Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Tormy]

A single Goblin tower shouldn't be able to put together an overwhelming army that can face down a dug-in stronghold. That should require the goblins to rally troops from all nearby settlements and descend on your fortress as a horde.

Still, there's simply no way that current populations of any race could survive the weapon-trap-meatgrinder that is the typical DF siege.  Worldgen battles have fairly low death rates, but in-game sieges can have near 100% kills. 

I know I design my fortresses with the ability to position troops behind the goblin forces to catch retreats.

So either goblin populations and or birthrates need to go massively, massively up, or sieging goblins (particularly the leaders) need to be less likely to die.  Stuff like sending in the peons while the elites hang back until traps are sprung, doors are down and archers are engaged, etc.  So that if the siege goes completely tits up, the leaders and the reserves can beat an organised tactical withdrawal and come back next year with more sappers.

Personally, I think we need both.  The traditional personification of the evil fantasy race (not that we need to stick to that) is an overwhelmingly huge horde of expendable infantry with a very small number of extremely dangerous elites and exotics.  Maybe in DF goblins can be the elites, and they need more war-beasts, slave troops (complete with goblin taskmasters!), and mewling minions spawned by their demonic overlords.

We can already do many things with modding, but yeah Toady must implement many new stuff for sieges/siege AI. It has been suggested countless times already, so just to name a few from those: special sieging units to dig tunnels into the fortress / construct bridges over the moats / spot and disable traps.

[Tubi2b]

Deathworks is right. Currently, goblins are created the second they enter your map. The only creatures that aren't generated on your map are liasons.

I dont believe this is true at all. (havent read the rest of post so sry if someone already states this point) I looked my civ screen early on; I CLEARLY remember a leader, axelord, hammerlord, and some recruits. About the 5th - 6th seige I killed the axelord and hammerlord and then they were no longer on the civ screen. Their names while on the map also matched the civ screen names.

Edit: I continued until there was just the leader and a recruit. By that time I was bored with it and dug into the volcanoe.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Actually, I was referring to the average goblin attacker.

The creatures in the civ screens (leaders and diplomats) are all historic figures as far as we can tell, and so, they are not spawned during game play.

So, in the game the visiting diplomats and attacking leaders, etc. are historic figures.

In addition, invading megabeasts also seem to be the genuine, historic deal.

These things have been confirmed as these creatures have shown injuries gotten from world generation or have kill counts and stat gains.

Deathworks

[FlyingScissorKick]

I think if toady implements things to get past everything (moats, traps, dig into fortress), it will be nearly impossible to defend without taking huge casualties. sure the traps thing is a good idea but allowing the enemy to penetrate into the fortress in 50 different ways just ruins the gameplay IMO. Basically it makes traps, moats, bridges, any form of defense other then melee useless. Might as well remove those components of the game.

[Chthonic]

Might as well remove those components of the game.

I don't know about that . . . just because the goblins have the capability doesn't mean that they'll use it.  We dwarves might also not be limited to the defenses we have now.  One year they may have sappers to build bridges, the next year they may decide to bring trolls to bust down doors.  Stymied by your archers, they may invest in catapults only to find you've dug a moat or have dwarven cavalry.  You may dig in deep, and they all freeze or starve to death during the winter while they try to mine to you.  Maybe during the siege your diplomat sneaks out a concealed back door and convinces the mountainhomes to send troops to smash the goblin capital.  Maybe you can buy them off with tribute.  If you kill a few goblins with scattered traps or ambushers in the field, maybe the goblins decide you're not worth it and never make it to the front door.  Maybe the socially impaired goblin general meets with your glib envoy, and your envoy threatens him with The Dwarven Secret Weapon until he backs down.

I'm sure that as siege tactics and the politics behind them become more diverse and intelligent, Toady will see fit to expand our palette of solutions.

[FlyingScissorKick]

lol I recant my statement. It sounds uber.

I never really looked into the aspect of them adapting to changes in defense. I figured it would be an onslaught of underground, over the wall climbers, and bridge builders.

hmmm DF. I only discovered this game several months ago but now I play it more than my new games on ANY of my systems.