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[kaijyuu]

Right, but a goblin shouldn't be able to penetrate it by digging at it with a mining pick or whatever.


It should require some heavy equipment or explosive technology.

[loose nut]

Probably a fairly simple way to proof your moat vs. sappers is to make the bottom level of a several-z-level moat extend outwards a little ways. Imagine an L-shaped cross-section. Then, when the sappers come to the moat and dig down, they hit the water or magma or whatever, and Smugnu aborts job: burning.

It would take a bit of time to set up but hopefully you'd have a corp of legendary miners by the time fully equipped sieges come knocking. It'd defeat the simpler siege strategies easily, and with a bit of cunning (make the outward-jutting cistern area at the bottom of the moat more of a perforated maze instead of a solid area of water, so the siegers think they're safe, start digging horizontally, and hit liquid) would defeat most any reasonable AI moat-diggers; they'd have to bring screw pumps or else dig in from 10+ levels below which is stupid.

[kaijyuu]

Or they could just bridge it. Preferably under a hail of arrows from your archers

[Iden]

Just so long as they can't tunnel into constructed walls made of sturdy materials like metal.

Unless of course they have some sort of siege engine (catapult, trebuchet, ect) or dynamite.

I don't think any enemy unit should have the ability to deconstruct a wall. On top of this, no enemy unit should be able to dig through a constructed wall, only dirt/sand or stone. If a wall is to be destroyed, it needs to be destroyed by a Ram, artillery fire, collapsing, or an appropriately flagged enemy.

-----

Probably a fairly simple way to proof your moat vs. sappers is to make the bottom level of a several-z-level moat extend outwards a little ways. Imagine an L-shaped cross-section. Then, when the sappers come to the moat and dig down, they hit the water or magma or whatever, and Smugnu aborts job: burning.

Very great idea! Thumbs up!!

[iron_general]

Digging enemies seems like a great idea provided they would require heavy equipement (think rams) to breach constructions (which are probably better reinforced than natural walls) and that the diggers/siege opperators are "civilians" and like their dwarven counterparts flee when faced with soldiers.
On a side note it has been brought up that digging should only be restricted by metal walls, perhaps a good comprimise would be the ability to "plate" or "reinforce" several stone walls with a single bar of metal to prevent digging.

[Tryntu]

note: i'm too lazy to read through the thread, so i have no idea if this has been considered or what, but i had an idea, so i'm spewing it.

a common complaint is that, without tunnelers, doors and moats can stymie a massive siege in notime, right?

Battering Rams and Pontoon Bridges.

Battering Ram: make it a unit that can take down doors and walls, but not undug dirt (smoothed walls counting as undug, i suppose. make higher quality doors, of different materials, harder to take down. i.e. a wood door is harder to kill than a glass one, rock > wood, metal > rock. also could maybe introduce fortified doors or something. and, of course, masterwork is stury as crap, whereas unquality'd will fall over if you piss on it.

Pontoon Bridges: allow the invading force to build bridges, using either wood they bring with them, or trees that are avaliable on the map if possible. they then start building pontoon bridge tiles - easily destroyed and attackable, again depending on quality. rock and metal, barring preformed, would be too hard and not floaty enough, imo. glass.. yeah, no.

another thought - siege ladders/towers.. gives the goblinite an edge if someone tries defending by using a cliff.

ionno, hopefully i helped.

[Timst]

I can't believe that this thread (that I started a year and a half ago) is still afloat.

Anyway, we're reached 500+ votes, and 73.3 % of the people that voted were for tunneling units. So the basic idea of having units that dig seems well-received, now we should think about the implementation.

[RAM]

note: i'm too lazy to read through the thread, so i have no idea if this has been considered or what, but i had an idea, so i'm spewing it.

a common complaint is that, without tunnelers, doors and moats can stymie a massive siege in notime, right?

Battering Rams and Pontoon Bridges.

Battering Ram: make it a unit that can take down doors and walls, but not undug dirt (smoothed walls counting as undug, i suppose. make higher quality doors, of different materials, harder to take down. i.e. a wood door is harder to kill than a glass one, rock > wood, metal > rock. also could maybe introduce fortified doors or something. and, of course, masterwork is stury as crap, whereas unquality'd will fall over if you piss on it.

