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[Milskidasith]

Or we could go the opposite end of the spectrum, with teleportation only working as a "go to a random spot" ability that activates only when a creature is wounded. Self defense, anybody?

[Skynet 2.0]

If teleportation was only a self-defense ability, and activated when the creature was injures, then that would make the infiltrator-type enemies we're trying to fine-tune right now impossible. A self-defense version would be appropriate for certain creatures, but I would still like to see some types of enemies able to use teleportation at will, albeit with strict limitations.

[Milskidasith]

True. I was thinking self defense teleportation would be a great 1: magic spell to apply on your dwarves (hopefully with an "ignore anywhere the dwarf couldn't normally walk safely" limitation) and 2: thing to apply to megabeasts (true, it's not a typical dragon power, but a dragon who can teleport a screen away at injury every day or so can not only heal minor wounds but also fire at you, making the battle more fun without being totally unfair).

It also wouldn't be bad for an "elite" squad of goblins who have high strength and agility and low toughness with high weapon skills (IE: Shock and awe tactics).

[Captain Failmore]

It also wouldn't be bad for an "elite" squad of goblins who have high strength and agility and low toughness with high weapon skills (IE: Shock and awe tactics).

To have enemy forces exercise any tactics at all would be nice. The best thing about tactics is that they don't require min-maxing to be effective, nor do they have to be especially fair. (Fair enough when you can react to their strategy with one of your own!)

An ideal strike team in the context of attacking a fortification is one that can either bypass defenses  and obstructions or destroy them outright. Your elite 'Shock & Awe Made for TV Warfare' squad would likely be a small raiding party equipped for combat in tight quarters, incendiary attacks with torches and what have you to set the fortress alight, and a troll to knock down doors and walls. The goblins send scouts - maybe kobolds, for their avoidance of traps - to map the fortress interior and give the rest of the army a heads up on what traps you're sporting and where targets of value are. Diversionary parties are sent to harass your defenses from the outside, while a goblin sapper starts digging toward your fortress. Once a wall is reached or a tunnel is formed, out comes the troll and a handful of goblins rushing toward your storerooms and workshops, tossing lit torches and cutting down anyone in their path while the troll does terrible troll things to anything it can throw a punch at. If the sapper isn't detected ahead of time and your forces are tied up defending the exterior, that leaves the fortress guard to dispatch the intruders and what qualifies as a walking siege engine.

That would be awesome.

It would also be interpreted as an extremely unfair tactic by most players until they realize they didn't have to send their entire army out to defend the front door. Oops.

[Royal Surveyor]

Oh, you don't need kobolds to sniff out traps.  A gang of goblin lashers could drive their captives, slaves, and dregs of society (humans, kobolds, dwarves, other goblins, and elves) before them.  Instant trap detection and disarming.

[Neonivek]

Oh, you don't need kobolds to sniff out traps.  A gang of goblin lashers could drive their captives, slaves, and dregs of society (humans, kobolds, dwarves, other goblins, and elves) before them.  Instant trap detection and disarming.

Or heck use an EXTREMELY large population to constantly attack to the point where the fortress has all its traps sprung, all its soldiers exhausted, and all its people going crazy

[Captain Failmore]

Oh, you don't need kobolds to sniff out traps.  A gang of goblin lashers could drive their captives, slaves, and dregs of society (humans, kobolds, dwarves, other goblins, and elves) before them.  Instant trap detection and disarming.

Nothing jams the Dreaded Dwarfish Doorway of Death better than a massive wall of meat.

[Neonivek]

I can kinda imagine Elves using a plague of rats to trip all the traps in your base

[Milskidasith]

I support the goblin slave chain idea. I still think my "Shock and Awe" troopers are good for an outdoor divisonary force, especially if they had high sneak skill (teleport away and sneak, and be ready for the ambush against your dwarves). I think goblins using torches is a bit much until fire stops being so absurdly powerful (or the AI for dwarves stops being so horrendous). Overall, your idea seems great, but that would have to be a higher end siege.

What I think sieges should be is:

Beginning:
Normal sieges, until about 6 squads (local leader arrives).
When the local leader arrives, basic tactics are used (trolls, slaves/scouts, maybe one torch guy if they aren't overpowered).
Then they get progressivly better, but don't increase in size much. Whenever they increase in size, they shouldn't also increase in tactical skill, and it seems like it would be an easier curve to have, say, 60 goblins getting smarter then increasing in size instead of getting to massive sieges and then springing all the smart goblin ideas on you.

[Neonivek]

Their size should be determined by their population and by how much attention they chose to give you.

If you have 5 controlled Goblin forts near you with high populations and you somehow make it to the top of their enemy list... You could be looking at endless sieges where only your ingeniusness gets you through.

This of course doesn't include the fact that soon you will be able to fight across the open map making the home base a lot less important. (Which could seem rather boring compared that Sieges are probably some of the best parts of the game)

Goodness and scream with terror if you find yourself in a Elf populated Forest!!! Especially since elves are A LOT more powerful in game then in world generation.

