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[FrisianDude]

above reminds me of the fb made of flame in my most recent fortress. Easily shot to death because it concentrated on a door rather than on marksdwarfs, but... my laptop went to some 48c itself seemingly because the cavern was on fire.

But goblins having the ability to dig... I'd consider that amazing.

[Tryble]

For my part, I would like to see a development pass focusing on the "fortress". Siege engines that actually aim. Siege armies that build little tents and fences, steal your outdoor crops and livestock, dig through soil layers and push wagon-type catapults up to smash your drawbridge. Multi-tile dragons and GCS. Archers smart enough to step up to fortifications to shoot. Ladders and ropes for climbing over my walls or out of my wells. Diplomats announcing that war has been declared and I should short-sell my goblinite futures.

I'd love to see this happen as well.  I know DF isn't exactly a player-focused project, but a release once in a while to improve the systems the player uses the most would be fantastic.  Squads that can be ordered to hold the line/stand their ground, archers that know where their posts are and stay there, orders to prefer reloading over melee, and an 'alert' that would have dwarves eat/drink/sleep, even if unnecessary, in preparation of a big battle or job coming up, and so on.


...now that I think about it, I wonder if it would be possible to write a plugin for DFHack that would alter the move speed of specific dwarves down to near-minimum in an attempt to mimic a stand-your-ground order.  Archers can still sort of be forced to stand next to fortifications, but charging melee dwarves has few workarounds.

[mirrizin]

There is a suggestions board. I do like the idea of giving dwarven military a little more discipline than "Go here!" and "Kill that guy!" Even being able to stage a strategic withdrawal would be nice.

[FrisianDude]

Tryble's post makes me think of miners as even more important in fortress defense. This requires that tunneling takes more effort - in the sense that tunnels must be kept 'open' and collapse free somehow- and that therefore defensive miners could take mining countermeasures against, say goblin siege-tunnels. Like say, break into their tunnel, dismantle the tunnelsupport, retreat really fecking quickly back into own tunnels and dismantle said defensive tunnels.


And now I'm reminded of a scene from the rather wonderful movie Alatriste.

[greycat]

Goblins digging would be a disaster.  They'd dig into the river, the aquifer, the volcano... the map would be completely destroyed.

But goblins climbing over your walls with ladders... breaking down your drawbridge... breaking holes in your walls... all of that sounds fine.  Once it's balanced.

[khearn]

There's already a dfhack plugin called diggingInvaders that lets invaders dig. Dunno if it's works on the current version, though. The last activity on its thread was in June of 2014.

[DFHack]# help diggingInvaders
diggingInvaders: Makes invaders dig to your dwarves.
Usage:
  diggingInvaders 0
    disables the plugin
  diggingInvaders 1
    enables the plugin
  diggingInvaders enable
    enables the plugin
  diggingInvaders disable
    disables the plugin
  diggingInvaders add GOBLIN
    registers the race GOBLIN as a digging invader. Case-sensitive.
  diggingInvaders remove GOBLIN
    unregisters the race GOBLIN as a digging invader. Case-sensitive.
  diggingInvaders setCost GOBLIN walk n
    sets the walk cost in the path algorithm for the race GOBLIN
  diggingInvaders setCost GOBLIN destroyBuilding n
  diggingInvaders setCost GOBLIN dig n
  diggingInvaders setCost GOBLIN destroyRoughConstruction n
  rough constructions are made from boulders
  diggingInvaders setCost GOBLIN destroySmoothConstruction n
  smooth constructions are made from blocks or bars instead of boulders
  diggingInvaders setDelay GOBLIN destroyBuilding n
    adds to the job_completion_timer of destroy building jobs that are assigned to invaders
  diggingInvaders setDelay GOBLIN dig n
  diggingInvaders setDelay GOBLIN destroyRoughConstruction n
  diggingInvaders setDelay GOBLIN destroySmoothConstruction n
  diggingInvaders now
    makes invaders try to dig now, if plugin is enabled
  diggingInvaders clear
    clears all digging invader races
  diggingInvaders edgesPerTick n
    makes the pathfinding algorithm work on at most n edges per tick. Set to 0 or lower to make it unlimited.

[FrisianDude]

Goblins digging would be a disaster.  They'd dig into the river, the aquifer, the volcano... the map would be completely destroyed.

But goblins climbing over your walls with ladders... breaking down your drawbridge... breaking holes in your walls... all of that sounds fine.  Once it's balanced.

Them digging into the river or the aquifer would just mean them drowning, I don't mind. Volcano I see your point, but perhaps just a few z- s of siege digging could be okay. If you embark near a volcano that just means you have to defend the 'cano as well

Khearn, that is pretty cool

[Lebo]

Having played Dwarf Fortress from what, 0.40d or what was it again years back, it's been fun to watch the game evolve to where we are at right now. The new caverns, the titans, the new dwarven thoughts and needs system and everything else that's now in.

Hard to say whether I love or dislike the new neighbors-system though. Previously it was pretty straightforward to find the PERFECT SITE and you knew that sooner or later the riches your fort would generate, megaproject or not, would attract the usual hordes of goblins, kobold thieves and their murdersquads and of course the occasional megabeast or two.

Now you need to check if your perfect site is anywhere close to the amount of neighbors you want, and kobolds for me have been a random chance for quite a while now.

Even with places where you got every possible neighbor you would want, the amount of time that passes before the less-friendly people send their forces your way seems to differ and it has changed from the past. I haven't had simple goblin squad attacks for quite some time now, they always make themselves welcome for a first visit with a siege of one or two squads.

