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[Skynet 2.0]

Failmore: I generally agree with your post, especially the underground farming requiring fertilizer. As it is, farming right now lets you seal yourself off from the surface within a month of arriving. I think it should happen midway through a fortress's lifetime, and require extensive preparation, large stockpiles of necessary surface items, and would still require you to occasionally come out for supplies. However, the cave adaptation system is fine as it is right now. Dwarves are meant to live underground, so if anything, staying below the earth should sharpen their senses, and make your Dwarves happier, i.e. Urist McDwarfy has been ecstatic lately. She has not needed to go into the hateful sun for months now. Also, I don't think imps/lesser demons should just be able to appear around the fort. It could make things interesting if, when the demon leader came, he could summon some to help fight, and they could easily be stealthed, but they shouldn't just appear out of nowhere. If the goblins decided to try summoning some themselves there would be a chance for the imps to get out of control and attack the goblins. It would be a nice touch if, when the demons were being summoned, you could see

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

some small eerie glowing pits at the center of the goblin camp.

[Osmosis Jones]

I agree with a sentiment expressed earlier in the thread; If you can surround your entire fortress in a lava cube, you deserve to be invincible.

By all means have tunnellers, sure, and maybe even aquatic units (frogmen ), but some sort of rock and magma drilling nightmare siege creature is ridiculous kinds of overpowered. If such a thing did occur, how the hell would the gobbo's catch it, let alone control it and direct it to dig in the right spot? As a megabeast, maybe, but not a gobbo pet.


Demons however, that could be fun.

[Captain Failmore]

I agree with a sentiment expressed earlier in the thread; If you can surround your entire fortress in a lava cube, you deserve to be invincible.

By all means have tunnellers, sure, and maybe even aquatic units (frogmen ), but some sort of rock and magma drilling nightmare siege creature is ridiculous kinds of overpowered. If such a thing did occur, how the hell would the gobbo's catch it, let alone control it and direct it to dig in the right spot? As a megabeast, maybe, but not a gobbo pet.


Demons however, that could be fun.

HORRORS! DEMONS IN THE DEEP!

[Foa]

Stop failing Captain Fail'S'More!

What abou... I CAST FLARE!!! * Reflects off of the skeleton army's bleached bones * OH GOD, IS THIS WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING TO PEOPLE? I FREAKING HURTS!

Flamethrowers? ( Flame wipers ( Booze + Whip ) , molotov cocktail, flame breathing ( booze + fire + spitting ) , napalm ( Whose got the soap? ) , basic flamethrowers... )

I am stating booze alot since I can't think of another flammable vanilla object.

[Captain Failmore]

I am stating booze alot since I can't think of another flammable vanilla object.

• Wood
• Straw
• Plant Fiber
• Paper
• Animal Fiber
• Rendered Fat
• Animal Oils
• Plant Oils
• Crude Petroleum
• Tar
• Bitumen
• Coal
• Coke
• Charcoal
• Distilled Alcohol

But the real question is, how do flamethrowers make sieges less survivable if the main problem with siege warfare right now is that nobody would even get close enough to a flammable area of your fortress to use them? (Of course, given how dwarfs react to fire it might take only one lucky flaming arrow to do your entire fortress in, but that too will change.)

[Qmarx]

Randomly spawning chasm/underground river/magma vent creatures would help significantly - particularly if they were able to destroy grates and other constructions from below... getting a secure source of magma would become difficult.  Especially if bolts couldn't travel through more than one tile of magma.

[Grumman]

Randomly spawning chasm/underground river/magma vent creatures would help significantly - particularly if they were able to destroy grates and other constructions from below... getting a secure source of magma would become difficult.  Especially if bolts couldn't travel through more than one tile of magma.

...and we're back to the "rocks fall, everyone dies" suggestions. Where is the fun in having the RNG throw up enemies that you can't shoot, can't fight, and are just going to flood your entire fortress with magma?

[WJLIII3]

Ways to Make Surviving Sieges Harder -

Your ideas are good, and you should feel good.

Except this one:

Aggressive Cave Adaptation -

A relatively minor suggestion; cave adaptation should produce somewhat more harmful symptoms. Minor decline in eyesight, somewhat heightened vulnerability to disease, minor depression, that sort of thing. While this doesn't have a truly colossal impact on the survivability of your fortress over the short term, over the long term (along with the issue of pollution, hunger, and attackers using contaminants as a weapon) having a fortress full of cave adapted dwarfs would be harmful overall. At best, they're simply somewhat unwell folk going about their business until a good sortie breaks the siege, making it a manageable problem. If you can set aside a protected sunlit place the siege can't attack for everyone to congregate in on a regular basis, the problem won't even exist. On the other hand they could be a plague waiting to happen, which could be very bad if their cave adaptation is aggravating problems already caused by hunger, injuries, and poor sanitation.

That's kinda silly. They're dwarves. They're subterranean creatures. They were born underground, they spend their lives underground, and they'll die underground and be entombed underground. Its how they've lived since the dawn of their species. They aren't humans, with human frailties. They are dwarves.

[Captain Failmore]

With respect to your views, I think at least some level of outside activity should be necessary for them to remain one hundred percent healthy. To be fair, I also think they should be able to survive at near peak health regardless of their exposure to the outside. While a life of relative comfort in a dimly lit burrow might be more than sufficient for dwarfs, venturing out into the open should make them a little bit hardier. (You know, the excitement of the outdoors, adjusting their eyes, hardening up against the elements, that kind of thing, even if they don't require it at all to live comfortably and work hard.) Compare to humans, who are prone to becoming weak and badly depressed if they go too long without adequate natural light (as opposed to just somewhat less fit if at all), elves that may well need sunlight to live, and goblins who seem more the sort to thrive in darkness and unpleasantness.

