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For !

Against !

[Pilsu]

Not much of a mountain fortress if all it takes to get in is a shovel and 5 minutes

[Tormy]

Still of the opinion that other fixes can come first. I'll take goblin catapults over sappers any day.

Erm, do you think that catapults will be _THAT_ useful?...sure, it's a must have feature, but what will those catapults shooting at? The hillside? Catapults can be useful vs. above ground fortresses...but against underground forts... 

[Skynet 2.0]

The point is that it would be a very advanced ability, with the goblins only sending in sappers if your fortress had survived everything that they had thrown at it up to that point. Even then, there would be lots of restrictions on it, such as high accident rates, much slower mining than even the least skilled dwarf, and restrictions on what you can tunnel through.

[Tormy]

The point is that it would be a very advanced ability, with the goblins only sending in sappers if your fortress had survived everything that they had thrown at it up to that point. Even then, there would be lots of restrictions on it, such as high accident rates, much slower mining than even the least skilled dwarf, and restrictions on what you can tunnel through.

Advanced ability? What? So digging out a tunnel requires more knowledge than constructing a catapult you say?  Please...
Sure, dwarves are the best miners, so the non dwarven tunnelers must be slower. Even tho, this must be controllable in the raws. [The digging speed of the tunnelers..]
Also, perhaps there should be tunneling restrictions / races or creatures. Example: [Giant] Worms should not be able to dig through hard materials.

Note: Tunnelers should "work" while the above ground force is preparing for the siege/attacking the fortress. It makes no sense that they begin to create a tunnel after all of their units have died in the above ground siege. 
Another possiblity: If the enemy has a siege camp (I've suggested those here), and the first above ground attack fails, the tunnelers start to dig tunnels towards the player's fortress.

[Onlyhestands]

I voted no, but I'm ok with digging as long as the tunnels are collapsible after the siege. I don't want to have to look at an ugly honey-comb of tunnels after my forts been established for a while.

[Lear]

I voted yes. I too, think that the tunnels should collapse a short (perhaps random) time after. The digging should take quite some time and be very hazardous for those following (random collapse time).

[inaluct]

I am unconditionally for this. Worried about things tunneling your fortress? Maybe it'll make the fortress guard useful for once.

Also, a massive antman swarm could be a megabeast-like encounter, except it might actually be dangerous, since you couldn't just raise the drawbridge and be safe.

[Dakk]

I vote for it, but there should be limitations, IE tunneling through rock would be alot harder then digging through clay or sand, and tunneling through walls should be even harder.

We'll have to wait untill material resistance and cave-ins are re-implemented.

[Skynet 2.0]

Advanced ability? What? So digging out a tunnel requires more knowledge than constructing a catapult you say?  Please...
Sure, dwarves are the best miners, so the non dwarven tunnelers must be slower. Even tho, this must be controllable in the raws. [The digging speed of the tunnelers..]
Also, perhaps there should be tunneling restrictions / races or creatures. Example: [Giant] Worms should not be able to dig through hard materials.

Note: Tunnelers should "work" while the above ground force is preparing for the siege/attacking the fortress. It makes no sense that they begin to create a tunnel after all of their units have died in the above ground siege. 
Another possiblity: If the enemy has a siege camp (I've suggested those here), and the first above ground attack fails, the tunnelers start to dig tunnels towards the player's fortress.

It would be less difficult to tunnel than man a catapult, but I think this should be reserved for later-game sieges, when the fort is impervious to other kinds of attack, to preserve game balance.

[stummel]

Maybe 12-14 years ago I had been playing Magic of Endoria. Btw: just give it a try, great game.

I'll just wanted to state, in this game you had the ability to build 3 different kind of walls. The 3rd one had been the hardest, I don't no, if anyone could dig through it. So why don't do this at DF. Mud walls shouldn't be a problem to anyone. Ever dug out a Steel wall? There also is the possibility of underground moats and traps, labyrinths and so on...

Still I'm not sure, if there is a way to really balance tunnelers ability.

[Serg]

I'm for, as long as antmen can carve vicious holes through my soil layers, possibly automatically cutting a part of stone walls too. Instead of grass trample, they have wall trample, where they do damage to every wall they pass. "The ground beneath a part of your fortress erupts into a mess of fine sand and stone." Ants pour out, rushing all the near by dwarves, animals, and food stocks. Wrecking undeniable havoc and ripping soil walls apart bit by bit. Another message appears on your screen. "Ant soldiers have appeared!" Now stone walls and frail dwarven flesh is littering the ground. "Ant behemoth, run! Run while you still can!" Anything this beast touches crumbles, work shops, stone stock piles, constructions. Until, "The queen, quick slay her!" And 40 of your best champions slay the beast, causing all of the ants to be sedated and sit there, red ! over their icons, totally dazed and confused as to what just happened.

I vote yes.

[tigrex]

I certainly vote yes.  I don't think that it would upset game balance much.  There would be a two week haitus while our forts are turned to swiss cheese, and then we'll adapt.  Internal moats, more traps, well placed guard posts, and bunker-style reinforced safe zones within a fort could all virtually negate the goblin problem.  In turn, the tunnelling ability would give sieges some more unpredictability.

I think that we'll always be able to out-think our foes and plan suitable countermeasures, because no AI can formulate creative solutions like a caffeine-fueled DF player.

Also consider demolisions - goblins laying explosives and letting them blow up sections of the fort.  Catapults hurling balls of magma.  Drills and battering rams to smash through doors and floodgates.  I love making intricate forts, but I'm sometimes struck by a desire to see them smashed down by relentless foes.

[StrayCat]

Uh, tormy, not to step on the toes of the man who originally suggested tunneling... but mining/sapping is actually a very dangerous business. It requires strength, time, trigonometry (so's you know how far to go once you've surveyed topside), and bracing the tunnels when you go in. Collapses -do- happen, but that's not really represented to the most realistic point in the game- nor bracing the walls and floors of the tunnels. There's five-hundred tons of earth above a mined out tunnel deep underground. You think tunnels stay up by themselves? Tunneling/mining takes a lot of knowledge, and I'd say what most think of as "digging some holes" is more complicated than building a siege engine. Mainly because there isn't a risk of a part of the effing world collapsing on top of you.

Doesn't mean I don't want this included! If I can do it, I expect the game to be able to do it as well. Just... I felt for some reason to make miners and surveyors appear as intelligent as they are. And balls across the walls tough. It takes some serious cojones to mine. There's rather a lot that can go wrong, even when there isn't ravenous antmen on the other side of that tunnel, ready to strip the flesh from your bones.

[Belteshazzar]

The idea of limited resources (to refill the tunnels) being a problem is rather silly. I generally have too much stone anyway (and I am in favor of a more strict preservation of mass in rubble, soil, and junk.) Besides it's not like the seigers should just be making all that rock disappear (unless they're using magic!) Much of what you will need for rewalling should already be in the tunnel already. 

As for the visual problem this is mostly because we can't currently 'forget' an area (line of sight issues.) There are also difficulties with the uglyness of constructed walls but this could probably be corrected with a different tile or the option to make no visual distinction.

[Serg]

Antman cancels tunnel: FLOOD OH GOD WE'VE DUG UNDER A MOAT.