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[winner]

if concrete was implemented it might be a quick way to fill in holes

[Techhead]

Elves can make wooden toys weapons, so why not wooden picks shovels for digging through dirt?
I'm fine with the idea as long as they leave stone to real men.

[Joseph Miles]

Which brings up the question: If they use wood, why are they so pissy when you try to sell them wooden things?

[Draco18s]

I read the first post and immediately designed in my head a fortress that had a moat of lava that took up an entire z-slice, save for one chunk of rock supporting it.

Then thinking about the gobo that mines that tile out, burns to death, followed by the entire fortress collapsing.

[Belteshazzar]

I think I once suggested this and furthered it by mentioning that the enemies should be able to start a fortress in your area as well. I imagined a goblin siege taken to the extreme where they built up to the point of making your original fortress into a sewer or undercity. Forgotton by all but those few adventures who seek the origional inhabitants of the land. The Goblins on top with fully functioning city while in the deeps our dwarves wait for the last boulder to break in a vast channel between the HFS a lava vent and the center of the goblin towers. Just patiently sitting back and watching the fun.

But that's beside the point, I am all in favor of loosing to smart enemies who arn't afraid to wreck our shit up.

[Soadreqm]

Goblin sappers digging under your walls would certainly make sieges more dangerous. If the horde can't get in, they eventually give up and leave. And show back next season with picks.

I think goblins (and humans) should be able to dig though any rock, although slower than dwarves. And since it would start mattering, giving each rock a specific hardness would also be good. Limestone is easy to dig, Obsidian less so. Elves don't really know metalcrafting in this game, so no picks, but the raw files mention treants, right? Tolkien had ents tearing down the walls of Isengard with their bare hands. Kobolds don't siege, and neither they should. Not tunneling for them.

And since the lesser races are worse at digging, their tunnels should also be more prone to collapse than dwarven ones, if that ever gets re-implemented. And maybe give them a chance of not noticing warm or damp stone, so they might tunnel straight into the moat that turned out to be deeper than expected.

Permanent damage to terrain sounds like something that might just happen during an open war, whether you like it or not. Perhaps a simple switch to turn it off would be nice.

[Faces of Mu]

I agree that any such tunnelers would need to be restricted in what types of ground they can dig through.

Better yet, maybe all creatures (Dwarves included) should be restricted in what types of ground they can dig through, and how fast they can dig through it, as dependent on their mining skill? That way, your novice miner can't just dig through obsidian, and your starting settlers are a bit restricted on how far they can go before the miners skill up.

[Derakon]

Restricting miners based on skill is a bad idea, as it means you have to "train up" your miners on soil before they can do anything useful. This means you end up undermining a lot of the surrounding area if you manage to lose your starting miners.

Honestly, everyone should be able to dig through everything; anything else is too easy to game to make impenetrable fortresses.

[Draco18s]

I think there's a compromise here.  I suggest "tunnel through anything" but have it be skill dependent.  A novice miner can eventually hack his way through granite (one of the hardest known RL rock types), but never leaves behind a boulder for later use (or non-use) as he's had to chip away the offending rock splinter by splinter.

Digging dirt should rarely, if ever, grant exp.  It's just too soft, right now a novice miner can dig through it like, well, soft butter (you there, yes you, grab that shovel and dig me a hole!  Now!  Is it easy?  I bet not--I got tired digging 1 foot by 1 foot holes for plants).  If dirt gets harder (novice miners have trouble) then exp, but again, amount of exp based on skill.  If you're a grand master miner digging dirt is like drinking booze, you shouldn't be getting exp (or at least, not much).

Now, this'll be annoying because people want only their high skilled miners digging at the tough stuff as to Get It Done, and there's currently no way to decide who mines what, it just happens.  Now, in my last game (HangingGardens) I regulated my mining industry HEAVILY, but the completion of the lower portion of the Gardens I had four miners, only four, ALL LEGENDARY.  I actually went and de-miner-ified three of them because my Professional Fourth was losing ore (precious, precious coal) and I didn't want to micromanage, so I turned off everyone else and told this guy to mine exploratory shafts until he was blinking legendary, then turned the other three back on and set to work.

