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[thvaz]

In the last years adventurer mode and the overworld got quite developed but not all of these new features made their way towards fortress mode. Some of them should be quite low hanging (though only Toady would know for sure):

• Bandits should hang out at taverns in fortress mode. They would harass visitors and dwarves a lot like they do in adventurer mode, sometimes provoking fights. Occasionally they could steal an artifact (from the fortress or from a visitor). The player, in turn, could raid their camps in retaliation (once they discover the location of the bandit's camp, probably by sending dwarves to other places searching for info)
• Night trolls should kidnap dwarves and visitors in fortress mode. It should work much like goblin snatchers. The player could then search for the troll's lair hoping to rescue the kidnapped before it is turned into another night troll.
• The player should have the ability to find about the location of lairs. For example, after a werecreature attack the player would send a party looking for information about the location of that werecreature's lair. The same would apply for all kinds of creatures that live in lairs, so you could send a party do slay a dragon, for example.
• Mummies should often be entombed with artifacts. The player would then have a reason to send a party to raid the tomb. The party could even steal the artifact without slaying the mummy, however the mummy would then invade the fortress, much like a necromancer would.

There are some I could think, some probably easier than the others.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Bandits do hang out at taverns in fortress mode.
Causing trouble and getting into fights kind of makes sense, but only if the bandits in question are actually inclined to start fights (in which case they will anyhow).

Otherwise, bandits probably need to socialize just as much as anyone else, not sure if makes sense for them to purposefully make themselves unwelcome.

Some robbery of other visitors would make sense pethaps. Then again, they're better off robbing village peasants than holing themselves into heavily guarded dwarf fortresses.

[thvaz]

Bandits do hang out at taverns in fortress mode.
Causing trouble and getting into fights kind of makes sense, but only if the bandits in question are actually inclined to start fights (in which case they will anyhow).

Otherwise, bandits probably need to socialize just as much as anyone else, not sure if makes sense for them to purposefully make themselves unwelcome.

Some robbery of other visitors would make sense pethaps. Then again, they're better off robbing village peasants than holing themselves into heavily guarded dwarf fortresses.

Are you sure? They aren't identified as such, are they? Every "soldier" visitor I had were mercenaries looking for work or artifacts, or monster hunters. There is the new "criminal" type that I think isn't related to the camp-dweller bandit.
As such, they would never be a threat to the established fortress, but a small annoyance. Maybe bandits raids could be an interesting threat to new fortresses, however.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Bandits coming to visit taverns were part of the taverns release. Bandits, like, well, bandits throughout the rest of the world, aren't identified as such. Why would they be? Have you ever visited a bandit camp? There are no "bandits".

We know bandits visiting is actually working as announced, because a visiting bandit and someone's grudge against him, was identified as the cause of a tavern-wide loyalty cascade bug report during the last cycle (was fixed).

Regarding your suggestion though, yeah, bandits raids would be interesting. Although, actually they don't raid anyone all that much, do they? If at all? Just visit villages and 'terrorize' them.

[LMeire]

Lack of full-on raids is a realistic behavior for career criminals, raiding is mostly done between enemy states as a low-cost war effort to cut a target off from supplies and decrease the amount of time it takes for a town to give in to a siege. Racketeering is a lot more profitable for much less risk, both the target and the bandit are more likely to survive and participate in future rackets; eventually a caravan would just plan to pay off those particular highwaymen on their way to and from a trade post and the ritual would be no more dangerous than paying to cross the king's toll-bridge.

[thvaz]

Lack of full-on raids is a realistic behavior for career criminals, raiding is mostly done between enemy states as a low-cost war effort to cut a target off from supplies and decrease the amount of time it takes for a town to give in to a siege. Racketeering is a lot more profitable for much less risk, both the target and the bandit are more likely to survive and participate in future rackets; eventually a caravan would just plan to pay off those particular highwaymen on their way to and from a trade post and the ritual would be no more dangerous than paying to cross the king's toll-bridge.

