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[Gakidou]

In the meantime, maybe people that want an extra challenge but insist upon building perfect defenses could mod the river and chasm creatures to be massively powerful to the same level as seigers? At the very least it would give you 5x the surface area to be covered with your unstoppable death machinery.

[Slartibartfast]

quote:Originally posted by Gigalith:
<STRONG>In the middle ages, sieges were contests of who could wait the longest, the army or the besieged.</STRONG>

And since dwarves are advanced enough to farm inside mountains in quantities vast enough to feed themselves, you'd expect them to be immune to sieges. Just like in fantasy books  

[slMagnvox]

Hah, in nethack a late game wizard with the dragon scale mail, the Eye, gauntlets of power, etc... was essentially wizard mode.  What trap is going to affect you when you have magic resist and fireproofed gear and are flying on the back of a dragon?

The Nethack community INVENTED the voluntary challenge.  I didn't like spending all my games fooling with the same exact equipment as last game, piles of enchant armor scrolls, etc.. so I started playing illiterate aethiest.  Same idea in Dwarf Fort.  Magma is our Finger of Death and traps are like +7 grey dragon scale mail.

[qoute]The argument that traps/steam defense/magma/whatever don't need fixing because you can choose not to use them is flawed.[/quote]

Arguing they make the game less fun for you and yet you persist in using them sounds flawed to me also.

[gimli]

quote:Originally posted by slMagnvox:
<STRONG>Hah, in nethack a late game wizard with the dragon scale mail, the Eye, gauntlets of power, etc... was essentially wizard mode.  What trap is going to affect you when you have magic resist and fireproofed gear and are flying on the back of a dragon?

The Nethack community INVENTED the voluntary challenge.  I didn't like spending all my games fooling with the same exact equipment as last game, piles of enchant armor scrolls, etc.. so I started playing illiterate aethiest.  Same idea in Dwarf Fort.  Magma is our Finger of Death and traps are like +7 grey dragon scale mail.

Arguing they make the game less fun for you and yet you persist in using them sounds flawed to me also.</STRONG>

Mate please read my post. The military ARC will be in soon. Let me ask you a question:

Would you like to see the same defense mechanism for the AI "players" like what we use in our own fortress? Would you like to siege forts/cities with hardcore magma/water defense and buttload of traps? Would you like to loose all of your [or most of] units to those defenses/traps, without hitting a single goblin/elf/whatever in their forts/cities?
Do you think that this will be fun?

_OR_..nerf the traps and the hardcore defenses, so we can have REAL sieges?

If the human player is allowed to use these defenses, the AI players must also have to use it, or else the game will be imbalanced totally. _OR_ like I've said nerf these defenses, so both the human player and the AI players can launch proper sieges.

[ January 24, 2007: Message edited by: gimli ]

[Ancient Whale]

I can think of one thing that could hugely improve the situation: Fixing fortifications. Right now, fortifications basically just let anything through(except manually flooded water, I hear) and hold up the ceiling. If they were changed so that one side(usually the inside) could shoot out with no problem but most shots from the outside would hit the wall*, that would change things dramatically, be more realistic and be a partial substitute for traps/defense mechanisms.

*Or anyone standing on an adjacent square could fire normally, while distance from the fortifications makes it far more difficult.

[gimli]

quote:Originally posted by Ancient Whale:
<STRONG>I can think of one thing that could hugely improve the situation: Fixing fortifications. Right now, fortifications basically just let anything through(except manually flooded water, I hear) and hold up the ceiling. If they were changed so that one side(usually the inside) could shoot out with no problem but most shots from the outside would hit the wall*, that would change things dramatically, be more realistic and be a partial substitute for traps/defense mechanisms.

*Or anyone standing on an adjacent square could fire normally, while distance from the fortifications makes it far more difficult.</STRONG>

How is this would solve the problem? traps/defenses would still make you [and the AI if its gonna use it, and it must use it] invincible.

[Gigalith]

quote:Originally posted by slMagnvox:
<STRONG>

Arguing they make the game less fun for you and yet you persist in using them sounds flawed to me also.</STRONG>

Good thing then, as I'm not making that argument.

