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[Aspgren]

Vote YES! Because it'd be sweet.

I do agree however that it'd be a pathfinding and aesthetic nightmare. So why not make it invisible?

Like. The tunnels show only for the animals tunneling and that's that. Dwarves can't use them even after you've noticed they're pouring into the fort ... and the only way you notice the entrance into your fort is because an engraved wall has become regular rock ... and antmen are eating the young. Whichever you aesthetic types mind the most.

[Iden]

Vote YES! Because it'd be sweet.

I do agree however that it'd be a pathfinding and aesthetic nightmare. So why not make it invisible?

Like. The tunnels show only for the animals tunneling and that's that. Dwarves can't use them even after you've noticed they're pouring into the fort ... and the only way you notice the entrance into your fort is because an engraved wall has become regular rock ... and antmen are eating the young. Whichever you aesthetic types mind the most.

What do you mean, make it invisible?
Do you mean "making it so the player can't see the tunnels"? If so, that doesn't change anything. It still has to exist, it still has to be made whether or not the player sees it. It's still going to be a giant clusterfuck of a mess and it wouldn't fix any pathfinding issues. The game still needs to keep track of it, so what's the point of making it invisible? So it looks prettier? Why not actually make it so that doesn't happen, and take care of the problem rather than ignore it?

And not all of us are talking strictly "antmen" here, we're also talking about actual enemy civs sieging and tunneling.

And no, if tunneling was coded correctly, which i'm sure Toady is more than capable of (considering all the things he's done and is currently working on) doing so, this won't be an issue. All you need to do is limit the actual activity of such digging units to a certain area. Whenever they begin digging, they'll dig down and using some random pathing dig until they get a nice "home" going, and from there they can only dig so much and so far. As long as it's coded that nests don't grow to make up the entire map, and stay somewhat self-contained, we're fine. I mean, a few antmen are fine. But even if they breed like rabbits, it'll take a dozen (or more) years for them to grow so large that they'd need to expand their nest to massive proportions that would become truly inconvenient.

Oh and wait, if they're too close, or you don't want the potential nuisance, then why don't you just exterminate them all? Creatures are a simple problem. Sieging enemies pose a greater challenge as they would intentionally be trying to dig into your fort. Pathing could be a problem, but as long as it's coded that tunnels are to be relatively straight and 1 or 2 tiles wide, we don't have any issues with swiss-cheese.

If a tunnel exists, why would you bother digging a whole brand new one? Just reuse the same one and dig on through again. Though i'll admit, over hundreds of years, you might end up with a few different tunnels into your fort, but by that large amount of time you'll have expanded out into most of them and covered them up and used them for yourself.

If done properly, there is no aesthetic nightmare and no horrible pathfinding issues.

[Nivim]

I think with digging invaders we should use the material system to keep things in check.

With soil and rocks having different hardness, you could require invaders to be armed with hard-enough tools to be able to actually dig through it. So, kobolds with copper tools might only be able to dig through soil, but bronze-armed goblins can take on softer stone (like sandstone). Humans with their iron picks can manage hard rock, like granite. Elves will have to stand there and and look pansy, unless they descend below the kobold level and dig away with wooden training picks Creatures will have similar abilities, based on the material hardness of their claws. Groundhogs could maybe manage soil, but you'd need a forgotten beast at least to tackle obsidian.

Constructions could either add or take away from the strength of a natural stone, I'm still undecided on that. Smoothing might also make a difference, potentially.

 From the Future of the Fortress thread when before this thread was mentioned. Was it already suggested that an elf burrowing attack could use ~plant-magic with roots? Those dwarves with poor diplomatic relations would have a tangible reason to hate trees.

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

its not like it would be hard to stop a civ's ability to tunnel.
there will probably be a tunnel tag, and if not, just stop them from making digging tools.

[RAM]

Heh, I can see it now, an elven shaman hobbles over to a tree and an area around it generates wooden whip attacks against anyone caught underneath it. One brave dwarf is selected to run out into the hated sunlight and start a grass fire before being torn apart by angry Candirúmen.

P.S.

    *  For instance, if many siegers are killed, caged, etc. in a given hallway, they shouldn't generally go that way again, even if that means building/climbing/digging

Or have a single dig designation phase when a siege turns up, it uses the standard algorithm except that diggable material is considered to have a restricted movement value, maybe 20 tiles, if your entrance isn't a complete maze, and your fortress interior is a distance from open ground, then they won't path through any rock, if you really want to make it interesting, have dead creatures drop a hostile-only progressively restricted zone that will make enemies gradually less enthusiastic about pathing through an area where many past attackers have died. Of course, this may cause the game to stop for a few minutes while it paths through the entire map, but it would only happen once per siege...

