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[Kanddak]

Stop undermining by building a cantilevered aqueduct extending out over your moat to reach the entrance to invaders' tunnels, which can then be flooded.

[Puzzlemaker]

Hmm... For balance, they should only be able to dig through soil.

[Stromko]

I think invader tunneling is only going to happen when we can properly replace walls. Right now it's a 1-wall at a time and repeat ad nauseum process, because your citizens aren't smart enough not to wall eachother/themselves in if you tell them to fill the whole tunnel at once.

Perhaps invader tunnels should be a special case where they always collapse after a period of time, and the original rock is replaced when they collapse.

I like a nice orderly fortress but I'm not against the idea of siegers occasionally trying to dig into them. It could be a good challenge for a well-established and well defended fortress, and perhaps you could place iron or steel walls (or more fanciful things) at some points to make them essentially unbreachable.

Like always, magma seems the most potent solution. No goblin is digging through that. Worried about goblins with buckets ruining your fun? Destroy all the rivers and lakes on the map with magma, except for an underground channel; which you will also surround with magma. Start on a very hot map so that any water brought in from off map will evaporate before the goblins can bring it to the magma. If they somehow still manage to breach through, well, flood the world. Of course you're going to need a near infinite supply of magma, that's why you start on a volcano.

Or we could dial it back a minute -- the new military structure, and medical system, should make it much easier to keep our dwarves in fighting fit. It should be more of a pleasure to build up a strong military and use them to fight off siegers. Heck, I hope siegers get stronger, and there is that possibility. There should be more risk and more reward for sieges, eventually, and if you have a really good doctor there should be lots less tantrum spirals too.

I think off the top of my head what I'd do to counter tunneling siegers, is make my fortress a great tower with a cleared out space to all sides. Make sufficient fortifications around this tower for covering every approach, and build this tower as deep into the earth as need be. Make the bottom floor just solid steel walls, perhaps with alternating layers of bauxite. Even with every means at their disposal, and even if walls could be destroyed through realistic means (melting, hitting, crowbars), it would take years to breach from below. Attacking from the sides would take siege towers and sufficient numbers to overcome dozens of marksdwarves firing on them, and hammerdwarves at every entrance.

So, really, I'm looking forward to sieges becoming more interesting.

[small lawe]

Digging gobbos would be Fun, but what about goblins with proper siege engines. Wagons are 3x3 cretures and if toady did some magic with them they could surely be made into mobile catapults for breaking city walls and ballisters launching bolts down your main corridoor, now that would be FUN.

[2xMachina]

Mine out a moat around the whole map (to the lowest lvl). Then build a wall to the highest z-lvl. Run a pump tower to flood everything outside with magma. Cookies if your highest z-level is also the highest in the world.

[Shima]

I'd like to see them only be able to either dig through soil, or through the first, say, 3-5 z-levels.  Enough to get in, without the ability to cause Rocks Fall, Everybody Dies by digging out under a whole fortress, since that's just not fair - how do you defend against insta-killing like that except for flat out nullifying the digging via one of the counter-measures listed by other posters.

As well, a smaller digging "window" should give moated flatland forts more purpose, since the moat can prevent them from digging in; the idea there being that, since it's easier to dig a moat in a fairly flat place, it'll have a defensive advantage than a hill or small mountain fort, while the sheer height of a tall mountain or peak fort will keep them from digging in from certain angles due to the depth window.

[Bricks]

Considering that dwarves, as a culture, are basically the best excavators around, I wouldn't anticipate a siege capable of digging through large amounts of soil, let alone rock.  If you are set far back enough into the rock, it would make far more sense for the AI to opt for other, more direct techniques.

[orbcontrolled]

The same way tunneling enemies were dealt with in real life!

Set up a network of ancient seismometers to locate digging enemies, then it's just a matter of setting up an underground dwarven ambush for them to tunnel into.

Does anybody have an academic reference for the ancient seismometer idea that the mythbusters tested out? That one would work far better than Zhang Heng's version, because it could probably be used to determine distance as well. With enough skill at triangulation, a player might even be able to pinpoint the exact location and progress of the tunnel.

[Alrenous]

You can set up a network of fluid-filled tunnels that are separated from each other by 1 tile and completely surround your fortress. The tunnel walls would provide plenty of support to your fortress, and prevent any units from digging into it (because the only way in is to puncture a wall, which then gets them flooded). A simple pattern for the bottom of your fortress would be a set of concentric circular loops, like an archery target.

I think I'm going to do this anyway.

[Terbert]

Ungodly amounts of garnierite? Nickel walls then.

And destroy the only light green building material in the game? Don't think so.

[Ubiq]

And destroy the only light green building material in the game? Don't think so.

True, hadn't considered that angle.

Well, there's always the option of ordering a bunch of lignite blocks from the caravan and dumping them in a circle around the outside wall before applying magma.

Wait, do lignite constructions burn if they come into contact with magma? Because an entire outer wall of burning walls would be a pretty awesome defense mechanism.

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

sadly you can not make them burn from magma! infact even when you build a wall out of a burning lignite block it does not burn stuff.

also all these things are if the enemy could dig smart! think not even dwarfs dig smart! after all who here hasn't been annoyed by the dwarf that is going to mine out the last piece between 2 tunnels and decided he needed to do it from the other side?

[Kulantan]

An aquifer would be a decent defence. Given the amount of work in breaching one for a player I'm not sure the AI would ever be able to cope properly. So my defence is an aquifer with entrance shaft filled with magma during sieges.

[Joakim]

There should be a tech limit as to how deep a race can dig. Stuff like air circulation, supports and stuff. Digging deeper should be slower and more fragile. Thus a deep tunnel made by goblins should cave in if a shot gobbo falls to the ground a little too hard. Dwarven tunnels would be reinforced, supported and safe. This makes attacks from below (except from the underground) impossible if you dig your side defences deep enough. Add a surface keep and you're done!

Even if that isn't possible, I'd add little towers, pillboxes and bunkers all over the map so the entire map is within crossbow range. Each has a booze/food/ammo stockpile, a barracks, anti-digging moats and can be drowned if conquered.

[Atarlost]

this was a really problem for medieval castle, it's called undermining and it was very effective agaist large fortress. but a decent moat filled with carp magma imps solve all your problems.

Fixed