Yeah, you are right. But they could, at least, hang out in the taverns (or close by) mugging people, sometimes.Though in this case you would have to deal with them in not so drastic means (not killing them outright) so it would need a better justice system and then it wouldn't be so low hanging a fruit as the other suggestions (as far as we know).

[Shonai_Dweller]

Lack of full-on raids is a realistic behavior for career criminals, raiding is mostly done between enemy states as a low-cost war effort to cut a target off from supplies and decrease the amount of time it takes for a town to give in to a siege. Racketeering is a lot more profitable for much less risk, both the target and the bandit are more likely to survive and participate in future rackets; eventually a caravan would just plan to pay off those particular highwaymen on their way to and from a trade post and the ritual would be no more dangerous than paying to cross the king's toll-bridge.

Yeah, you are right. But they could, at least, hang out in the taverns (or close by) mugging people, sometimes.Though in this case you would have to deal with them in not so drastic means (not killing them outright) so it would need a better justice system and then it wouldn't be so low hanging a fruit as the other suggestions (as far as we know).

Mugging and general thievery with the appropriate guard response would be good. Although, I figure most bandits go to drink at dwarf fortress taverns because they're violent, hidden holes in the ground with booze that are outside of the laws of their own civs.

Regular law enforcement, bounty hunters or adventurers aren't likely to be able to find you there (and if they did they might be protected from arrest/assault under local fortress law).

So, in my mind, they'd more likely be gambling or getting drunk and fighting than actually indulging in mugging like they do in villages.

There's a difference between terrorizing farmers and peasants out in the open and locking yourself in a heavily armed underground fortress full of psychotic dwarves and trying to intimidate people.

[thvaz]

Lack of full-on raids is a realistic behavior for career criminals, raiding is mostly done between enemy states as a low-cost war effort to cut a target off from supplies and decrease the amount of time it takes for a town to give in to a siege. Racketeering is a lot more profitable for much less risk, both the target and the bandit are more likely to survive and participate in future rackets; eventually a caravan would just plan to pay off those particular highwaymen on their way to and from a trade post and the ritual would be no more dangerous than paying to cross the king's toll-bridge.

Yeah, you are right. But they could, at least, hang out in the taverns (or close by) mugging people, sometimes.Though in this case you would have to deal with them in not so drastic means (not killing them outright) so it would need a better justice system and then it wouldn't be so low hanging a fruit as the other suggestions (as far as we know).

Regular law enforcement, bounty hunters or adventurers aren't likely to be able to find you there (and if they did they might be protected from arrest/assault under local fortress law).

So, in my mind, they'd more likely be gambling or getting drunk and fighting than actually indulging in mugging like they do in villages.

There's a difference between terrorizing farmers and peasants out in the open and locking yourself in a heavily armed underground fortress full of psychotic dwarves and trying to intimidate people.

Well, I usually make my visitor-allowed taverns above ground. I guess many others do this way, at least the generated ones are also above ground.
Mugging and general thievery with the appropriate guard response would be good. Although, I figure most bandits go to drink at dwarf fortress taverns because they're violent, hidden holes in the ground with booze that are outside of the laws of their own civs.

[Egan_BW]

Well yeah, there's a reason why the player-built sites are called "fortresses". What you're building is closer to a human castle than a village, so the only bandits who would try to raid you would be very greedy, desperate, or stupid. It would be interesting to have interactions with bandits raiding other sites though, like hill dwarves asking you to deal with bandits who have been harassing the less defended dwarven sites. Or an unscrupulous gang of deep dwarves passing through your fortress to get to the surface, and the nice undefended human villages.

[thvaz]

At least for some time the fortress will be quite vulnerable, so they could function as an early threat.

Though bandits aren't the single suggestion of this thread - I made other suggestions that could be easy to implement now that Toady is working in expanding the civilization screen in fortress mode. I thought others could add theirs ideas here.

[Anandar]

Haha i can see it now... urist mcroft dwarven tomb raider...