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[Tormy]

Do you really think so? Surprise attacks can be very interesting. Once you realize that the invaders dug into your fortress, probably dozens of enemies will be inside already if we talk about a big sieging force.

Remember, that we the player can see everything.  If "Siege" comes up, and the goblins disapere, I can bet that a player can hit spacebar, and search for the tunnel. 
If it works like an ambush, It would be completely broken, and there would be no way to defend against it, and it could ruin forts completely, without much of a chance to come back.  That's not what the siege is suppose to do.  It's suppose to make it difficult due to lack of resources from outside your fort.  Wood, Outside farms, ect.  The mentality of putting sappers into the game is to try and make your dwarves sally outside your fort to defeat the invaders, NOT make the invaders a unstoppable force.

If siege's could enter your fortress at will, Why go underground?  Why not just have a open town like the humans do?  That way your forces could rally quickly, and you can easily relocate structures and farms without a problem. 
The answer is simple. We're dwarves. F^#$  those tall bastards, we dig deep into the sound earth, We make it so those silly giants have to stoop to our level to get in.  We negate numbers with small corridors and Superior  skill.   We are masters of the earth, and we will not tolerate those who wish to uproot us.

/rant

If the player sees the diggers + incoming enemies underground, the player will be able to react and prepare his forces to fight against the intruders. I dont see any problems with this to be honest.
Like you've said, if it would work like an ambush...the player wouldnt have a chance, so we can drop this idea for good.
Either way I can understand your points. If the AI could siege effectively [at least compared to what we have now as siege AI] without using tactics like this, it would not be needed to have a feature like this at all.

[Weev]

If the player sees the diggers + incoming enemies underground, the player will be able to react and prepare his forces to fight against the intruders. I dont see any problems with this to be honest.

If they were to break earth into my farming area, My fort would have to shed 30-40 dwarves from starvation, and since soil is soft and easy to dig through, if I were a sieger guess where I'm digging into?

[TheDeadlyShoe]

It would be nice for sieges to use some tactics, siege equipment et. al., but the game will never be challenging in that respect.  The game is complicated enough that players will always be able to construct a defense the AI cannot handle.  Magma filled walls were a good example. You can also do trap-filled double walls (kills the sapper), unstable ceilings in walls that are activated by lever, and so on.

The ultimate defense would be digging out deep chasms around your fort and filling them with magma or water. Impossible to tunnel through and there are numerous ways to turn any bridging AI into a doomed AI.


The point of this is that the player will either have to want to engage the enemy in open combat or the player will have to prioritize architecture over defense. You can do both of these things now of course.  Siege gear would still be an awesome addition to the game but it won't make the game harder in the long run.  It simply changes what forts are siege proof and what forts arnt.

[Weev]

Not to poo poo those aboveground forts, but would a simple solution be
A.) Give them bridges. 

B.) Only constructed walls may be torn down. (Gets rid of the "walled off world" problem)

c.) Wealth slowly decreases as sieges are in the area. (A golden fortress might be beautiful, but a golden fortress with goblins outside is a tad less appetizing.)

[sonerohi]

If there were a single goblin miner I'd be f'ed in the a. I have to use extensive bunker systems with underground roads in order to keep my tree harvesting area cleared, along with keeping my front doors, trade depot, fishing docks, and cistern access-point, clear from any thieves or dangerous animals. There's 20 some tunnels that would unleash goblins straight towards my central farms, and below that my barracks complex for all the non-legendary dwarves.

[Inindo]

Miner starts digging, while rest of the seige clusters around the tunnel entrance, defending it.  Miner randomly goes up or down a Z-level every so often to keep you guessing which Z-level to put your army, in case you find him.  As soon as the miner hits Fortress, he begins to widen the entrance as fast as he can before he's forced to retreat.  Seige only goes down the hole once the miner hits fortress.  This solves the concerns you addressed.

The whole point of a "siege tunnel" or whatever is that the attackers go down in it.  So when such a tunnel is dug, one of three things happen:

1) All the attackers go with the sapper.  In this case, the scenario I described happens: bloodbath in the tunnel.

