let's say I mod in a giant worm [Something like what we've seen in the Dune movies...]
I guess it would be quite logical to give them the TUNNELER tag, correct?