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[Weev]

D&D trolls would be the death of every fortress at first sign.  Remember, Fire is the only way to kill them. Unlimited creatures can be on one tile.  Every limb = another troll.  Gratz. I hope you didnt use weapon traps. T-T 
BTW. Trolls can knock down stuff. gg start over.

[Earthquake Damage]

Actually, only the largest remaining chunk of a troll regenerates into a troll.  Hack off an arm and all you have is a troll and a severed arm.  Hack it into tiny bits and you have a troll and lots of tiny bits.

[Weev]

Huh, actually, your right. I'm thinking of Forgotten Realms trolls.  Hack off ANY bit, and TA-DA! You've got a new troll.  But still. Invincible monster is invincible. (unless you caged a fire imp. )

[Guy Montag]

Yeah... it makes sense that trolls don't really regenerate like that.

Regrowing a limb is one thing, tossing a troll into a wood-chipper and getting 8,000 trolls ready to be made into troll-steaks is another.

Otherwise, we could have troll-based economies where you have a limitless supply of troll meat for consumption, fuel, and bone bolts.

[Earthquake Damage]

While many D&D monsters are unreasonably powerful (how the hell have they not conquered the world?!), troll generation via the Cuisinart method is especially ridiculous.  They may have subhuman intelligence, but they're still intelligent creatures.  If any severed troll chunk produced another troll, they'd have an entire social class dedicated to self-mutilation as a means to produce an unstoppable army.  And it really would be unstoppable.  Ten thousand men with flamethrowers can't defeat 10³⁰ trolls.  The same would apply to dragons and <insert ungodly number of trolls>.

[Tormy]

Huh, actually, your right. I'm thinking of Forgotten Realms trolls.  Hack off ANY bit, and TA-DA! You've got a new troll.  But still. Invincible monster is invincible. (unless you caged a fire imp. )

That is totally stupid...regenaration is ok [healing wounds at a faster rate for example], but what the hell? Chop off the arm of a troll and a new troll is created? 
I think DF trolls are just perfect. Massive and strong "building destroyer" creatures, just like the trolls in the LotR movies. 

[jones]

O.K., maybe the trolls should be more often and more agressively employed, though. If I remember correctly at the moment they won´t knock down walls if they have no path into the fortress.

Yes. This is very boring. Letting sappers or trolls dig tunnels would bring in more demanding requirements for fortress design. Also one option could be to allow for draconians or some such race that explode upon their death, sort of like suicide bombers and have the explosion take out walls and doors in the surroundings.

As for defence, for example a wall layer filled with water... (Too bad its hard to come by locations with high river elevation, compared to normal elevations. *Likes to carve his fortresses into the mountains instead of building stuff.*)

[Belteshazzar]

Perhaps goblins would break up into groups and try different strategies at once like digging, seige engine building, trap and wall breaking, bridging of moats or diverting rivers.. Maybe they like war so much they form a growing encampment nearby simply to entertain them. Like your fort became a cheep tourist attraction and provides a method of population control (they are immortal, and with all the kidnapping they will end up rather crowded.)

Too crowded at home? Start thinking green and engage the circle of life at Horzibub FireTortured's summer camp for goblins. Located near the scenic Dwarven Mountainhall of Spirit Spindle, the Craze of Glooming *standard dwarven fort surounded by cinders and corpses* the camp is a perfect place to learn about the thrills of nature *giant eagle snatching up hiking goblins.* Through our in depth workshops our visitors learn to reap the Rewards of Hard Work *two goblins looting a gold chest*

Patience *goblin sapper pouring sweat as he attempts to disarm a bloodied sawblade trap*

 Thoughtfulness *goblin miner fleeing from accidental magma flow and imps*

Craftsmanship *mechgoblin give thumbs up as a walking siege tower tests its spider-launcher on fleeing dwarven wrestlers in the background*

and the Importance of Teamwork * group of crossbowgoblins frantically reloaded as an adamantine armored, legendary axemaster cleaves through speargoblins grinning from behind his gore soaked beard.*

We hope to see you soon... and remember pack your quinine and gnomblight cause there is still plenty left to catch in the central swamps! *toothy grin*

[CanadianWolverine]

Perhaps goblins would break up into groups and try different strategies at once like digging, seige engine building, trap and wall breaking, bridging of moats or diverting rivers.. Maybe they like war so much they form a growing encampment nearby simply to entertain them. Like your fort became a cheep tourist attraction and provides a method of population control (they are immortal, and with all the kidnapping they will end up rather crowded.)

Too crowded at home? Start thinking green and engage the circle of life at Horzibub FireTortured's summer camp for goblins. Located near the scenic Dwarven Mountainhall of Spirit Spindle, the Craze of Glooming *standard dwarven fort surounded by cinders and corpses* the camp is a perfect place to learn about the thrills of nature *giant eagle snatching up hiking goblins.* Through our in depth workshops our visitors learn to reap the Rewards of Hard Work *two goblins looting a gold chest*

Patience *goblin sapper pouring sweat as he attempts to disarm a bloodied sawblade trap*

 Thoughtfulness *goblin miner fleeing from accidental magma flow and imps*

Craftsmanship *mechgoblin give thumbs up as a walking siege tower tests its spider-launcher on fleeing dwarven wrestlers in the background*

and the Importance of Teamwork * group of crossbowgoblins frantically reloaded as an adamantine armored, legendary axemaster cleaves through speargoblins grinning from behind his gore soaked beard.*

We hope to see you soon... and remember pack your quinine and gnomblight cause there is still plenty left to catch in the central swamps! *toothy grin*

  Hahaha...