Four got the job done and never lost a stone, gem, or ore.  So in my suggestion, if you only use your highly trained miners (and train up one or two beyond your starters) and kill/reprofession the rest you'll never have a problem with "novice miner takes forever finishing the one last tile in the room I need done!"  There's really no need for an army of miners anyway, four legendaries get the job done FASTER than twelve (legendary or otherwise), as the other ten who went on break claim a square and have to walk all the way across the map instead of letting those guys already down there to do it after atomizing the rest of the room.

[Glutton]

Good idea. But not generaly. To be honest, I dont want to see goblins digging like crazy and randomly destroying my msterfortress... ths improvement would make them stronger then trolls. But I would like to seem this rarely... from time to time.. in some later siege maybe there can be one or two goblins digging slowly.... but really rarely. Mabye just in case that last few groups was not able to get past your passive defenses (channels, brindges) at all. Only if player is cut of the world.

But... when I read this I have another similar suggestion. Can Goblins bring (sometimes!!!) even some parts and build some mechanisms? For example if I have entrance near river... can they dig channel and install water pump to the entrance? :-)

But I support even the previous idea. If the player will build the entrance in the way, that there is no path for the goblins... they should try another way.

[Derakon]

The concept of digging goblins falls alongside many other siege improvements like:

* Building bridges and placing ladders
* Avoiding traps (as in not walking out onto a minefield, not as in TRAP_IMMUNE)
* Destroying constructed walls

Actual expertise in combat should probably be tweaked, too; right now we have basic grunts, who I'd guess are around Competent with their weapons of choice, and the various Lords, who are probably around Accomplished. The former get basic weapons and armor; the latter get armor with better qualities. It'd be nice if goblins had more varying skill levels and equipment levels, since the current exchange rate is on the order of 10 goblins for each dwarf for a player who doesn't know much about the military.

[Chthonic]

... can they dig channel and install water pump to the entrance? :-)

That . . . would be awesome.

As far as digging enemies goes, I think it's a great idea.  Make it a [digs] tag and anyone who's only interested in banzai fortresses could turn off mole-goblins.  For those who don't turn it off, it means more creativity in designing fortresses . . . better defenses, internal galleries for dealing with invasions from unexpected directions, and more devious traps than the hallway o'death that stupid goblins always seem to traipse down.

Maybe filling mineshafts could be what all that mined-out rock is good for?  Concrete as above would be a great idea . . . or just gravel . . . manufactured from the stone thrown into the pulverizer building someone suggested in another thread (another use for power!), have a reserve supply of the stuff on hand in bags or barrels for filling in goblin damage or maybe even for dumping down the shafts on goblin heads . . .

[snelg]

It'd be nice if goblins had more varying skill levels and equipment levels, since the current exchange rate is on the order of 10 goblins for each dwarf for a player who doesn't know much about the military.

Well, after the army arc is done the siegers should be taken from the actual enemy civ if I recall. This should give some more interresting enemies I think, and wasn't the caravan arc about introducing a world were most items also come from somewhere? Maybe that'd give them some more varying equipment too. 

[Grek]

Can you imagine skeletal carp digging through the sand and flooding your fortress?

Forget goblins. This is the real reason to put in digging invaders.

[E. Albright]

Digging dirt should rarely, if ever, grant exp.  It's just too soft, right now a novice miner can dig through it like, well, soft butter (you there, yes you, grab that shovel and dig me a hole!

Something this neglects to consider is that removing material is only half of mining. The other half, which may actually be harder with soft/loose material, is making sure the surrounding material doesn't refill your freshly dug hole. A pit dug straight down isn't so much of a problem, but a tunnel, on the other hand, presents more difficulty, even in dirt.