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[Dwarmin]

I would consider myself in the camp of "Rarrgh your Fort is Slowly Doomed". My latest forts...no one dies. Graveyards go unfilled people!

I don't want any of my forts to go past 10 years. I want to watch all I built come to a crashing and glorious end, the injured slaughtered in the infrimiary, blood spilling in the relaxing ponds as the last champion continues to fight without arms etc. the stuff we used to make good stories about. Now we just build 100 Z towers...over and over again lol

And at the same time, 30 ratman ambush from the chasm.

[Neonivek]

Alright so let me say this

There should be a way to set Fortresses in locations where no matter how well you do, no matter how far you go, your fortress is uttarly doomed

AND there should be Ordinary fortresses that if you can get over the first bump in the road you can make a nearly invincible fortess that only crippling mistakes can destroy.

Can we get everyone to agree to this?

[Steely Glint]

Alright so let me say this

There should be a way to set Fortresses in locations where no matter how well you do, no matter how far you go, your fortress is uttarly doomed

Can we get everyone to agree to this?

How about forts built in evil biomes? Evil biomes could be the source of slowly escalating doom. Then the player could choose the style of play at embark.

[MagicJuggler]

I'm of the school that if you go to the extra mile to build powerful fortresses, you should be relatively safe, and that the AI instead learns where it dies the most and adapts its strategies accordingly...

[Neonivek]

Evil Biomes won't exist forever... but then again I guess saying Death, Decay, and Chaos domains would just be splitting hairs

[Silverionmox]

If you want a challenge, set the speed of your dwarves to 100.

[Neonivek]

If you want a challenge, set the speed of your dwarves to 100.

We shouldn't need to rely on Mods to get some difficult out of dwarf fortress.

[Silverionmox]

True, just being snarky. However, it's an alpha. The balance of v.1.0 could be quite different.

The problem with map-based difficulty is that a difficult spot is so dangerous that the main difficulty lies in getting started. After that, your power only grows, while the local dangers are all under control (or you wouldn't survive). So for enduring challenges, we'll have to see what the world-level interaction delivers.

I think that it's important that challenges grow with the fortress. Raiders aren't interested in a mudhole with two felsite doors and a pig tail bag. Just as important, they should go for fatter targets when your wealth dwindles. When your wealth dwindles.. so if your power is lacking for some reason, there should be the opportunity to buy off the invaders for an exorbitant price. That could be the basics of some interesting dynamics: the foundation, rise, decadence, fall and resurgence of a fortress.

[zagibu]

DF is actually as easy or difficult as you want it to be already. Just don't bring any food, and the difficulty raises, don't bring any picks, and it raises even more, don't bring anything at all and it's going to be really hard, especially if you embark on a glacier.

[peekama]

I'm a bit late to the thread on this, but when I think about a goblin "mechanic", I think about a little pyschopath running headlong into your trap hall to mess all of your shit up.

He would be wearing a pair of comically large goggles, holding a giant wrench, and cackling like, well, a goblin.  It would run up to the nearest trap, pry it open with its wrech/crowbar/whatever and dive in.  Moments later, mechanisms and other trap parts would come flying out in a haphazard fashion and the mechanic would pop his head and yell something like "IZ BROWKEN!" and run to the next trap.

On the way to the next one, he would accidentally step on a different trap, look up with a terrified face, and get shredded.


I guess what I'm trying to say is that goblin mechanix shouldn't have any sort of expertise or knowledge of what they're doing. They just randomly take things apart; a moderate chance to avoid the trap is all that really sets them from other goblins.

[Granite26]

True, just being snarky. However, it's an alpha. The balance of v.1.0 could be quite different.

The problem with map-based difficulty is that a difficult spot is so dangerous that the main difficulty lies in getting started. After that, your power only grows, while the local dangers are all under control (or you wouldn't survive). So for enduring challenges, we'll have to see what the world-level interaction delivers.

I think that it's important that challenges grow with the fortress. Raiders aren't interested in a mudhole with two felsite doors and a pig tail bag. Just as important, they should go for fatter targets when your wealth dwindles. When your wealth dwindles.. so if your power is lacking for some reason, there should be the opportunity to buy off the invaders for an exorbitant price. That could be the basics of some interesting dynamics: the foundation, rise, decadence, fall and resurgence of a fortress.

A++

Can't forget the currently problematic fact that in order to make the (vanilla) game more difficult, you have to limit the options you use.  It's subtractive (no lava, no traps, no ranged weapons) rather than additive (more goblins, harder monsters, more wars).  Lava should be balance with additional difficulty, as should rivers...

While I was typing:

DF is actually as easy or difficult as you want it to be already. Just don't bring any food, and the difficulty raises, don't bring any picks, and it raises even more, don't bring anything at all and it's going to be really hard, especially if you embark on a glacier.

Which proves my point...

[Erom]

DF is actually as easy or difficult as you want it to be already. Just don't bring any food, and the difficulty raises, don't bring any picks, and it raises even more, don't bring anything at all and it's going to be really hard, especially if you embark on a glacier.

Studies have shown that many people play games for a sense of challenge that is externally enforced, and overcoming deliberately playing stupid does not give these people the same sense of enjoyment. This percentage of the population is large enough that the generalization that "deliberately playing dumb is not difficulty" is reasonably true.

[zagibu]

It's not playing dumb, it's just a different szenario. Maybe you are playing a band of outcasts, or the last survivors of a fallen fortress.
But yeah, I too would prefer the additive version of difficulty. But we don't have that and won't get it for some time. And if we do, I'm sure Toady will do it in a way that still allows to build a "vanilla" fortress, if you embark on the right spot.
Actually, I think that in the future, mining itself will get more difficult (more realistic cave-in system, ventilation, rock bursts, etc.), so a lot of the people who think it's too easy now will get their challenge WHILE building a super-duper ultra-fort with all features possible.

[Granite26]

DF is actually as easy or difficult as you want it to be already. Just don't bring any food, and the difficulty raises, don't bring any picks, and it raises even more, don't bring anything at all and it's going to be really hard, especially if you embark on a glacier.

Studies have shown that many people play games for a sense of challenge that is externally enforced, and overcoming deliberately playing stupid does not give these people the same sense of enjoyment. This percentage of the population is large enough that the generalization that "deliberately playing dumb is not difficulty" is reasonably true.

Can you give reference for that?  (I'd love to see proof of something I innately believe)

[Demonic Gophers]

In the real world, gophers don't hollow out the Earth, no reason for it to happen in Dwarf Fortress either.

That's what you think!  Mwahahahaha!!!

Areas with a high gopher population can actually get pretty hollow.  But yeah, tunnels that aren't being maintained tend to collapse and/or get filled in, without any drastic impact on the local topography.  I approve of either having a 'collapse tunnel' option, or else giving uninhabited tunnels a chance to collapse on their own every season.

Also, small creatures like gophers should build tunnels that aren't big enough to allow passage for larger creatures, like dwarves.  There should be some status for tiles that have a tunnel through them, but aren't completely dug out.


As for the actual topic, I think someone who's willing to put enough work into it should be able to build a fortress that's effectively impenetrable and entirely self sufficient.  Dwarves should be able to retreat into the Mountain Homes, shut the gates, and wait out pretty much any attacker.  But creating such a fortress should be an incredible project, requiring many[/]b years (in game, of course) of work.  Possibly even generations.