Look, all the work that would have to go into sappers wouldn't do any more good than just letting goblins walk over moats and actually take trolls along.
Just a little note:
I dont understand that why are you talking about goblins only? What about Humans or Elves? What about modded in races? Something like digging into the fortress should not be limited to goblin race only.
For the same reason everybody else is talking about goblins only: goblins are so synonymous with attacking your fortress that saying "goblin sappers" might as well be saying "siege-accompanying sappers".
If anything, digging would make things worse because in a tunnel, the goblins couldn't bring their numbers to bear as effectively. Ever read the story of Horatius at the Bridge? Multiply that by a steel-clad champion and three hundred goblin chunks.
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.
Like Weev said, a great big screen saying "WE'RE BEING ATTACKED!" isn't exactly subtle, regardless of whether or not the attackers are visible.
Now, if you want to talk about putting sappers in ambushes, go ahead and do so. But since nobody has done so, your point is irrelevant.
Look, all the work that would have to go into sappers wouldn't do any more good than just letting goblins walk over moats and actually take trolls along. If anything, digging would make things worse because in a tunnel, the goblins couldn't bring their numbers to bear as effectively. Ever read the story of Horatius at the Bridge? Multiply that by a steel-clad champion and three hundred goblin chunks.
Most of the more recent suggestions would end up that way as well. Dig down to a random z-level and head for the fort? Urist McDeathbringer trots out, goes down the hole, and slaughters everybody because they can't gang up on him. Or a miner goes out, digs a little tunnel of his own, and floods the goblins' tunnel, killing them all in their own oh-so-clever attack route.
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.
*(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.
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Topic: Sappers in warfare (Read 13967 times)