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[Nil Eyeglazed]

It's perfectly reasonable for the megaprojects folks to turn off invaders.  It's not what they want to deal with.  But invasions are a significant part of this game, for a lot of players, probably for most, and apparently for Toady.  Even for sandbox players, invasions give significance to fortress design, give a reason to come up with creative new machines.  The problem is that there's an endpoint to that purpose, because sieges are so easily and completely foiled by a few different defense designs.

Some of the perfect defenses can be worked around by non-sapper means: better flyer pathfinding, better building destroyer AI, bridge-layers, etc.  But some of these perfect defenses can only be foiled by sapping.

I like the military part of this game.  It seems reasonable to me to try to do everything I can to deal with invasions.  The problem is that if I do that, invasions aren't any challenge.  And the only way to challenge a player who doesn't want to impose arbitrary limits on him or herself is through sappers.  (Maybe in conjunction with pumpers, if anyone is actually serious about building a cube of magma around their fort.)

[Nivim]

 There still can be a separate init.txt option to turn of tunnelers.

[RAM]

# Improved sieges
   # Ability to dig (optionally, default on)

[cephalo]

I want digging invaders, but under the following conditions.

I do not want walls/terrain to be inconsequential. I want the invaders to have to work hard for each sapped tile.

I want to be able to completely repair my site. We can already repair constructions, but I want to repair the natural stone. I don't want people to build natural stone, that's what magma casting is for, but I want to repair any damage done by sappers.

[fanatic]

Capture the sappers and cast them into the wall they sapped. That'll teach the bastards 

[Solace]

I want to be able to completely repair my site. We can already repair constructions, but I want to repair the natural stone. I don't want people to build natural stone, that's what magma casting is for, but I want to repair any damage done by sappers.

Once again, constructed tunnels rather than dug tunnels.

[RAM]

Do you mean a 'Tunnel' construction, that invaders emerge from, or a 'constructed' open space, that can be deconstructed to return it to it's former state?

[Mason11987]

I want to be able to completely repair my site. We can already repair constructions, but I want to repair the natural stone. I don't want people to build natural stone, that's what magma casting is for, but I want to repair any damage done by sappers.

Once again, constructed tunnels rather than dug tunnels.

If through dirt I see this as like a floor connecting two towers, deconstructing it really annoying because dwarves will trap themselves.

Imagine a 20tile long "constructed tunnel", how would you deconstruct it?  Select all?  What if they deconstruct the outside parts first (you know they will)?

[RAM]

There will probably be a 'do not wall myself or my allies in' clause in the A.I. at some point, and it shouldn't be all that difficult to designate a direction for the wall to progress in, so that they do not end one section until the previous section is finished...

[AxiumCog]

Very very against. Im a computer scientist, i understand the implications of such an addition to the game and its a nightmare. All of the arguments ive read (no i havnt read all 25 pages) are valid to an extent.

- Pathfinding becomes a mess
- resources artificially consumed
- unfair advantage to the siegers
- Fun

+ more realistic
+ Fun

A method for the enemy to deal with moats should be implemented, but allowing the enemies to have full access to the dwarfs at all times means very short, frustrating games and Fun for everyone...

[Solace]

Imagine a 20tile long "constructed tunnel", how would you deconstruct it?  Select all?  What if they deconstruct the outside parts first (you know they will)?

Would it matter? Even if you only deconstruct the ends of the tunnel, you'd still get back your nice floorplan, natural walls, and engravings. If you ever decided to expand and hit the tunnel, you could deconstruct more. The worst case scenario would just be a section of freefloating tunnel.

Very very against. Im a computer scientist, i understand the implications of such an addition to the game and its a nightmare.

- Pathfinding becomes a mess
- resources artificially consumed
- unfair advantage to the siegers
- Fun

+ more realistic
+ Fun

+Fun-Fun=0?
No resources need be consumed.
I'd say right now the sieged have an unfair advantage, since they never ever need to leave the fort.
How would pathfinding ignoring walls be harder than pathfinding around them? Jeez, some scientist.

[AxiumCog]

Very very against. Im a computer scientist, i understand the implications of such an addition to the game and its a nightmare.

- Pathfinding becomes a mess
- resources artificially consumed
- unfair advantage to the siegers
- Fun

+ more realistic
+ Fun

+Fun-Fun=0?
No resources need be consumed.
I'd say right now the sieged have an unfair advantage, since they never ever need to leave the fort.
How would pathfinding ignoring walls be harder than pathfinding around them? Jeez, some scientist.

Eh i give you the resources one.

The sieged having an unfair advantage IS true, but allowing the enemy to ignore your efforts isnt the solution. In that case why bother building a fortress at all? Sure it will take time for them to dig to you, but if you dont know they're coming till they pop out under your dining room table whats the difference?

Pathfinding is a mess not by means of how to make them ignore walls, its more the how do they know where to mine to in the first place(Goblins "knowing" where the armory is without a living soul having ever returned from the fortress is a bit of a stretch), how to limit where theyre allowed to dig out and how much, collapsing strategies, etc. These things can severely reduce performance of the game.

I think the eventual solution will involve the siege engineers being able to find workarounds to obstacles they encounter in relation to the original path calculated before the player introduced the obstacle. i.e. you pull up the drawbridge over your moat of lava? The siegers build buckets and cool the lava with water so they can walk over it. Or if you collapse a roof to block the tunnel, they try to remove the rubble.

[Solace]

Kind of sounds like those two problems are the same thing. From a logical and easy-to-implement point of view, I guess you could just have tunnelers try tunneling around constructions? Those would be things they could see, and would logically be the thing preventing them from having easy access to the rest of the fortress. Alternately, you could say they use acoustic or perhaps magical imaging, and be able to "see" a certain number of spaces through the earth.

[cameron]

Easiest would be to make ground have an extremely high pathing cost so that they (the tunnelers) make only small tunnels which bypass large detours.

Ideally this cost would be in the init along with the low, normal, high, and restricted costs so that someone could make the tunnel cost low and have large tunnels across the map or make the cost so high the almost never tunnel. this could allow for silliness where tunneling could be easier then walking and they always try to tunnel and avoid open space

[RAM]

Pathing: The computer resource can be limited by only plotting a limited number of tunnels and only plotting them once.
Targets: You could base it on spies or kidnap victims. Goblins could mark terrain as dangerous under some circumstances and tunnel to a know point beyond it.
Advantage: I envisage invader tunnelling to be a slow process involving a small number of units. Tunnels would only be one or two tiles wide, so you would not face the whole enemy army at once, and still have the advantage. and Unless your living quarters are in a nearer to the invaders than your defences I don't see that they would be a target.

Moats are only one form of defence, you can have impenetrable lines of traps, ballistae pointing down narrow tunnels, or S-bends with fortifications and choke-points so that you usually have 5 dwarves facing a single invader. I personally do not consider drawbridgers to be a part of the equation. They are a relatively insignificant element to a fortress and are an impenetrable defence to most foes. If you are using them then you are choosing to be impervious, there is also an init option to turn off invaders that had a very nearly identical effect, I could even see myself arguing in favour of including a similar impenetrable barrier that can be toggled in the final version so that people who want to separate trading and combat can still do that...