The difference between your vision of 'the' dwarf and mine is the difference between a gallery of ambrosia beetles and a colony of termites, more or less.

[Foa]

I am stating booze alot since I can't think of another flammable vanilla object.

• Wood
• Straw
• Plant Fiber
• Paper
• Animal Fiber
• Rendered Fat
• Animal Oils
• Plant Oils
• Crude Petroleum
• Tar
• Bitumen
• Coal
• Coke
• Charcoal
• Distilled Alcohol

But the real question is, how do flamethrowers make sieges less survivable if the main problem with siege warfare right now is that nobody would even get close enough to a flammable area of your fortress to use them? (Of course, given how dwarfs react to fire it might take only one lucky flaming arrow to do your entire fortress in, but that too will change.)

I'm asking for flammable liquids.

I hope Dwarf AI gets better, like using water/sand buckets to extinguish the flames, not by using their 100% flammable parts.

[Captain Failmore]

I'm asking for flammable liquids.

• Rendered Fat*
• Animal Oils
• Plant Oils
• Crude Petroleum
• Tar
• Bitumen*
• Distilled Alcohol

* Solid or nearly solid at room temperature.

I also hope they learn how to deal with fire. Anything at this point would be good.

[Qmarx]

Randomly spawning chasm/underground river/magma vent creatures would help significantly - particularly if they were able to destroy grates and other constructions from below... getting a secure source of magma would become difficult.  Especially if bolts couldn't travel through more than one tile of magma.

...and we're back to the "rocks fall, everyone dies" suggestions. Where is the fun in having the RNG throw up enemies that you can't shoot, can't fight, and are just going to flood your entire fortress with magma?

What do you mean "can't shoot, can't fight"?  As soon as they leave the magma they're fair game.  And as long as you have a decent design on your magma plumbing, they're not going to flood your fort with magma (unless you had some sort of doomsday floodgate - which, honestly, is just asking for it to be opened.

Making magma a somewhat risky resource would require strategic planning - if nothing else, you'd have to safely transport some of the magma from the well to a separate forge location (an engineering task worthy of a dwarf), and then seal up the pipe.  Definitely not an insurmountable difficulty - but it would avoid the whole "kill two fire imps, get unlimited fuel-free forging" thing.

Randomly spawning some fire imps or magma men is hardly a "rocks fall, everyone dies" situation.  Neither is making magma give cover against ranged attacks.

[irmo]

Tunnelers in general I don't like.

..and? 
If it would be added, you could remove it from the RAWs easily.

Or you could learn to defend against them.

Every game needs to have some enemies that are real bastards. For some reason I just thought of the Chryssalids from X-COM: they're twice as fast as any of your guys, they have an instant-kill melee attack that turns your guys into zombies, and when the zombies die...they turn into Chryssalids! Absolutely evil. Oh, and they liked to do terror raids on cities, which meant half the time you'd be fighting them in the dark.

You could protect against them with very careful movement and overlapping fields of cover fire. Some people went so far as to have everyone carry a live frag grenade around--if they get zombified, they drop the grenade and blow themselves up. But one way or the other, it was extremely satisfying to figure out a defense that worked.

And that's why we need tunnelers.

(That's also why Toady should encrypt the RAWs, but that's another issue.)

[i are not good with compu]

So tunnelers are a popular suggestion, and I can see how underground tidiness could be a big pet peeve, so I suggest a simple clean-up option: A "collapse tunnel(s)" function which fills up unnatural caves and tunnels created by tunneling monsters with the original stone/soil/what-have-you (and without changing the topography otherwise).  And having it not work when the relevant tunnel has an occupant.

Edit:

On a different note,

(That's also why Toady should encrypt the RAWs, but that's another issue.)

I doubt there's much danger of this happening anyway, but I'd just like to say that "for the sake of preserving annoyance" is a bad reason to remove a feature.

[Foa]

• Rendered Fat*
• Animal Oils
• Plant Oils
• Crude Petroleum
• Tar
• Bitumen*
• Distilled Alcohol

* Solid or nearly solid at room temperature.

I also hope they learn how to deal with fire. Anything at this point would be good.

I just hope for fire-proof dragons ( both normal and dragon ) , from what Toady has put down. ( I know I have did blasphemy )

Dwarves and monster that actually know/see/react to fire.
Some short of more uses for fire. ( in Adventure and Dwarf mode )

Spoiler: Be warned (click to show/hide)

Goblins that can build things to invade you.
Catapults that fire what ever you designate as ammo/what you want used, and where.
Same fire controls for ballistae ( Roman and standard. )

More diversity in you wars.
Actual length wars.

Shoot siege engines over z.
More vehicular use ( Both sides and modes )

Fire weapons ( logically probable objects, not for example; flaming nunchuks, flaming plate mail, flambe food ( which is still on fire ) )
Biological weapons, and poisons, potions.

Magic usage.
Pseudo-Medics
Throwing objects.
War related tantrums ( "This war has been happening too long, the kobolds are closing in, and the trolls are destroying west wing, we aren't going to live, my friends and family have been sealed outside, along with my animals, who knows how long this pod is going to survive, it is a matter of time until they find the constructed "natural" wall.." * Goes outside, attracts too much attention from escaping the room, and rampages mutalating 45 trolls, 787 kobolds, destroying two thirds of the fortress, and becomes Armok's incarnate ( Champion )  )

Sports ( lethal to brainy )
More ambushing skills ( climbing walls, assassination, hiding things, tracking... )
Shooting ranges ( with live and designated targets )
Training more than one type of animal ( designated via pref menu )
...