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For !

Against !

[jaked122]

once again, I don't want them to ruin my engravings, I mean, I can read the entire history of the world whenever I want to.

[Bryan Derksen]

There's a fairly simple solution to safeguard against that; don't put engravings you care about on walls that sappers are likely to wind up digging through when assaulting your fortress. That should generally just mean the outermost walls of your fort, not any of the grand halls or bedrooms in its heart.

This already applies to plenty of things that are precious and that can be damaged by invaders in the current version. If I don't want floodgates to be smashed by building destroyers, I put them behind fortifications. If I don't want bowgobs shooting my legendary weaponsmith full of arrows from the top of the cliff, I put the dining hall somewhere inside where there's a roof. My artifact stockpile is deep behind many guard posts, not out in the courtyard where thieves could reach it undetected.

If you really want to put your fort's history on display to the outside world I'd suggest using statues instead of engravings. They can be replaced if damaged, and perhaps even better they can be selected based on subject matter (all the statues of elves being struck down by dwarven heroes go along the trade road, the statues of the legendary mountain titan go along the approach to the arena where captives go to be torn apart by the captive beast itself, and so forth). My long-term hope is that Toady makes blocks engraveable too, so that one can construct engraved masonry walls with specifically selected images on them. That'd be spiffy.

[Aspgren]

I support tunnelers in all shapes and forms.

[RAM]

As I understand it invaders are already able to destroy engravings...

[lamoxlamae]

Against. As it is it's dificult to keep your fortress safe. Adding in tunnels that can let in wild animals, water, and units would be a pain. In fact, could you imagine having to look over your ENTIRE FORTRESS for tiny ant-man holes to seal up? It would be impossible in any fortress that has many z levels.

Having people/creatures come in from the caverns is enough for underground threats.

[Ultimoos]

I like the idea. "For". And there is a simple solution to make everyone happy. Just put a single option on embark screan: "Allow tunneling - yes/no". About engravings. That something that would have been changed earlier. A stone wall isnt much different from smoothed stone, right? Why not allow that engravings on stone wall sections? And there would be reinforced unpenetrable wall sections. Like lets say reinforced with iron plates. Since you cant just mine iron form everywhere like you can stone, that would stop us from reinforcing entire fortress. I didnt read all the posts so i dont know what ideas ppl gave.

[Solace]

Oh, oh, two really good ideas at once!

First off, to stop tunneling units from ruining this and that, have them tunnel constructed tunnels! Then you can just remove them after the threat is gone, no harm no foul.

Second, I think tunneling units for sieges would be not-even-quite as cool as tunneling vermin. Right now vermin just sorta wander your halls until a cat kills them; tunneling vermin could make their own little burrow right by your farm or foodpile to keep themselves out of trouble and so you'd be forced to deal with them proactively.

[NW_Kohaku]

Oh, oh, two really good ideas at once!

First off, to stop tunneling units from ruining this and that, have them tunnel constructed tunnels! Then you can just remove them after the threat is gone, no harm no foul.

Honestly, I'm getting more fond of the notion that they simply use Seige Towers, or deployable bridges.  Maybe a means of ramming through a single tile of wall, but not serious digging.

Second, I think tunneling units for sieges would be not-even-quite as cool as tunneling vermin. Right now vermin just sorta wander your halls until a cat kills them; tunneling vermin could make their own little burrow right by your farm or foodpile to keep themselves out of trouble and so you'd be forced to deal with them proactively.

Unless you mean there become "mousehole" tiles, that seems a little bizzare for fluffy wamblers to go knocking out entire walls on its way to your quarry bush biscuit stockpiles.

[TheSummoner]

I'm fully in support of anything that makes sieges more interesting...

Tunneling, siege towers, siege weaponry, invaders constructing bridges and ladders and ramps, grappling hooks, invaders disabling traps in ways other than clogging them with their bodies...

My biggest gripe about the game in its current form is how easy it is beat an invasion.  I'd LOVE anything to spice up the attacks.

