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[Beneviento]

As someone said a while earlier, that's a weakness of the simulation, we're talking theory. However, for as long as cage traps consist of unbreakable pocket dimensions, bridges and walls are covered in mystical force-fields, and dragons are smaller than good-sized trees I agree that dragons ar enot dwarves' greatest foe.

If the besieged dwellers of the underground have no need to visit the surface, what need do the surface dwelling besiegers have to visit the underground? You guys are right, if I was a human general tasked with taking the territory of a fortress, I wouldn't commit suicide trying to take it. The course I see working best would be to bring the biggest and fastest artillery I had access to,  bombard the dwarves until their surface walls were broken down and they withdrew underground,then wall off the entrances to the fort and call it a day. I would hold the territory I had been sent to take and who would care if the dwarves are still there? If the idea is to take territory, their presence wouldn't be a problem.

[Deboche]

The reason for attacking dwarves is that they're probably the richest race there is, since they have such easy access to gems and metals and are so skillful at crafting things.

As for that plan, it's not great. The dwarven revenge would be to dig out underneath a city to cause incredible destruction or make a hole in the surface nearby with direct connection to the circus

[Dirst]

As someone said a while earlier, that's a weakness of the simulation, we're talking theory. However, for as long as cage traps consist of unbreakable pocket dimensions, bridges and walls are covered in mystical force-fields, and dragons are smaller than good-sized trees I agree that dragons ar enot dwarves' greatest foe.

If the besieged dwellers of the underground have no need to visit the surface, what need do the surface dwelling besiegers have to visit the underground? You guys are right, if I was a human general tasked with taking the territory of a fortress, I wouldn't commit suicide trying to take it. The course I see working best would be to bring the biggest and fastest artillery I had access to,  bombard the dwarves until their surface walls were broken down and they withdrew underground,then wall off the entrances to the fort and call it a day. I would hold the territory I had been sent to take and who would care if the dwarves are still there? If the idea is to take territory, their presence wouldn't be a problem.

In RL warfare you could just ignore most castles by staying out of catapult range and just wander the countryside.  It wouldn't be wise, however, because the castle can harass your supply lines and cause all sorts of other mischief that would take a siege's worth of effort to prevent.  Particularly Dwarves who tunnel effortlessly and don't worry about artificial embark square borders, it'd be nigh impossible to occupy the territory above without having all the troops succumb to paranoia that any moment the ground might open up or a river might change course.

This would however, be mostly an exercise in spite for Dwarves who don't actually need the surface to survive.  Tolkien's constructed mythology seems to imply that there were still Dwarves in the world; they just keep to themselves in the mountains.  And by in the mountains I mean literally inside them.

Edit: ninja'd by Deboche.

[Beneviento]

And getting at this treasure is worth certain death? My solution isn't great, but it's better than "Oh well, we're at war with the dwarves, let's just give up'. Dwarves are better off with humans as allies, so if even if they go to war over a small disagreement, it doesn't make sense diplomatically to commit genocidal atrocities against them and have them as hated enemies forever.

If I'm not wrong in Tolkien's mythology the dwarves produced no food for themselves and instead traded for it with other races like humans or elves, meaning either Tolkien isn't compatible with DF's world or enemies of Dwarves could easily besiege mountainhomes and starve them out. Never mind, that's a false dilemma, it could be only that that's different.

[BoredVirulence]

... Dwarves are better off with humans as allies...

...If I'm not wrong in Tolkien's mythology the dwarves produced no food for themselves and instead traded for it with other races like humans or elves...

A lot of fantasy seems to agree. And really, from a perspective similar to Tolkien's dwarves, there is little reason to go to war with them. They are fairly secluded and don't expand into the same areas men or elves would, and make awesome stuff.

I could be wrong, I'm not as knowledgeable about Tolkien's work as I am in other fantasy worlds, but I believe that was just Erebor. Khazad-dûm was sealed from the world for a while and survived.