2) All the attackers stay at the entrance*.  In this case, the tunnel does literally nothing for them.  Thus a whole ton of time and effort will have been spent doing absolutely nothing, when it could have been spent doing something productive.  Like, say...anything.

3) Some of the attackers go with the sapper, some of the attackers stay at the entrance.  In which case both scenarios happen at once: one set of up/down stairs lets defenders be right where the breakthrough is no matter what z-level it's on, resulting in a bloodbath at that end, with the rest of the troops being irrelevant to the discussion.

Then the miner makes the tunnles 2, 3, n squares wide, allowing more goblins to rush in at once.  If the goblins stay on the outside until the miner hits fortress and widens the hole, it lessens the time they actually spend during the tunnel. Worst case scenario the sapper gets intercepted by your own tunnel and get killed, which case all the goblins lose is a sapper.

A set of stairs close to the walls (or rather, all the walls since we don't know where the goblins will dig in) can help in rapid deployment, but would absolutely stink if something went wrong and the goblins made it past the breach, since they can now use them to rapidly spread throughout the fortress, turning it into an urban warfare situation.

*(by stay at the entrance, I mean don't go down the tunnel, one way or another.  Hang out aboveground by the entrance, hang out a couple tiles inside, go attack the old-fashioned way, whatever.)

Let me try to put my feelings another way: basically, the big problem I have with this sort of siege-tunnel is that it's a solution without necessarily diagnosing the problems.  As I see it, the problems with sieges are this:

1) Walls and/or moats make a siege irrelevant.  Lock the doors, plant some plump helmets, and wait for them to get bored and leave.
2) Traps are overpowered.
3) Fortifications make Marksdwarves overpowered.
4) Champions will utterly massacre ten times their number without a scratch.

The way to fix the current problems with sieges is to reduce or nullify each of these problems.  There are lots of solutions to these problems, many of which have been suggested time and time again, and all these solutions are a lot simpler than trying to create an AI that can actually dig sapper tunnels worth a damn:

1) DG's idea of making sieges cause unhappy thoughts.  Wall-breaking/crossing + moat-bridging.
2) Nerf traps in some way (for which there are as many different suggestions as there are posters).
3) Siege engines to knock away fortifications.  Bolt-resistant attackers (such as siege towers).  Outright nerfs to ranged weapons.
4) Make champions harder to get.  Make goblins not suck (seriously, unarmored, non-elite wrestlers versus ☼steel☼-clad axedwarves?).

Now tell me that it would be simpler to write an entirely new AI routine that not only works, but that can deal with terrain that even experienced players have trouble with than doing these things would be.  And tell me how making sappers instead of these sorts of things would help when digging is impossible, such as when there's an aquifer.

It would be simpler to write an entirely new AI routine that not only works, but that can deal with terrain that even experienced players have trouble with than doing these things.

. . . What?  You asked!

Seriously though, if you read my posts you'll realize that the reason I brought this discussion up (notice it's not in the suggestions forum) is to bring attention to the fact that this tactic could be much more effective in the DF-verse than in real life, can potentially be done by both players and AI, and can drastically alter how warfare is handled.  It was not intended as The Solution to the Seige Problem, though it does do help alleviate the problem.  It's just another potential idea on how to enrich Dwarf Fortress by allowing as much freedom as possible when performing actions.  If Dwarf Fortress was programmed with the "simplest way to solve a problem" mentality, it wouldn't BE Dwarf Fortress.  We're talking about a game that allows you to simulate thousands of years of history here!

[Proteus]

It would be nice for sieges to use some tactics, siege equipment et. al., but the game will never be challenging in that respect.  The game is complicated enough that players will always be able to construct a defense the AI cannot handle.  Magma filled walls were a good example. You can also do trap-filled double walls (kills the sapper), unstable ceilings in walls that are activated by lever, and so on.
...

Given enough time
It will at least alter the way players play the game and might be a reason for them to be more careful in their fortress design from the beginning on (of course this applies to all changes mentioned, i.e. also to the use of catapults, ladders or belfries by the attackers)

[LegacyCWAL]

. . . What?  You asked!