For added fun, whether a particular race uses a specific method could be controlled by their civilization.  Maybe Kobolds will tunnel and disable traps, but nothing else.  Goblins would tunnel, disable traps, and construct things.  If you mod in a new siege race, you could determine what methods they would use.

[Nil Eyeglazed]

I think the problem is that there are too many "I win" buttons right now.  Bridged ramps, bridged moats, obsidian traps, ice traps.

To me, the obsidian trap entrance is the ultimate defense, and I think it's kind of lame that once you have one set up, you're on easy street.  The problem is that there's nothing short of digging that's going to bypass a well designed trap entrance.

I wouldn't put sappers in until constructed walls could be engraved somehow, though.  Engravings are too important to people.  And I wouldn't make sappers a common siege component.  Maybe starting at year ten, and not with every siege.  A player SHOULD feel proud of making a well designed obsidian trap, and should get some use out of it.  It's just that they shouldn't be able to rely on it to the exclusion of everything else.

[NW_Kohaku]

I think the problem is that there are too many "I win" buttons right now.  Bridged ramps, bridged moats, obsidian traps, ice traps.

To me, the obsidian trap entrance is the ultimate defense, and I think it's kind of lame that once you have one set up, you're on easy street.  The problem is that there's nothing short of digging that's going to bypass a well designed trap entrance.

I wouldn't put sappers in until constructed walls could be engraved somehow, though.  Engravings are too important to people.  And I wouldn't make sappers a common siege component.  Maybe starting at year ten, and not with every siege.  A player SHOULD feel proud of making a well designed obsidian trap, and should get some use out of it.  It's just that they shouldn't be able to rely on it to the exclusion of everything else.

Mmmm... Again, I don't particularly feel that.  I honestly rather like the ability to just not have to care anymore about the mindless droves of attacking goblins whose only purpose is to supply extra goblinite to my forges.

I don't particularly see Dwarf Fortress as a military game, and am much more preoccupied with what I can finegle out of the physics engine than with military concerns. 

If I've made my obsidian casting ultimate doom chamber, it's because I don't want to ever have to deal with invaders ever again.

[RAM]

Which is why there is an option to turn them off.

[NW_Kohaku]

Which is why there is an option to turn them off.

There is also the option not to use channels or traps or magma cannons or edge-of-map exploits or even train your dwarves up to champion if you think it unfair...

[Solace]

Unless you mean there become "mousehole" tiles, that seems a little bizzare for fluffy wamblers to go knocking out entire walls on its way to your quarry bush biscuit stockpiles.

I don't think every vermin unit should have tunneling any more than every siege unit should have tunneling. Just as a later on bigger challenge thing, you have your ROUS or whatever that gets spawned by your farm, it digs down a z-level or makes a basic entrance, then builds a burrow of a few spaces to store some extra food it steals. If you don't deal with it quick enough it grows up and becomes a threat, and more either spawn or breed and eventually you'd get a lot of "mouseholes" and a much larger vermin burrow. If you kill off that first one and unbuild (seal up) it's hole/burrow, no problem. If you don't deal with it, or leave... say, a "nest" building it can create, you get more of them later. Heck, maybe you even allow this with some farms to end up with "free range" ROUS meat.

I don't particularly see Dwarf Fortress as a military game, and am much more preoccupied with what I can finegle out of the physics engine than with military concerns.

I think Dwarf Fortress is at least 50% about the military aspect, and while some people will want to make water logic calculators or beautiful towers, most people are gonna want to fight stuff and won't want the fighting nerfed just in case they didn't want to.

[NW_Kohaku]

I think Dwarf Fortress is at least 50% about the military aspect, and while some people will want to make water logic calculators or beautiful towers, most people are gonna want to fight stuff and won't want the fighting nerfed just in case they didn't want to.

I don't think so, I think the combat-only-oriented players are a minority, if a sizable minority.

I'm not saying we should nerf stuff, I'm just saying it shouldn't be forgotten that not everyone plays this game just to kill every random thing they can.