Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Skynet 2.0]

Several suggestions have already been made, such as creatures that can tunnel to your fortress, that would make it much harder to defend a fortress. Right now, all you would have to do would be raise a drawbridge and lock a few doors, and that massive goblin army would just hang around your fort for a few months before eventually dissipating. If the goblins were able to tunnel, they would be able to dig right through your defenses, and get to the middle of your fort, rather than attacking your trap-lined entrance hall.

However, you could still get around tunneling goblins by encasing your fort in a massive cube of magma and obsidian, and refill it with pumps hooked up to windmills. It would take a long time and a lot of work, but it would still be possible to make an invincible fort, it would just be much harder. My suggestion is that if your map has a magma pool or magma pipe, when goblins start bringing in sappers, they should instead bring in a new creature as a pet, similar to how they do trolls now, that could burrow AND swim in lava, so several of them would be able to penetrate your massive magma-cube and attack your fort when you thought you were invincible.

Otherwise, when the goblin sappers hit your wall of obsidian, they would either stop or be melted by magma, depending on how their code for handling wet/hot tiles is set up.

[Grumman]

I think it's a bad idea. Depending on how it approached, such a creature could potentially be completely invulnerable until it flooded your fortress with magma, and I don't think that would be any fun. A creature that could swim in magma that couldn't burrow would at least have to come out into the open before it could start killing dwarfs.

[Silverionmox]

Smarter sieges should be preceded by more obedient military dwarves. I can't stand it when a few dozen goblins rush through the gates, and half of my thrill-seeking champions off to take a nap.

[Pilsu]

That's what we need, more ways to have your fort flooded and be unable to do anything about it. Sounds massively irritating. Not to mention how unsightly those tunnels would be

How would they even know where to dig?

[Steely Glint]

You don't need magma swimming tunnelers to make sieges challenging...

To defeat traps, sieges should bring along mechanics who can detect and disable traps. Better quality traps would be more difficult to defeat.

To defeat moats, sieges should bring carpenters who build temporary wooden bridges over them. This would make wide moats more important.

To defeat walls, sieges need units with the ability to climb at least 1 z-level with elite climbers able to scale multiple levels. The best would be elite ninja units that stealthily climb over your walls and start pulling levers.

To defeat doors, sieges need more trolls... seriously, I've never seen a troll.

A fortress with a wide magma moat around high obsidian walls topped with crossbowdwarf riddled fortifications and the only steel bridge in protected by dogs and 60 serrated disc traps would still be nigh-impregnable... but at least you'd feel a little satisfaction that all those security measures made a difference.

I'd be pretty annoyed with sappers tunneling through stone or constructed walls, but could probably tolerate them moving through soil.

[Romeofalling]

To defeat traps, sieges should bring along mechanics who can detect and disable traps. Better quality traps would be more difficult to defeat.

To defeat moats, sieges should bring carpenters who build temporary wooden bridges over them. This would make wide moats more important.

First, I second the comment that our soldiers should be more obedient/smarter before making the opposition harder.

Perhaps it would make sense for elves and humans to have trap-sniffing mechanics, but that seems downright un-goblin-ish. I picture goblins as having large hordes of poorly armed/armored trap fodder which they drive before them. Slaves, perhaps, who don't want to fight you, but are forced into your traps.

In general, I think methods to assault fortresses should have more to do with traditional seige-breaking techniques. Seige towers, battering rams, building seige engines of their own....that sort of thing.

[Tormy]

Actually in the future, you will be able to "give" specific entities to a civilization [example you mod in this magma proof creature, and "give" it to the goblins], so that given civ will use those entities in the sieges. Basically they will act like pets.
When will this happen, I don't know, but it will be implemented...

[Granite26]

However, you could still get around tunneling goblins by encasing your fort in a massive cube of magma and obsidian, and refill it with pumps hooked up to windmills.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if and when you pull this off, you deserve the invincible fort...

[Align]

if i make a fort in the ground - that is, by just digging a downstair on ground level, and below it an upstair - and then construct a wall on the upstair, what could get in?

[Idiom]

I like my suggestion (it being my suggestion  ) for impending doom.
Once the fort becomes recognizably over-powered, the gods or something spawn some disaster to kick your Lego bricks down. Or something of that sort.
The idea is a constant challenge, a constant pressure, a constant problem that becomes increasingly difficult so that the game never gets boring.

[Jreengus]

I dont think inevitable doom is that fun, what is really needed is a trap nerf coupled with a way for goblins to get over moats and destroy walls and bridges tunneling goblins/pets is all overpowered really, provided if you can get out through an entrance the goblins can get in through it then seiges should be much more challengeing. And to be honest if you can be bothered to build a magma cube or something equally awesome then you deserve an invincible fort.

[Neonivek]

Perhaps not inevitable doom in terms of "Your going to lose no matter what" but ways in which the game could remain challenging even with an established fortress with a seemingly unstoppable defense.

In some Simcities for example... Sure you made the perfect city, however no matter how well you make it, you have to be ready for a disaster at some point. Both Small and Large cities are harmed by disasters in different ways depending on what it is however in general they are harmed equally.

Anyhow, I am not sure how Toady is going to program attackers to realise your in a cube of lava...

[winner]

they stop from mineing through warm walls

[Granite26]

Inevitable doom worked when the game was  (technically still is) a one-off fort game.  More like pacman or commando or tetris than one of the namby pamby modern games that are designed to let you win.  The fun wasn't in the epic things you did, it was in seeing how long you could hold against inevitable odds. 

Nowadays, it's more like building a successful fort in it's setting.  Soonish(hopefully), having that fort will just be one step in the game's development.
Anywho, I think that the problem isn't so much the perfect defense... Historically Castles were nigh-impossible to breach, so making the mountain halls actually impossible isn't too much of a stretch.  OTOH, Historically, the only reason to crack the castle nut was to protect your supply lines going to more important places.  That's why the siege is what's important.  Why don't real sieges work?  Because dwarves don't NEED to go outside for anything.  THAT'S where the problem lies...

Although honestly, I've always felt dwarves were the 'easy mode' of this particular fantasy sim game...

[Grek]

If you're in a magma cube, the gobbos could just dug all the way around and then take one the one support holding it up, just like people do with their towers.