[Beneviento]

I didn't know about that. Thanks for telling me, the more you know, right? Men Elves and Dwarves really do have little reason to fight. Men are ambitious, but they are great in number and because of their infighting human kings would probably have many more veteran warriors than any dwarven kingdom. They also would probably be Dwarves' best source of surface foodstuffs and other products like fabric. Also, I guess if you think about it territorial disputes don't make sense because Human and Dwarven kingdoms could literally coexist one on top of the other. Humans would also be the best candidates to be masters of the sea because of their taller, less dense frames, which would enable them to be better at swimming, climbing rigging, and doing other such tasks than dwarves. They are also willing to cut trees, unlike elves. This would mean Elves and Dwarves would have to trade with them for things like seafood or pearls and coral, things I can see dwarves coveting.

[Deboche]

Actually the best seamen would be elves for those same reasons and add to that better sight at a distance. They have ships in LOTR and they can somehow grow wood for their uses, maybe not at a scale fit for ships?

But if DF elves are too much like LOTR elves, they'll just kick everyone's ass because Tolkien didn't balance the races out. Elves were way better than everyone else

[Beneviento]

Maybe in DF the trees have to be cut in a certain way that only the Elves know to be okay in their moral code? I think Humans and Elves on the sea would be similar to the British and French fllets during the Napoleonic Wars. The French/Elven ships would be better but the British/Human ships would win out due to their overwhelming industrial base. Human would be able to turn out many more ships and crews than the Elves could due to the humans' larger numbers and would be able to corner sea resources. I can't see Elves liking ships because, being immortal and slow-breeding, the risk of shipwrecks and storms, ending their immortal lives by pure chance, would be scary for them.

Elves are pretty unbalanced in LOTR. I think it might be because Elves are supposed to be the 'pure good' race, so they kind of has to be the strongest.

[condonzack]

Keep in mind that DF dwarfs and elves aren't your standard versions. Elves most often war with Goblins and Humans, the later because of ideology. Mostly pious humans getting riled into a crusade against the cannibal savages.

Dwarfs might very well end up at war against elves or humans but mostly they face goblins.

Goblins have endless hordes, and come with trolls- building destroyers. Lets look at it from a more "where Toady seems to be going" perspective. So no perfect cagetraps.

Goblins always send several bands to test a fort's defenses before committing a full siege. Those snatchers do harm even if they don't grab a kiddy- they bring back valuable info. Eventually we'll get subterranean sieges too!

Dwarves are long lived too. This is both a strength and a weakness. On one hand it means that they have absolutely no problem with very long term plans. For example if a dwarf ruler wanted to take a certain city, he might send off a band to start a fort near by and slowly build a death tunnel. On the other hand dwarfs aren't as good at dealing with quickly changing situations.

I find it funny that someone mentioned flooding as a way to deal with dwarf fortresses. Even the world-genned forts have central tunnels that would drain the water out. A natural explanation for them!

[94dima94]

There is a different problem that we're not considering: in a world with different dwarven civilizations, there is the possibility of a dwarven army attacking an enemy fortress during a war. In that case, all the traps and the engineering could achieve nothing, since the attackers would be able to dig out an entrance WAY faster than other races (as discussed before).
In that case, a fortress would be in serious trouble, especially considering the fact that usually dwarven defense against invaders is to seal off the outside or redirect the invaders to specific chokepoints.
A small dwarven army with a handful of trained miners could be the bane of a mountain hall, since the only way to stop them before the fortress is breached would be to attack them out in the open before the digging operation starts, something that is a terrible scenario for a defender:
1) the defender (except in a "constant war" scenario) is not always ready to deploy an army extremely quickly, whereas the attacker is immediately ready;
2) usually, fortress armies are built to finish off the few enemies who survived the traps, but a frontal assault against an attacker is not the best situation to be for them;
3) if the attacker has informations about the fortress (something easily obtained with a couple of spies hidden in a big migrant wave, the same way vampires do) a miner would need only a few minutes to reach and easily destroy any "doomsday project" and make it useless, or even worse, turn it against the fortress, maybe piercing the magma channels and releasing a volcano inside the fortress; it would destroy everything inside, but if the purpose of the attackers was the total destruction of a dangerous enemy, it's still a viable way to deal with the problem.