Pontoon Bridges: allow the invading force to build bridges, using either wood they bring with them, or trees that are avaliable on the map if possible. they then start building pontoon bridge tiles - easily destroyed and attackable, again depending on quality. rock and metal, barring preformed, would be too hard and not floaty enough, imo. glass.. yeah, no.

another thought - siege ladders/towers.. gives the goblinite an edge if someone tries defending by using a cliff.

ionno, hopefully i helped.

This has been addressed, obviously no final consensus was ever achieved, but my position is that doors and moats are not a problem. It would be nice if they were intelligent defences that could be used artistically, and in time they probably will be, but currently they are completely optional, if you don't want immunity to sieges, then don't use them, such things are a part of playing an alpha version... The real problem is something more akin to a long corridor, are a weaving maze of fortifications, with ballistae at one end, and a solid coating of traps, which ends in a narrow S-Bend into a large room with raised archer positions above the opening, so that a dozen dwarves are all attacking a single invader. Some defences just won't be overcome by any sane invasion, tunnelling would offer a means of breaching that, although it would need to be limited so that defences were not completely irrelevant...

[SirHoneyBadger]

This has been addressed, obviously no final consensus was ever achieved, but my position is that doors and moats are not a problem. It would be nice if they were intelligent defences that could be used artistically, and in time they probably will be, but currently they are completely optional, if you don't want immunity to sieges, then don't use them, such things are a part of playing an alpha version... The real problem is something more akin to a long corridor, are a weaving maze of fortifications, with ballistae at one end, and a solid coating of traps, which ends in a narrow S-Bend into a large room with raised archer positions above the opening, so that a dozen dwarves are all attacking a single invader. Some defences just won't be overcome by any sane invasion, tunnelling would offer a means of breaching that, although it would need to be limited so that defences were not completely irrelevant...

This is a pretty clever strategy for stymiing seiges.

Maybe there could be a "create collapsable area" designation, that made it so anyone tunneling under a given "collapsable area" would cause a minor cavein?

It'd be perfectly reasonable for such a cavein to alert the defending forces.

Surrounding your Fortress with a "curtain wall" of mazes, traps, and other fortifications, as per the above post, seems very dwarfy to me.

Tunneling doesn't have to be easy, or fast, either. Dwarfs certainly should be the best in the world at it, and other species may well find it to be as dangerous, for them, as it is in real life.

Goblins may have little skill at mining, whatsoever, making tunneling a prohibitively dangerous last resort.

For that matter, during a seige, time in the game might go a lot more slowly, and things like mining/tunneling may take 10 times or more longer than "normal speed", allowing plenty of time to respond to them.

And, ofcourse, dwarfs should possess the skill to restore stone to it's natural pre-tunneled state. And possibly even give constructions a "natural stone finish", given enough time--rendering fortifications even less vulnerable to damage than they are now.

They may even have the ability to strengthen stone beyond it's natural tolerances, through various processes. 

[Andeerz]

This is a pretty clever strategy for stymiing seiges.

Maybe there could be a "create collapsable area" designation, that made it so anyone tunneling under a given "collapsable area" would cause a minor cavein?

It'd be perfectly reasonable for such a cavein to alert the defending forces.

Surrounding your Fortress with a "curtain wall" of mazes, traps, and other fortifications, as per the above post, seems very dwarfy to me.

Tunneling doesn't have to be easy, or fast, either. Dwarfs certainly should be the best in the world at it, and other species may well find it to be as dangerous, for them, as it is in real life.

Goblins may have little skill at mining, whatsoever, making tunneling a prohibitively dangerous last resort.

For that matter, during a seige, time in the game might go a lot more slowly, and things like mining/tunneling may take 10 times or more longer than "normal speed", allowing plenty of time to respond to them.

And, ofcourse, dwarfs should possess the skill to restore stone to it's natural pre-tunneled state. And possibly even give constructions a "natural stone finish", given enough time--rendering fortifications even less vulnerable to damage than they are now.

