Print

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

[Tormy]

I think that this part of the game should be upgraded. As it is now, it is way too easy to beat _any_kind_ of invasion forces. Traps, flooding, steam....I think its needless to say anything else. If you know how can you use these, you won't have a single problem with invaders.

I don't say that the traps for example should be nerfed. Not at all! Maybe the invaders should be stronger somehow. For example the invasion forces should be able to detect traps and remove them if they find any. Or they should bring lot of meathshields with themselves [for example dogs or other animals/beats] and send them into the fortress before they enter. Maybe the attackers should bring miners with them, make a camp outside, and send in the miners to make tunnels into the mountains. That way invaders wouldn't have to use the main entrance, which is obivously totally trapped.
If you have any ideas post here, because we all know, that beating the invaders aint a problem at all. Right now we won't see military action at all, since the traps/floods etc. are killing the attackers anyways.

Just my 0.02.    

[ January 13, 2007: Message edited by: Tormy ]

[Soulwynd]

I like the idea of them digging tunnels to get to you. As for flooding and traps, I think that part might be fixed when they get pets, such as crocodiles and maybe some flying things to send in. Or maybe they could be smart and start chopping trees down to build quick bridges. Or they could learn where the traps are and wait outside, try to dig their way around it. Or in mass scale invasions, they could send tons of weaklings to create a corpse bridge over your traps, assuming having a few corpses on top of a trap would make it partially useless

[CharonX]

Digging would be rather annoying until you can re-wall dug out space.

Sooner or later your entire defense would be circumvented without a way to plug the hole.
I consider myself a non-exploit player, but if digging enemies would appear during sieges I'd honestly consider flooding the outside world or similar rather letting them screw up my fortress...

[Soulwynd]

If that happened now, you could always colapse their tunnel.

See, this is when I think aquaman would love DF.

[wereboar]

well, i guess you're just AVOIDING challenge.
i build minimum defenses and enjoy massive bloodshed during the sieges. i think it's rather boring to kill invaders with steam, so i use my army. even if they've dug a tunnel  inside my fortress i wouldn't flood the world, cuz it just means chickening out.

[ January 14, 2007: Message edited by: wereboar ]

[The_Hawk]

It would be difficult to make siegers substantially more capable without changing the nature of the game.  After all, right now even the most capable goblin swordmaster who manages to tumble past row after row of enormous iron corkscrews can be frustrated by the simple expedient of a locked door.

In my experience, the biggest threat posed by siegers isn't what they can do to your fortress, it's what they can do to disrupt the portions of your fortress that operate on the surface.  Which isn't necessarily all that unreasonable, since IMO the fortress should be fairly impregnable from conventional assault.

[slMagnvox]

I defend with simple weapon traps (bronze stuff from training my Weaponsmiths) along a 5 wide entry hall and a dozen or so Military dwarves behind cover in the second hallway.

Goblin Seigers could perhaps use a little beefing up.  From my experience, giving them more morale would be an easy adjustment making things more intense.  During my seiges, once a few Goblins from group A were impaled on spear traps, the remaing Goblins fled pretty quick.  Repeat with Groups B and C.  They routed at the drop of a (narrow musk ox leather hat).  I don't know what role their leadership has to do with that, the leader probably took the point and was then the first to hit the spears.

If instead of routing at the first drop of goblin blood, they pressed onwards, things would get intense quick as the weapon traps became clogged or avoided and Goblins were engaged in the halls.  Nerfing their archers a little might make the fight more exciting without the heartache of arrow damage insta-maiming your favorite Champion.  And could give aspiring generals the option of engaging the seigers up on the plains.

My new fort is on a Terrifying map and I am looking forward to what kind of Goblin wrath will be brought to bear on our new outpost.

[Walker]

In my opinion, I think defense of your outpost is pretty good as it is.  It allows you to choose your style of play.  Obviously I'd like to see more abilities for the attackers (bridging, opening doors, better morale, mining (maybe - I really am not looking forward to planning for this)).  But as it stands you have a choice about how 'hardcore' you want to be in your defense.  