D'awwww, I feel all vindicated now... : )

P.P.S.
It has been far too long since I made a decent wall of text like that. Oh for the glory days to return...

[fanatic]

The whole idea of creatures not wanting to go when their predecessors got killed earlier is easily circumvented by an appropriate defense. Just dissociate the place where "their fate is sealed" from the place where they actually happen to die. A 20 z-level drop leading right next to your magma forges should work fine, and won't "contaminate" the entrance.

So technically, for this to be fun, you would need the siegers to dig even if there is a strait open (and ridiculously over-booby-trapped, but they dont know about that last part) path to your legendary dining room.


Given the variety of traps people are capable of coming up with, im not sure there is a way the game can figure just at what point the enemy's fate is sealed. Except maybe assuming it is as soon as he appears on the map.

[DDR]

I'm FOR tunnelers!
I think toady would implement them 'right', as... well, we like DF now and it's been pretty much his design from start to finish. I like my forts to look nice, but I find a battle-scarred fort has a visual appeal of it's own, one that I cannot create.

What do I envision? The occasional tunnel dug into your fortress by sieges. They work pretty much like you'd expect them to, straight in and as short as possible. This would be a wonderful method of opening up the fortress a bit, and making the current 'build 20 cages in the entrance, yawn' strategy obsolete.

On the psychology of the siege, I think it would be interesting if word only got back that 'this way is bad, bad karma' if a siege member survived. Otoh, this could lead to the 'build an area trap, yawn' strategy and might not be any improvement. I imagine sieges would weigh the path of previous sieges when deciding on their own path with regards to certain environmental considerations. We could tunnel through the back way to avoid the lethal front, but a) we are being fired upon from yon tower, b) I hear the gears turning, and I think I see ballista bolts passing behind those fortifications, and c) King Dwarfy is sending an army which will arrive when we're only half-way in. ... Men, attack the fortifications!

Given my current fortress design, it would require only minor modifications to set up a plumbing system which could pressurize a segment of the thing.

Also, are we forgetting the gold standard against tunnelers? Simply establish your fortress below the first cavern.

Some things I imagine will come along with this new form of seige are: 1) The ability to rebuild engravings, somehow. 2) The ability to fill in a tunnel, possibly with gravel you've mined from your own fort. (I've a few mined veins I'd like to fill right now.) I suppose you could just build stuff, but... eh. I'd love to see conservation of mass, especially with the planned 'minecart' feature. I imagine loose scree would be the gold standard of defenses, you just can't tunnel through it. 3) Siege engines, for deconstructing bars and whatnot.

[Untelligent]

its not like it would be hard to stop a civ's ability to tunnel.
there will probably be a tunnel tag, and if not, just stop them from making digging tools.

Why go through all that trouble, when the devpage seems to imply that there'll be an init/worldgen option?

[cephalo]

I wanna add a few thoughts to the discussion.

First of all, I don't want my forts ruined by diggers. However, I think that it would not be difficult for sappers to create 'special' tunnels in natural stone that collapse on themselves(dissappear) because they are hastily dug or [insert fictional reason here]. A tunnel doesn't have to ruin a fort. When the seige is over you could assign jobs to dwarves to 'collapse' said tunnels to make them revert to their previous state.

Second, I think the most important reason that digging would seem necessary is because of the deadliness of individual traps, and also the option for setting traps en masse. Digging will not defeat soldiers, they can move to where they are needed. Digging is there to defeat traps and only traps! Currently a repeating weapon trap is far too effective. All traps should be one offs. Goblins need tools to defeat masses of traps. Perhaps they can bring an army of kidnap victims to jam up the minefields. Think of ways other than digging for a goblin siege to defeat a snaky line of a hundred traps.

Even without buildable traps though, there are other things like drowning rooms and magma rooms that goblins need to recognize as impassable, even though it's pathable, after a certain number of casualties. Obviously we don't want goblins simply avoid these things right off the bat, but they should learn after receiving mass casualties in an area. This is where they may need to dig. If they must dig, it should be slow enough that a prepared defense force can sally out and beat them without alot of damage caused.

