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[Fieari]

The problem with saying "don't use lava moats," is that lava moats are fun to create, yet not fun to have.  Why can't they be both?  Why can't they create a tactical advantage without creating a tactical invincibility?

It's fun using every tool you have available to your advantage.  It's not fun when doing so removes all challenge.  Think about 2player fighting games.  These games last because you can keep improving, keeping getting better at them, and yet still find challenge.  See Sirlin's articles on game design ( http://www.sirlin.net  )

Personally, I don't have a problem with the game right now because I know it's only a beta (alpha?) and features are still being added, etc etc etc.  And in such a situation, the advice of "Don't build lava moats" is perfectly acceptable.  I just want to emphasize that this is not an optimal END POINT.  That eventually, the game should be good, and that now it is not.  This is not an insult against the game.  It's just an acknowledgment that the game isn't done yet.

I think all the hostility here is because some people are already assuming "It's a beta, and going to get better" and applying that assumption to all posts, get the idea that people are saying that it never will be good, and so get angry.  And on the other side, others are assuming "This is how I'd like it to be good," and applying that assumption to all posts, and get the idea that people are saying that they never WANT it to be good.

Flames are thrown from both sides.

Now, if the statements of people saying "Just don't build the defenses" really DO indicate that they never want these defenses to be defeatable, ever, in future version, then yes.  Flame on.  But I don't think that's what's being intended?  I hope?

[ February 08, 2007: Message edited by: Fieari ]

[JT]

Dwarf Fortress is definitely alpha, and as far as the development goes I think the eventual intent is to make a "create-your-own-roguelike" more than it is to make a "see how long you can run an economy of whiny brats and stuffy nobles" game. =)

[Scribble]

I see seiges being more interesting if (when?) it becomes more important to deal with the outside world, ie it is of more concern to the player to break the siege.

One idea:

It might be interesting to have a 'moria' type of seige where the goblins attack from without and within.

A large force arives overland and cuts off outside reinforcement/trade/resources.

Then another army attacks from the chasm or comes on boats down the river, or both!

regardless, archers need to be made far worse before any kind of combat becomes more viable.

[Gaulgath]

Or they bring up some catapults... they load them and fire... the huge rock smashes through some of your fortifications and goblins pour into your poorly defended area! They mercissely slaughter ever inhabitant of your fort before you know what hit you!

The problem right now is that it's very easy to make loads of traps. Mechanisms require rocks, which there is plenty of when you're mining out a huge mountain fort. Perhaps they could require more materials? Different ones?

[JT]

I've always been of the opinion that a trap should occupy the whole square -- thus, a dwarf shouldn't be able to walk through a tile with a trap on it.  If you walk into a square with a trap on it, you die, after all.  Pretty strong motivator not to do it. ;-)

The ideal trap pattern would then be thus:

code:

. . ^ . . . ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . . ^ . . .
^ . . . ^ . . ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . . . ^ .
. . ^ . . . ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . ^ . . .
^ . . . ^ . ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ^ . . . ^ .
. . ^ . . . ^ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . ^ . . .
^ . . . ^ . . ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . . . ^ .

Some additional "adjacent get" functionality would need to be added for these cases and for the cases of wells, bolts stuck in channels within reach from shore, etc.

One could assume that dwarves of the same civilisation know to avoid all traps you place.  Pets are somehow also able to avoid traps (for sake of gameplay).  Foreigners, however, can blunder into traps, so linking traps to levers would be necessary if you wanted to ensure that traps were only activated during hostile encounters.

[ February 10, 2007: Message edited by: JT ]

[Lord Blue]

The idea of a fortress suggests that, eventually, it will be necessary to create a layered defense. Of course you have your magma moat, but some of the gobbos are riding bats, and will jump off of them to pull the lever for it, or some of them are frost mages that will harden it into rock, or even better, some of them are magma mages who can turn your moat into an army of lava elementals that will run at your fortress. So, you make a trap defense, too, but they have battle engineers that can disarm traps, so you target them, or build too many traps for them to handle, or you use better mechanisms so that it takes them too damn long to disarm it.

See? It becomes much more fun if it forces you to strategize. Not all at once, though, the first sieges will be as simple as they all are now, but eventually they will become more and more complex.

[Fieari]

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.  That sounds like a lot of fun.  At the same time, I recognize: one thing at a time!