They may even have the ability to strengthen stone beyond it's natural tolerances, through various processes. 

Full of win.  Though there are already a few threads on the matter, having a system in place to handle time discrepancies between adventure and fort mode could really help here for sieges and offensive/defensive mining.  This could make the time it takes to mine go at a more reasonable and somewhat realistic pace during a siege.  Add to that better cave-in physics and necessitating supports and stuff, as well as needing to haul crap out of freshly mined areas, then the real risks and caveats of mining during a siege are introduced.  Then a moat would be hard to mine under and therefore serve a purpose in this regard.  In addition, counter-mining would be a viable counter strategy to sappers (and something dwarves would have a great advantage in).

Even if a slowed down time was not introduced, a more realistic handling of hauling, mining speeds, and cave-ins alone would, I think, make offensive/defensive mining in DF be a reasonable representation of the real-life strategy, complete with its (or a reasonable facsimile of) real-life pros and cons.

Mining should be prohibitively dangerous and expensive during a siege in DF because of similar reasons to those that made it so in real life.  It would have required significant wood supply for supports, a LOT of time (weeks, months, maybe even years), somewhat skilled labor, and stealth.  Risks involved cave-ins (due to hasty mining, poor judgment, or counter-mining) and suffocation (burning supports for collapse).

Also, as a proposition for detecting incoming tunnelers, may I suggest this real-life, historical solution to the matter? -> 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Greek historian Polybius, in his Histories, gives a graphic account of mining and counter mining at the Roman siege of Ambracia:

    The Aetolians [...] offered a gallant resistance to the assault of the siege artillery and [the Romans], therefore, in despair had recourse to mines and underground tunnels. Having safely secured the central one of their three works, and carefully concealed the shaft with wattle screens, they erected in front of it a covered walk or stoa about two hundred feet long, parallel with the wall; and beginning digging from that, they carried it on unceasingly day and night, working in relays. For a considerable number of days the besieged did not discover them carrying the earth away through the shaft; but when the heap of earth thus brought out became too high to be concealed from those inside the city, the commanders of the besieged garrison set to work vigorously digging a trench inside, parallel to the wall and to the stoa which faced the towers. When the trench was made to the required depth, they next placed in a row along the side of the trench nearest the wall a number of brazen vessels made very thin; and, as they walked along the bottom of the trench past these, they listened for the noise of the digging outside. Having marked the spot indicated by any of these brazen vessels, which were extraordinarily sensitive and vibrated to the sound outside, they began digging from within, at right angles to the trench, another underground tunnel leading under the wall, so calculated as to exactly hit the enemy's tunnel. This was soon accomplished, for the Romans had not only brought their mine up to the wall, but had under-pinned a considerable length of it on either side of their mine; and thus the two parties found themselves face to face.[1]

 

Anyway, before anyone starts discussing whether or not or how to implement some sort of siege-mode or whatever time, PLEASE go to this thread to discuss it!  There are really good ideas here!   

[Jayce]

Maybe sappers that sneak in and disable traps and drawbridges are the answer,though i think weak walls like sand should be vulnerable,as long as the tunneler doesnt dig down 100 levels.

[RenoFox]

For!

More interesting sieges, more interesting underground, and it would most likely be optional anyway.

As for pathfinding problems and enemies digging into unknown areas of the fort, they could start a Dig task at likely points if no other mode of attack is applicable. Walls around doors, down from above the entrance or under walls would be good such spots, whether or not they actually succeed in digging into the fort.

[Chthonic]

There could also be a pause-and-recenter-notification if a dwarf hears unauthorized digging nearby.

[Uthric]

i would not mind if


they dig only in soils

and

they can only dig 9 or so tiles of rock before giving up and relocating to try over,and the harder the rock the slower they dig(there not dwarfs that can swim threw rock like fish)

[Beeskee]

I think Dungeon Keeper did something similar to this, though I don't remember now whether the enemy tunnelers could go through smoothed walls or not.

Damn I miss that game. It doesn't work hardly at all on modern systems.