Implimentation idea:
As for goblins learning not to go places, I think I have an easy way to impliment that. Make a list of locations that starts empty. Every time a goblin invader dies, add one to that tile and the surrounding eight tiles on that z level and add that group of tiles to the list if it's not there, or add one to it if it's in the list. When adding to the list, when the death count reaches a certain threshold on a tile, mark that tile as impassable for members of that civilization. To prevent the list from becoming too large, and also to allow this knowledge to recognize when previously dangerous areas are now safe, you could periodically delete entries that have not been updated in a while.

Then bring in the diggers when the chewy center of a fort is marked as not pathable.

[cephalo]

its not like it would be hard to stop a civ's ability to tunnel.
there will probably be a tunnel tag, and if not, just stop them from making digging tools.

Why go through all that trouble, when the devpage seems to imply that there'll be an init/worldgen option?

I think an init option is inadquate and possibly harmful to the game long term. Why should people who care about the aesthetics of their forts be denied the challenge of defending it? There are ways to have both, and that should be the first option explored.

[Footkerchief]

I think an init option is inadquate and possibly harmful to the game long term. Why should people who care about the aesthetics of their forts be denied the challenge of defending it?

Because they want to be denied it.  You can already turn off invasions entirely, so it's not like this is without precedent.  If you want to debate this as a general principle, I recommend starting a new thread -- but in a community that loves their init options, raws modding, and world gen params, I doubt you'll find many supporters.

[shoowop]

I'm all for this.  While I'm obsessively aesthetic with my fortresses and something like goblins just digging wherever the hell they want would drive me insane, I think the realistic and unforgiving nature of DF is more important and much more fun than me just playing build the fort.

Plus you can just wall over any area they've already tunneled.  It's not as tidy looking, but it works. I dig the idea of reinforcing smoothed over/built walls so they cant be tunneled through, but this should be with consequence.  Like a reinforced wall can't be engraved, so you have to make your choice and use some logistics with the rooms you choose to engrave or reinforce.

[cephalo]

I think an init option is inadquate and possibly harmful to the game long term. Why should people who care about the aesthetics of their forts be denied the challenge of defending it?

Because they want to be denied it.  You can already turn off invasions entirely, so it's not like this is without precedent.  If you want to debate this as a general principle, I recommend starting a new thread -- but in a community that loves their init options, raws modding, and world gen params, I doubt you'll find many supporters.

My point is, an init option should not be used to solve the problem of fort aesthetics being ruined. Yes, people should have all the options they want, but that option should not be exclusive between creating the fort of your dreams, or turning off the games challenge. If we can have both, I'm sure that we all would want that.

[shoowop]

I think an init option is inadquate and possibly harmful to the game long term. Why should people who care about the aesthetics of their forts be denied the challenge of defending it?

Because they want to be denied it.  You can already turn off invasions entirely, so it's not like this is without precedent.  If you want to debate this as a general principle, I recommend starting a new thread -- but in a community that loves their init options, raws modding, and world gen params, I doubt you'll find many supporters.

My point is, an init option should not be used to solve the problem of fort aesthetics being ruined. Yes, people should have all the options they want, but that option should not be exclusive between creating the fort of your dreams, or turning off the games challenge. If we can have both, I'm sure that we all would want that.

How would an init option be harmful at all though?  The people who want to just have aesthetics would turn it off. That's their choice, and I hope they enjoy it.  The people that want the challenge and don't care for aesthetics would turn it on.  That's their choice and I hope they enjoy it.  The people who want to try having both the challenge and aesthetics would turn it on. That's their choice and I hope they enjoy it.

[cephalo]

I think an init option is inadquate and possibly harmful to the game long term. Why should people who care about the aesthetics of their forts be denied the challenge of defending it?

Because they want to be denied it.  You can already turn off invasions entirely, so it's not like this is without precedent.  If you want to debate this as a general principle, I recommend starting a new thread -- but in a community that loves their init options, raws modding, and world gen params, I doubt you'll find many supporters.

My point is, an init option should not be used to solve the problem of fort aesthetics being ruined. Yes, people should have all the options they want, but that option should not be exclusive between creating the fort of your dreams, or turning off the games challenge. If we can have both, I'm sure that we all would want that.

How would an init option be harmful at all though?  The people who want to just have aesthetics would turn it off. That's their choice, and I hope they enjoy it.  The people that want the challenge and don't care for aesthetics would turn it on.  That's their choice and I hope they enjoy it.  The people who want to try having both the challenge and aesthetics would turn it on. That's their choice and I hope they enjoy it.

  It would be extremely harmful because I definately care about my fort aesthetics AND I want to defend against diggers! It seems to be taken for granted that these two principles are mutually exclusive! This 'option' takes away... it does not give!