Seriously though, if you read my posts you'll realize that the reason I brought this discussion up (notice it's not in the suggestions forum) is to bring attention to the fact that this tactic could be much more effective in the DF-verse than in real life, can potentially be done by both players and AI, and can drastically alter how warfare is handled.  It was not intended as The Solution to the Seige Problem, though it does do help alleviate the problem.  It's just another potential idea on how to enrich Dwarf Fortress by allowing as much freedom as possible when performing actions.  If Dwarf Fortress was programmed with the "simplest way to solve a problem" mentality, it wouldn't BE Dwarf Fortress.  We're talking about a game that allows you to simulate thousands of years of history here!

I don't mean simple gameplay, I mean simpler coding.  Using code that it's actually feasable to implement doesn't stop ridiculously complex gameplay in any way.

[Soralin]

It would be nice for sieges to use some tactics, siege equipment et. al., but the game will never be challenging in that respect.  The game is complicated enough that players will always be able to construct a defense the AI cannot handle.  Magma filled walls were a good example. You can also do trap-filled double walls (kills the sapper), unstable ceilings in walls that are activated by lever, and so on

So you're saying we need multiplayer? hehe.  That would be interesting though, absurd defenses vs. absurd attacks.  Defender has magma moat from surface to base of map: Attacker builds big pump tower and drops a river on defender.

[Fringe_Worthy]

There is a simple solution to all these difficulties.

Give Picks to Carp.

Dwarven infestation problem solved.

[Koji]

Guys, of course you'll be able to circumvent siege tactics through clever architecture and planning. That's called strategy and that's how a game should work.

The goblins should wise up, though. If they show up and a moat stops them, then next time they cut down some trees (or bring their own logs) and plunk down a quick bridge. If a wall stops them, they bring a ladder. If you won't come out at all, they bring catapults.

Dwarves should also get negative emotions from being inside the fort while it's being hit with catapult fire. That way you have to do something about the goblins or they will break your morale. Letting them dig through earth would also let them put a dent in your food supply, and since trade is already cut off, they can starve you out.

[Fringe_Worthy]

So you're saying we need multiplayer? hehe.  That would be interesting though, absurd defenses vs. absurd attacks.  Defender has magma moat from surface to base of map: Attacker builds big pump tower and drops a river on defender.

It's strange Commander.  Our survey reports indicate that every world in this sector has been covered in a layer of pumped up lava, with the inhabitants buried in sealed cavern fortresses.

Evidence shows that on some worlds, this has happened several times.


[---redacted----] are descended from People! Horribly inbred, insane people!

[Tormy]

Guys, of course you'll be able to circumvent siege tactics through clever architecture and planning. That's called strategy and that's how a game should work.

The goblins should wise up, though. If they show up and a moat stops them, then next time they cut down some trees (or bring their own logs) and plunk down a quick bridge. If a wall stops them, they bring a ladder. If you won't come out at all, they bring catapults.

Dwarves should also get negative emotions from being inside the fort while it's being hit with catapult fire. That way you have to do something about the goblins or they will break your morale. Letting them dig through earth would also let them put a dent in your food supply, and since trade is already cut off, they can starve you out.

Not just the goblins, the siege AI itself. 
Actually its a pretty good thing that we talk about stuff like this now. Toady is working on the Army Arc, and he reads these threads. I can just only hope that he will do something with the siege AI. Probably it won't be easy to code in an effective sieger AI, but oh man...it would be fantastic to have some challenging sieges. 

[Hawkfrost]

I see multiple problems with sappers, but some advantages..
Lets see...

Pros:
-More interesting seiges
-Use for traps deep inside the fortress
-Way for goblins to attack you inside a shut gate

Cons:
-Would lag the game horribly
-It would totally mess up the underground, with tunnels everywhere
-Would be quite annoying for them to pop up in your kitchens or farms

I feel bridges, catapults, ladders and battering rams/trolls are a better way to go.
(Is it just me, or does anyone else always think of trolls in the D&D way? Makes thinking of them knocking down walls seem....strange.)

[Tormy]

(Is it just me, or does anyone else always think of trolls in the D&D way? Makes thinking of them knocking down walls seem....strange.)

Nop. Actually I loved the trolls from Peter Jackson's LotR trilogy...thats how I imagine about them now.