[Osmosis Jones]

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of the whole nightcrawler-esque teleportation. The way I see it, it's a somewhat gimmicky method of increasing difficulty.

My opposition to it hinges on two primary points, one practical; I generally have large forts, which are impossible to fully patrol if I want to have any sort of military presence on the gate, so a teleporter would be able to have a field day in my warren of tunnels, picking off the lone haulers etc. without any reasonable fear of reprisal. While cooldown times and similar would help, I honestly don't think they would remove the underlying problem.

The other issue is conceptual; I stuggle to see how the teleporter would be able to find his desired location without having reports of where the actual tunnels are, and blind teleporting is pointless, as if he missed by even a square, he'd probably be intombed in rock.


Personally, I'd prefer you get something like a shaman who can infilitrate into the base, then set up a portal, whereby a few hundred gobbos pour out (for fps fans, think TF2 with an engineer setting up a forward tele). If he gets to his desired location, he opens the portal and scarpers, after which the horde flows out, and if detected, he'll try to cast the portal then and there (hence while a peasant discovering him would be bad, a fortress guard finding him results in gobbo paste). Like the aforementioned engineer, this unit isn't intended as a combatant.

For survivability reasons, they would have to have sneaking skill, and it would probably help if they could dish out some fireballs or similar in the case they do get caught. Further, giving them the ability to fly, survive magma or do some other things would be at least concepually explainable (it's a magic user after all), while allowing them to bypass the majority of basic defenses without making up a nigh-invincible magma-breathing-tunneling-troll-worm (of doomyness) that has no conceptual reasoning behind it, let alone an omniscient space bending warrior (of doomyness). You would still have to patrol your fort near the entrance, along walls and around the moats, but you wouldn't be expected to guard a z-15 exploratory tunnel from the X-men.

tl;dr? teleporter = bad, infiltrator with portable stargate= good.

[irmo]

Chrono Legionnaire style?
Would be quite different from moddable distance/cooldown teleport...

From the little I've read about the Chrono Legionnaire, it sounds like they not only had a cooldown on the teleport, but were completely disabled for a while after landing. But generally, yes.

It's not really moddable the way I've described it. The point was for it to do a specific thing that's incredibly useful in sneaking past physical barriers, but with a few straightforward restrictions that give the defenders a fair chance to stop you (with good defensive practices, not special anti-teleport defenses).

I think teleportation ought to be a discrete ability: some creatures have it, and it implies all of the following: (stuff). Or a few different discrete abilities ("tactical teleportation" the way I described it, a short-range random escape teleport, and maybe an actual teleport spell for wizards which just sends you to your destination). I'd rather not have it be a vague tag whose actual behavior can be anywhere in an N-dimensional space of options.

My opposition to it hinges on two primary points, one practical; I generally have large forts, which are impossible to fully patrol if I want to have any sort of military presence on the gate, so a teleporter would be able to have a field day in my warren of tunnels, picking off the lone haulers etc. without any reasonable fear of reprisal.

I'm assuming teleporters are fairly flimsy in a straight fight, and are mostly there to steal stuff and sabotage you (pull levers, start fires, poison the beer, knife the mayor in his bed, etc.). They're not Giant Cave Spiders.

The other issue is conceptual; I stuggle to see how the teleporter would be able to find his desired location without having reports of where the actual tunnels are, and blind teleporting is pointless, as if he missed by even a square, he'd probably be intombed in rock.

Teleportation has to come with limited clairvoyance: the ability to see which squares are open. (Or do the ADOM thing where teleporting into solid rock randomly sends you somewhere else, but no, that's lame.) They might end up needing even more clairvoyance than that so that they can find targets effectively. Hey, goblins currently know which doors you've forbidden.

Personally, I'd prefer you get something like a shaman who can infilitrate into the base, then set up a portal, whereby a few hundred gobbos pour out (for fps fans, think TF2 with an engineer setting up a forward tele).

This one guy (who has sneaking skill and flight!) comes in, you don't kill him quickly enough, and an entire goblin army appears inside your base? That seems like it's much harder to defend against than personal teleportation, especially if (as you describe) your defense is concentrated at the gates. Teleport Man will eventually get taken down, if you can keep him from 'porting away.

[Walliard]

I'd just like to point out that with the next release, keeping soldiers constantly stationed and/or patrolling will be much easier.

[Skynet 2.0]

That might actually be an interesting feature. Whenever anything tries to teleport into your fort, even if they have prior knowledge of a section of tunnels (i.e. a thief passed through, and reported what he saw), there could be a chance that they would teleport themselves into a stone wall, and die instantly. Creatures who can teleport could either teleport to areas of your fort that have been scouted out (and thus are more public), or teleport into unknown parts of your fort and have a high chance of encasing themselves in stone. Also, creatures that don't need to breathe, eat, drink, etc could survive in the walls if they teleported there, only to attack your miners if you accidentally dug them out.

[Milskidasith]

I don't support the "die in the walls" idea. It's just... too easy. They are already flimsy enough in a straight fight (or should be, except for my idea of goblin diversionary guys who only teleport after being wounded).