Now I am picturing goblins drinking mountain dew and yelling "Extreme!" as they charge to their deaths.

To highlight something there, when I first read this idea, I thought sapping and other seiging activities would be happening at roughly the same time as well. Not exactly sure why with all the different ways players self hobble their games for a challenge, there are those here who think a underground breach and the connecting tunnels of the opposing force would be a bad thing and those that come up with dwarvish ways to prevent a breach would be admirable, not lamentable.

[Weev]

http://www.goblinscomic.com/d/20050910.html

Would this be the image your looking for?

[LegacyCWAL]

D&D trolls would be the death of every fortress at first sign.  Remember, Fire is the only way to kill them. Unlimited creatures can be on one tile.  Every limb = another troll.  Gratz. I hope you didnt use weapon traps. T-T 
BTW. Trolls can knock down stuff. gg start over.

I dunno, acid is supposed to be good against trolls too.  All the dwarves would have to do is meet the troll outdoors and let the resulting 200+ geysers of vomit do the job.

[Hawkfrost]

We need a D&D monster discussion thread.
On topic:
Sappers would be ok if the tunnels collasped in a season or so, but then we should be able to fortify the walls with metal, stone and wood support to help repel sapper attacks.

Or booby trapped doors and walls, that would be fun.

[arghy]

You know what would really fix sieges? if they dident happen EVERY OTHER DAY, seriously what do they want? ambushes i can see but why in the hell are you going to siege a fortress of 100-200 with 30 guys when you know they have defences that can most likely fend off 600 gobbos? Sieges should be renamed raids and the entire purpose of these are to exploit an opening- think ambush but on a bigger scale, 30 invisible gobbos with trap avoid- only when invisible so you need to monitor your entrance or have 30 friggin guys inside your fortress. I really hate balancing that relies on killing an existing feature, the trade depot is already a huge hole in your defenses you shouldent have to deal with more though i do agree walls should be more intensive in design.

When i first started playing i saw my skinny wall and envisioned a brocade wall, a mild obstacle but a determined attacker will break through it, so i doubled them up. Just make stone walls breachable but a stone block wall would be tougher to break then a rough stone wall so now the AI has a way in and you have time to formulate a response. You gotta realize that some people dont want to deal with intensive design and micro management just because someone got bored. If you dont like traps DONT BUILD THEM! i personally love them because until the military is properly coded your fortress cant function properly without them.

The root of the problem is the gobbos in the first place- why are they attacking? an ambush while you are trading very valuable items? that makes sense, loitering around the map killing dwarves and other creatures for revenge of a previously botched attack? makes sense. Deciding your going to attempt to breach a massive fortress with 30 guys repeatedly? that doesnt make sense at all esp if theres a hard defense like a draw bridge over a magma/water moat. There should either be regular ambushes or a massive siege that involves over 60 gobbos with abundant troll support, this should be proportionate to your pop and wealth. Give them an ability to pass over moats and scale walls to a certain Z level- theres no such thing as a 5 Z level ladder, if you designed your walls with a moat right below then no ladders YOU COUNTERED THE LADDERS besiegers dont get to say no fair he planned ahead and built intensive strong defenses!

The most important thing is- gobbos should know when to stop, a huge winding passge way with over 100 weapon traps with marksdwaves covering the approach? ok your obviously not going to breach this SO THEY STOP. You will eventually get fat and docile and maybe you will expand to fast and open another route inside- they should have spys on the map constantly watching so when they see an alternate route they should launch a massive ambush with ample door breaching support. You now have a choice to hold up and have no more sieges or when your bored open an alternate route or just never hold up- never force the player they should always be able to choose.

[Tormy]

You know what would really fix sieges? if they dident happen EVERY OTHER DAY, seriously what do they want? ambushes i can see but why in the hell are you going to siege a fortress of 100-200 with 30 guys when you know they have defences that can most likely fend off 600 gobbos?

Because Toady coded in siges like that for now. Its just some "additional fun". Everyone knows that sieges are not challenging at all, this is why we are making suggestions regarding how to enchance the siege system/AI.
Coding in a decent siege AI will probably take a lot of time. The question is, Toady plans to work on this part now, while he is working on the Army Arc, or just in the future. I think the best would be to work on this part now, since sieges will be generated from the population of the various "settlements". Thus if a sieging army will be created in X settlement, X settlement's population will be dropped. If we can beat sieges very easily [like now], it wont be hard to conquer those settlements from where the sieging army came. [I guess at least..]

[Guy Montag]

You know what would really fix sieges? if they dident happen EVERY OTHER DAY, seriously what do they want? ambushes i can see but why in the hell are you going to siege a fortress of 100-200 with 30 guys when you know they have defences that can most likely fend off 600 gobbos?

 If we can beat sieges very easily [like now], it wont be hard to conquer those settlements from where the sieging army came. [I guess at least..]

Yeah, thats what I'm worried about with the Army arc, if fortresses can still be made easily inpregnable, and armies come from limited pools of soldiers, then seiges will be even less challenging, because they'd run out of soldiers before too long, and the seiges would stop very early on.

Also, with the undefensible lay out of NPC cities, depopulating the world with a handful of marksdwarves would be an easily acheivable goal.