[Skullsploder]

Maybe in DF the trees have to be cut in a certain way that only the Elves know to be okay in their moral code?

Halaal lumber. I like it.

But yes, dwarves' biggest threat would be other dwarves, and once intra-race wars are implemented, we'll be seeing them a lot more I'm sure, due to dwarves all wanting the mountains.

A possible defense would be a "sheath" of empty space around a fortress, filled with magma or even water, and with sealable marksdwarf positions carved into the fortress-side part of the sheath.
That way, should an enemy, after a long time labouring in a death tunnel to finally get to the heart of the fortress actually get there (because remember, it's incredibly difficult to judge depth and direction in tunnels, and so it would be possible for sappers to miss the fortress' tunnels completely), all that would happen is that their own tunnel would be filled with water/magma (possibly killing the best enemy sappers). The only way attackers could counter this would be to pump the water/magma out of the sheath via their own tunnel, which the dwarves within would surely notice. Since the sheath would have very large volume and possibly a reserve tank to increase the time emptying it takes, the defenders would have ample time to redeploy forces to the appropriate areas.

A prepared force with ranged weapons waiting for you to bridge a gap at the end of a long cramped tunnel is not to be trifled with.

[Larix]

Maybe in DF the trees have to be cut in a certain way that only the Elves know to be okay in their moral code?

If you ever traded with the elves instead of magmaing them on sight, you would have noticed that they bring "grown xxx-wood" stuff now

... dwarves' biggest threat would be other dwarves, and once intra-race wars are implemented, we'll be seeing them a lot more I'm sure, due to dwarves all wanting the mountains.

A possible defense would be a "sheath" of empty space around a fortress, filled with magma or even water, and with sealable marksdwarf positions carved into the fortress-side part of the sheath.

While this makes for a nice and hard-to-pierce extra layer of defence, it can still be defeated by a clever attacker. You'll have to be prepared for it by offering a drainage tunnel of your own when breaching the shell, but if you do, an entire wall of water can disappear in a matter of seconds. (Magma will take significantly longer.)

In addition, for dwarfs directed by a human player, the threat can be minimised: you'll get the damp/warm wall warnings when getting close, and you can reduce the damage of a breach by putting doors and/or depressuring blocks into your mines.

I once easily disarmed a doomsday clock surrounded by such a water sheath simply by punching a drain to the caverns. And the work invested in such a water sheath is enormous, while it can be taken out in probably a few weeks of mining if you have an idea of what you're facing.

Another mode of attack would be cave-ins. Not by undermining an enemy fort, simply by building supports with floor tiles on top and pulling them away. Cave-ins crash through floors until they hit a natural wall or mined-out staircase. Once you're on top of the fort proper, you can simply install a bunch of supports and smack them into the construction, as sort of shaped charges. Obviously, there are defences against this - starting the actual fort a good way underground, making checkerboard patterns of mined-out and untouched rock on each level. Still, patient siegers could get you eventually if you just try to sit them out.

Thinking three-dimensionally definitely gives some neat options in DF. One of my fondest military memories was when my dwarfs defeated a human force that had set up camp by digging out the floor under them and caving in the camp-site. Much easier to trap them underground, where you've set up everything to welcome them.

[Ghills]

It's very rare to find anything in the fantasy genre where dwarves are on the offensive - so rare in fact that I can't think of a single example, and I've read a LOT of mediocre fluff fantasy.

Read Tolkien. The entire plot and backstory of the Hobbit is dwarf invasions.  Also, not mediocre.

[Scoops Novel]

Just going to leave this here http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=136322.msg5003654#msg5003654