[ January 24, 2007: Message edited by: Gigalith ]

[ January 24, 2007: Message edited by: Gigalith ]

[wereboar]

there will always be a way to make an inner fortress invincible to mundane invaders. goblins can't be superheroes, flying above lava, disarming all traps and breaking walls. if they were they would be invincible in adventure mode.
anyway sieges are not ment for fun and action. an average siege is about sitting for several months (years) under the walls of the besieged city and then either leaving or given luck breaking inside and quickly slaughtering every soldier within. complaring to real life sieges, DF sieges are already pretty dynamic.

if you want a challenge, but you can't restrict your own defenses, another option for making sieges more fun could be increasing the role of the outside territory and making goblins damage everything that lies outside if they can't get in. e.g. the goblins just come to your fort and when they see that gates are closed and dwarves aren't going to fight, they just set camps near the fortress' gate and commence to destroy roads, bridges, workshops, kill animals, pillage caravans, cut down all the tress and pollute the river. if the player's army is strong enough, he may choose to go out and fight the goblins. if it's not, he may as well stay behind his defences, and wait until they eventually leave (in a few months possibly) but he'll be unable to go outside for a long period of time and he'll also have his environment completely screwed.

[Slartibartfast]

Actually, it should be pretty easy to override the dwarves' defences. Just block the air-ways that make sure the dwarves don't suffocate, and all the dwarves will have to run outside or die.

[ January 24, 2007: Message edited by: Slartibartfast ]

[gimli]

quote:Originally posted by wereboar:
<STRONG>there will always be a way to make an inner fortress invincible to mundane invaders. goblins can't be superheroes, flying above lava, disarming all traps and breaking walls. if they were they would be invincible in adventure mode.
anyway sieges are not ment for fun and action. an average siege is about sitting for several months (years) under the walls of the besieged city and then either leaving or given luck breaking inside and quickly slaughtering every soldier within. complaring to real life sieges, DF sieges are already pretty dynamic.

if you want a challenge, but you can't restrict your own defenses, another option for making sieges more fun could be increasing the role of the outside territory and making goblins damage everything that lies outside if they can't get in. e.g. the goblins just come to your fort and when they see that gates are closed and dwarves aren't going to fight, they just set camps near the fortress' gate and commence to destroy roads, bridges, workshops, kill animals, pillage caravans, cut down all the tress and pollute the river. if the player's army is strong enough, he may choose to go out and fight the goblins. if it's not, he may as well stay behind his defences, and wait until they eventually leave (in a few months possibly) but he'll be unable to go outside for a long period of time and he'll also have his environment completely screwed.</STRONG>

Eh? Look....if all traps/defenses will stay as it is, what will be the point of the Army ARC? Like I've said, the AI players must also "learn to use" these defense mechanism. Why? Because otherwise the balance is screwed. If you still don't get it.

1. Human player is placing buttload of traps in the fortress.
2. Human player is constructing the magma/water defenses.
3. Human player can send out the majority of the soldiers to conquer. He won't have to worry about the incoming invasions, because there are the uber defenses/traps.

Now, let's see what happens.

4. The human player is sieging an AI city.
4a. Toady forgot to script the AI to set up traps and magma/water defenses properly. -> The human player will take the enemy towns easily. -> Imbalanced, since while the human player can beat any invasions easily, the AI just won't have a chance if it won't have traps/defense systems.
4b. Toady added the necessary scripts, so the AI players are setting up traps and magma/water defenses. -> The human player's army is getting owned easily.

As you can see, the only way to balance this if the traps + water/magma defences will be nerfed.
That way, both the AI and the player can use the defences, but they won't be invincible. That way the sieges will be fun.

I find it hard to believe that some people just don't understand these problems.

[Ibu Muffintakers]

Gimli said:

 

quote:  
As you can see, the only way to balance this if the traps + water/magma defences will be nerfed.
That way, both the AI and the player can use the defences, but they won't be invincible. That way the sieges will be fun.

I find it hard to believe that some people just don't understand these problems.

I think what sets this game apart is the heavy emphasis on realism, and the truth is that attacking an established fortress is a really, really daunting task - hence, sieges.  They were used because there was just no way in, so the only option was to starve out the residents.  Nerfing the defenses would make the sieges more fun for those who lean towards a military, but I think it would lean the game away from its current directions.