[haftan]

I agree with Scribble.  When the game comes along more then you will "have sent your army to destroy a kobold lair, when a gob siege shows up at your door and you didnt know that they have an alliance with the chasm civilization who decided to come up at the same time or send thieves to open your defenses.  Your dwarfs would be on paranoid alert then with nothing but a drunken guard to protect them."

Secondary, I think a sea serpent should come up the cave river and live in your fort like an outside dragon.  or have a giant squid dumped in your farms after flooding it.

I cant wait for Z axis

[Marx]

I think part of the problem is the troop composition of sieging armies. There should be more goblin infantry (a couple of 20 goblin squads) that aren't mounted, and the mounted goblins should be buffed, to better mimic reality. The infantry goblins will be the ones charging across the traps, and once most of the traps are jammed, that's when the calvary charges into the enemy lines.

Imo, later sieges should also have a unit of 10-15 kobold assassins, who are armed with leather armor and daggers/shortswords, who can swim across moats and evade traps, and in general cause havoc inside a fortress once they infiltrate it.

[ February 14, 2007: Message edited by: Marx ]

[JT]

I'm sure it's not too difficult for Toady to add in various interactions that allow siegers to engage in more advanced warfare.  The only restriction is time and the map-scale AI needed to accomplish it.

To wit:

* Dumping dirt into lava will slowly cause the lava to crust over.  Much too hot to stand on or walk across, but cool enough to jump over (for long-leaping creatures), and cool enough even to dash over with only minor-to-moderate burn wounds.  Crusted-lava can be broken by a miner in an adjacent square after a siege is over.

* Dumping dirt into a moat will cause the moat to fill in.  This occurs rapidly.  The mud in a filled-in moat can be cleaned up by any dwarf in an adjacent square after a siege is over.

* If there is no known path into the mountain, the point where there is the least amount of rock between an empty passageway is where the siegers will concentrate their siege engines' firepower.  Catapults can break down stone walls with just a single boulder.  Steel walls require significantly more doing.  Catapults are, of course, not accurate enough to pinpoint a single tile of wall, so it could take some time to break through a mountainside.  Fortifications will break as soon as a single boulder is thrown at them (they're fortified in the sense of being slitted, not in the sense of being reinforced).  For more realism, siegers would need to dowse or otherwise detect hollow passageways instead of simply knowing the layout of the fortress behind the mountainside.

* Battering rams can break down doors in short order.  Wooden doors don't stand a chance, though thankfully dwarves don't build wooden doors. ;-)

* Traps can be destroyed by tossing objects ahead into the corridor.

[Shadowlord]

I'd suggest that the battering ram be used to damage and (eventually) destroy bridge-walls (raised drawbridges) too.

(I was going to say something about how goblin engineers ought to be able to construct wooden floodgates and dump water into magma to push it back, but magma always pushes water in DF, not the other way around)

[ February 16, 2007: Message edited by: SL ]

[ColonelTEE3]

quote:Originally posted by wereboar:
<STRONG>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 ]</STRONG>

I'm sure your dwarves are very unhappy with all the deaths, and that probably cut off circulation to immigrants since immigrants dont like death and your fort must be small.

And CLEARLY you've NEVER experienced the JOY of watching hordes of goblins burn and be engulfed by lava as you point at them and cackle to your self...

Fight smarter, not harder.

[Entity]

quote:Originally posted by JT:
<STRONG>Traps can be destroyed by tossing objects ahead into the corridor.</STRONG>

Or by the real-world practice of herding animals through the minefield: send through a horde of dogs or cats or giant rats or even captives to trigger the traps (what else are the goblins gonna do with those dwarven babies they keep stealing?) Maybe even harry the wildlife and drive it into the fortress...

[Poil]

quote:Originally posted by Entity:
<STRONG>

Or by the real-world practice of herding animals through the minefield: send through a horde of dogs or cats or giant rats or even captives to trigger the traps (what else are the goblins gonna do with those dwarven babies they keep stealing?) Maybe even harry the wildlife and drive it into the fortress...</STRONG>

 :eek: What if you are playing on a map with elephants? If they harry an entire herd of the monstrous things into the fort they won't need to send in soldiers afterwards.

[TotalPigeon]

When you harass elephants, they don't tend to head away from you...