At least I can attempt some SCIENCE with the current system now that Retiring/Reclaiming a fort is in place. Ended up with a nice little place on a succession game, and realized after my turn that the island only has humans living in it. So what I did was Retire the fort on my own branch, and embarked with goblins, elves and kobolds to the island, and wouldn't you know it, the neighbor-list upon Reclaiming the fort did list all of the new civs. So now I guess in a few years I will find out how the new site population thing handles with new settlements popping up by force around a player-controlled fort, and whether or not those settlements with nothing but the 7 settlers will allow a gateway for their respected civs to start sending caravans or hostiles my way.

I'm hoping for some FUN, but I don't know. Maybe the site has locked the initial neighbor-situation upon embark and the new arrivals won't matter at all. Guess I'll see sooner or later, eh?

[FrisianDude]

^the only kobolds I've seeen in euh 0.42.03 I think weren't kobolds but human corpses, which now look like how kobold corpses used to look.

[gunpowdertea]

And this can all be done while still acknowledging the player's success. Has the goblins threat really been eliminated? Fine, well done, congratulations. The immense wealth of your fortress has attracted the attention of greedy Dragons. Savage hordes pillaging the countryside arrive from another continent. Your earthly arrogance of building a tower that reaches the heavens has drawn the ire of deities. A creature from the underworld seeks your artifact X and is advancing with its armies. Extra-planar entities envious of your riches have opened a portal from their world. A tarrasque has awakened from its 8000 years slumber, for a new iteration of a cycle wiping out all civilizations.

I hope something is planned beyond that world simulation. It should never lead to getting the upper hand (perhaps totally independently from the player's own actions) and the fortress now being safe forever.

Well... I get plenty of Forgotten Beasts and Titans visiting me. A Hydra just appeared and munched on my woefully underequipped military. Yeah, my own fault... but still, I somehow was getting lulled in, with the last Gobbo visit being a few years back. I also stopped holing myself in (but using ramps and rooms and choke points really makes that less challenging) and I use cage traps only to catch cave critters for breeding. Several Dorfs are now unhappy, but I guess they will recover (actually I hope they won't so I can gen a new fort).

(since you do not write about FBs, you have not gotten any? Especially metal ones scare me...)
But yes, it is difficult to lose nowadays if you are not super daring - or plating fortress defense (which I really enjoy as well, but it is too badass for me, I prefer the simulation aspect over the combat most of the times). I like I can retire a fort now and move on to the next embark. Rebuilding a civilisation one fort at a time...

[Shûl-nak]

Learn to leave yourself open to catastrophe. The best stories are never about the fortress that never fell.

[Stragus]

Well... I get plenty of Forgotten Beasts and Titans visiting me. A Hydra just appeared and munched on my woefully underequipped military. Yeah, my own fault... but still, I somehow was getting lulled in, with the last Gobbo visit being a few years back. [...]

(since you do not write about FBs, you have not gotten any? Especially metal ones scare me...)
But yes, it is difficult to lose nowadays if you are not super daring - or plating fortress defense (which I really enjoy as well, but it is too badass for me, I prefer the simulation aspect over the combat most of the times). I like I can retire a fort now and move on to the next embark. Rebuilding a civilisation one fort at a time...

When playing the Fortress Defence mod (challenge+bonus), I did finally see 2 or 3 FBs... but frankly, when you already have a 100-strong military to face what that crazy mod is throwing at you, these Forgotten Beasts are a real joke.

I really can't see any way to lose in the vanilla version, unless one is excessively careless.

[gunpowdertea]

When playing the Fortress Defence mod (challenge+bonus), I did finally see 2 or 3 FBs... but frankly, when you already have a 100-strong military to face what that crazy mod is throwing at you, these Forgotten Beasts are a real joke.

I really can't see any way to lose in the vanilla version, unless one is excessively careless.

Yeah, for somebody who cherishes the challenges of FD mod, the FBs are... well... lame? You can get more of them (and earlier) by having a shorter history, they tend to get killed during world gen. I remember them being more badass in previous versions, though. Still, watch out for the syndromes, we lost many forts to that (e.g. poisoned egg roasts causing slow death).
And: I do see your point. Once you have a stable population with some dudes churning out masterwork roasts and alcohol and engravings all over, and a well trained and well equipped military... Hence the self-imposed challenges that many use - and after getting the basic pointers for most things I now try to figure stuff out the "hard" (non-wiki-reading) way. Except mine carts: I read a ton about them and have not really managed to apply it. By the time my transport tunnels are set up I have moved almost everything to the magma sea (which I now will drain to harvest precious candy spoilerstuff).

[Chevaleresse]

Learn to leave yourself open to catastrophe. The best stories are never about the fortress that never fell.

Unless it's Silentthunders.

[Shazbot]

I played some Rimworld and the contrast in difficulty is astonishing. Rimworld has challenge-driven AI that throws events at you every time things start running smoothly and starvation is a major risk. There is really no comparison to Dwarf Fortress in terms of difficulty, and currently Rimworld better exemplifies "Losing is Fun". You can do your absolute best to build an unassailable settlement, but it will break down without active risk/reward decision making. I'll play Rimworld into the wee hours of the night like I once played Dwarf Fortress, there is no "I'll just fix this crisis" gameplay loop.

Dwarf Fortress needs to take a cue from other sandbox management games in the genre and introduce challenge-driven events. If fortress stress is consistently falling, thieves, invaders, diseases and wild animals need to be given a kick towards your fortress. So far my biggest fortress-killer is boredom, and I farm outdoors, shun traps, leave the drawbridge down and abscond from danger rooms. I should be facing deadly threats, instead I'm yawning to death.