Seriously, who would try to besiege a self-sufficient fortress located -inside- a mountain?  It would be suicidal at worst, or a massive waste of time at best.

I think that digging/rewalling would solve this neatly while maintaining realism.  If you touch magma.. you die.  If you find yourself under water in plate mail, you die.  It's that way in real life and I for one would like to see it stay that way in the game.

Also, there were some very nasty things about real-life sieges that could be tied in.. like having your map deforested to build siege machinery to batter down your gates.  I think a lot of good ideas have also been posted here, like trap disarming and vandalism.

[ January 25, 2007: Message edited by: Ibu Muffintakers ]

[wereboar]

quote: I find it hard to believe that some people just don't understand these problems.

i understand what you're talking about, gimli. but what a lot of us value in this game is a tendency toward realism. i want sieges to be realistic. and you want them to be age-of-empires-style, where soldiers can crash walls with spears just for the sake of balance.

[Fieari]

I can buy realism.  But two things would make the game more fun while keeping realism.

1) Make there actually be a deficit to being sieged, some sort of drain on resources.  Right now, indoor farming means there's no reason to ever go outside.  There needs to be some reason to need to go outside to make sieges interesting.

I think the best solution would be with the addition of mages to a siege, necromancers in specific.  If a mage outside could cause troubles inside... a wave of possessions, for instance, causing strain on your resources with no legendary dwarves as a result, or the dead rising inside, or coordinating with the chasm/magma/river civilizations, repopulating them if need be... something to cause trouble inside.

2) When the inside has weakened, there needs to be some way, however costly, of getting troops inside.  Consider a European siege of an impregnable fortress.  Now consider-- if the siegers succeeded and everyone inside starved, they should have some means of now getting into the castle and taking it for their own.  As it is, even if all your dwarves inside died at once, goblins STILL couldn't get in.  What's the point of even bothering then?

I'm not asking goblins to be superheros.  But bringing ladders, portable bridges, and battering rams with them (trolls count as battering rams in my estimation, but the other two don't exist) would go a long way.  The use of such things should be costly if they're under fire while using them... but that's why the inside should be softened up first.

The above two things would go a long way to making it more fun, while keeping realism.

[wereboar]

i like it.
first idea is just awesome. and i think it should go to bloats if it's not there yet.
but the second is already in the game. goblins already have trolls for battering rams. as for ladders - they won't do. dwarven fortress doesn't have walls - it's a monolith mountain with a huge gate.

[gimli]

quote:Originally posted by wereboar:
<STRONG>
i understand what you're talking about, gimli. but what a lot of us value in this game is a tendency toward realism. i want sieges to be realistic. and you want them to be age-of-empires-style, where soldiers can crash walls with spears just for the sake of balance.</STRONG>

Realism? In a fantasy strategy game like DF? What are you talking about? Fun should be the most important thing.

Besides, why do you think that a magma defense like this is realistic? The magma is expanding _VERY_ slow, and it is never going upwards. Not to mention, that the magma is cooling down, and becoming some hard material, thus all the magma channels should be filled after the flood.
The traps are also not realistic. 1 trap shouldn't kill countless numbers of enemies. Just try to imagine as a troll for example is getting killed by some spears. I doubt that it would be killed by some spears or if yes, the trap would be disabled because the troll's huge body would disable it. Or replace the troll with 2-3 goblins.
Not to mention that the traps should have at least a 15-25% chance to fail. These traps are not constructed in the modern ages you know.

So basically if you want realism, the current magma system /traps are far from being realistic.

..and you _STILL_ don't understand anything.
If the AI players will use the same defense mechanism [and don't forget they _MUST_ able to use it, or else, the game balance is screwed] how do you want to conquer an enemy city in that case? All of your soldiers will die _EASILY_. This will turn out as a mindless and useless part of the game. Both the AI and the human invasions will be totally pointless.
This won't be fun for sure. I don't understand that what is the problem with nerfing the traps and the magma defense, and giving the invaders some constructs to bypass the water.

Is there _ANY_ point in the AI invasions now? I can safely say that there isn't.

[ January 25, 2007: Message edited by: gimli ]