Self chosen variants are major part of a game's replayability.  They give you new challenges and goals without the developer having to hand hold you.

Therefore, as someone mentioned, as have others in other threads:  Just stop using defenses that you find too powerful.  It takes a lot more dicipline to not use a powerful tool available to you, and it is much more interesting to play the game when you choose to make it more difficult for yourself (or at least I think so).

[Tormy]

The main problem is that why anyone would use military to fight off the invaders, if the traps etc. are doing it easily? It is not logical...that is why I say that the invaders should have some ways to disable traps, open doors etc. Invasion is a joke as it is now....sadly, because it is hella fun when you have to use military.

[wereboar]

quote:The main problem is that why anyone would use military to fight off the invaders, if the traps etc. are doing it easily?

why play a game if you can use cheats and win easily? why play football with your feet instead of just scoring a goal with your hands? why play hide'n'seek with closed eyes if you can easily find everyone with opened eyes?
because it's a game, man. duh. you can set your own rules to make the game more challenging, more interesting. don't you get it?

[Tormy]

quote:Originally posted by wereboar:
<STRONG>
why play a game if you can use cheats and win easily? why play football with your feet instead of just scoring a goal with your hands? why play hide'n'seek with closed eyes if you can easily find everyone with opened eyes?
because it's a game, man. duh. you can set your own rules to make the game more challenging, more interesting. don't you get it?</STRONG>

I think it is you who don't get it. Why do we have invaders at all, if they can be defeated without any problems using cheap tricks like traps? This could be much more fun, if they could disarm the traps for example. Just think a bit about it. Or if they could make a tunnel to reach your base. Surprise attack...and the list goes on, that why do the invaders should get a serious upgrade in the future.

As it is now, using traps for example is making me think that it is like cheating. Why? Because they are easy to make, easy to setup, and they are annihilating the invaders always.

[slMagnvox]

For real.  Same goes for elaborate magma defenses -- which are likely responsible for wrecking as many fortresses as the most determined seigers, heh -- if you defend with mass traps or lava, your military is just decorative.  I really look forward to more advanced seiges, and if you check out some of Toady's development pages they are definitely in the works, but they can still be plenty intense as is.

Skip the devices if you want the melee in the hallway.  In the great tradition of Rougelikes, consider it a voluntary challenge.  I could define my new fort as Treeless, Terrifying and so far Trapless, but I might break that conduct eventually.

[gimli]

I also agree, something must be done to improve the effectiveness of the invading armies. Invading armies are only a good source of materials now, and they don't make any trouble, cuz the traps taking care of it. I never loose any dwarves when the enemy is invading me, but I get lot of materials.   I think that this is kinda lame. Invasion should give a player a hard time, not free gifts [lot of items and stuff from the dead goblins, humans etc.].

[jonhuang]

My favorite suggestion is to make mechanisms a metal product. It makes sense and severely reduces the practicality of early trap spam. Or perhaps have both metal and stone mechanisms, but require metal ones for weapon traps.

Alternatively, make a weapon trap get "stuck" whenever there's something in the square. Effectively, 1 trap = 1-2 kills during a seige instead of the meat grinders they are now.

[Tormy]

quote:Originally posted by jonhuang:
<STRONG>My favorite suggestion is to make mechanisms a metal product. It makes sense and severely reduces the practicality of early trap spam. Or perhaps have both metal and stone mechanisms, but require metal ones for weapon traps.

Alternatively, make a weapon trap get "stuck" whenever there's something in the square. Effectively, 1 trap = 1-2 kills during a seige instead of the meat grinders they are now.</STRONG>

Hm....1 kill / trap sounds good, however even in that case, the invasion forces would require meatshields. Like Ive said lot of weak troops/animals/beasts etc. could do the trick. I also agree that all kind of traps should be metal products [Especially weapon traps and cage traps], however it is true that for example weapon traps can be easily made from wood. However if those traps would be metal products, it wouldn't be so easy to spam these traps.

I still think that there should be additional upgrades for the invasion forces even if all these would be implented. There should units in the hostile armies with the ability to disable traps/open doors etc.

[ January 16, 2007: Message edited by: Tormy ]