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Against !

[Neonivek]

I really can't go on... Must... respond... once... more

If we can suppose that each playing style is equal, then they can be said to cancel each other out

No this isn't about playstyles... my arguements for example are that people are misinterpreting the eventual/potential power and strength of both tunnelers and sieges to the extent that they believe Tunnelers are perfect trump cards of a cheating AI and that Sieges are forced to pernamently conform to a imperfect pathfinding algorithm.

I also say that Tunnelers can do the same damage ordinary sieges can also present.

So playstyles has nothing to do with it in thise case. As if I am right and Sieges wont suck and Tunnelers arn't perfect then it won't matter what playstyle the other person has, he will not want Sieges on either. Which I have no problem with. I am however against discluding Tunnelers altogether on the basis that their reasons for doing so also disqualified seiges.

Maybe it'll never be added, maybe it's something Bay 12 has no interest in ever modeling in the game, but I kind of doubt that.

I on the otherhand don't believe for a second that tunnelers will make it into the game. It will overwhelm new people who have problems thinking in a 3d mindset as it is as well there is a considerable group of people who are not only against Tunneling in everyway but are also quite adamant about it. It also uses similar Algorithms as the pathfinding fixes Toady needs to make sieges worthwhile so he would have to do it after proper sieges.

If Toady didn't add tunneling nothing would happen... If he did... He could very well have a big bunch of people hate him for it as well as a further alienated noobie community.

Hense why Toady will never add Tunneling. Also probably why I am so sour in this topic I have absolutely no faith in its inclusion and I subconsciously blame the community to be perfectly honest.

the anti-tunnelers win

No... the Anti-Tunnelers can only lose... they can never win as they are in an eternal deadlock. You can't win Status Quo you can only lose it

ven people who *don't* want tunneling can probably come up with some good ideas for it, if it ever *did* show up in the game, and we who do want it can reward their creative efforts and friendliness by ensuring that, if it ever does, it has an OFF button.

Toady is going to have a lot of off buttons in the future...

[Gauphastus]

I vote for.
Only I don't think it's something we should add right away. Maybe after the game takes a bit more shape.

I think full blown sieges should be serious threats. You have your crappy little group of bandits who run up, get shot to hell, and run off.
But then you have your huge sieges that are extremely serious threats to your fort, your dwarfdom, and the surrounding area should they take over your fort.
Tunnelers would be one of the many cards your enemy might play if necessary during the course of a siege. Rams, siege towers, ambush parties, magic eventually--

These are things you will have to deal with or prepare for.
If we're going to have big awesome wars and stuff, I welcome the challenge.

If I fail, I will learn.
And this kind of experimentation and risk is part of what makes these games so exciting.

EDIT: I'm for siege camps too.
This Tormy fellah and I seem to think alike. 

[SirHoneyBadger]

First of all, I doubt anyone of sound mind is going to hate Toady for adding something to the game. And if they do, why should he fret about it? Plenty of other people will continue to love the game, and him for making it. It's a free game, after all. It's not like he's going to alienate customers.

Secondly, as far as alienating new people go, adding tunneling is like adding a bic lighter to the sun. The game's already irredemably difficult to learn, and it's better for being so. I know there are some ideas in the works to make it easier to learn, but it's not going to ever become easy, without wreaking all the things that make it good.

Third: What's wrong with a lot of off buttons? With the level of modding potential being put into the game, accepting and embracing the idea of loads of on/off switches is a given.

Finally, the game itself, at it's most basic, is about dwarfs digging in the ground. The idea that somebody else is going to dig in the ground? Possibly an antagonist? It's pretty likely that it'll happen in some form, at some point.

It's not like you're going to set out to make a racing game, about only 1 car going around a track, or a wrestling game about a guy that beats up helpless bystanders. Even shooters tend to have other shooters shooting back.

[Neonivek]

Too sleepy to comment on everything

What's wrong with a lot of off buttons?

At a certain point I am just kinda "Why are we even playing this?".

Then again even Dwarf Fortress has an Off button.

[LegoLord]

Neonivek, I still don't get how megabeasts, sieges and tunnelers would get inside the fort to flood it.  And why would they flood it?  That's one of the reasons people didn't like the idea of tunneling at first; It would make the fort difficult to recover!  It really seems like you are trying to perpetuate an argument just for the "fun" of it, because there's not really much logic applied there, and you're outright ignoring some of the arguments against tunneling.

[Dakk]

Neonivek, I still don't get how megabeasts, sieges and tunnelers would get inside the fort to flood it.  And why would they flood it?  That's one of the reasons people didn't like the idea of tunneling at first; It would make the fort difficult to recover!  It really seems like you are trying to perpetuate an argument just for the "fun" of it, because there's not really much logic applied there, and you're outright ignoring some of the arguments against tunneling.

Losing is fun!

The reason i like this idea is because it adds challenge to the game, of course, there would be limitations, but a little well balanced challenge is aways good, it keeps the game from getting dull and boring in the long run.
At the moment, sieges are pathetically easy to win. I had a siege in my old fort that took 4 full pages of the units screen, thats +60 goblins at the very least! And at that moment my fotress barely had 80 dwarves! This true vile force of darkness came in squads of 15-20.
And you know what happened? I sent out a squad of eight dwarves with 2 champions among them. A single axedwarf champion plowed through the squad of wrestlers/spearman like a adamantine knife through melting cow cheese, and after losing about 20 soldiers to a single dwarf, they just gave up and ran away! Talk about anti climax.
Goblin sieges are pathetic if they don't bring a heckload of bowman, and even if they do, all you need is to attract them really close to the entrance, then send you champions to pick them out before they can even load their bolts.

[Tormy]

The reason i like this idea is because it adds challenge to the game, of course, there would be limitations, but a little well balanced challenge is aways good, it keeps the game from getting dull and boring in the long run.

Yeah, this is what I am saying all the time.  70%+ of the voters would like to see this feature in the game. This is a quite good result so far. 
Anyway, those who voted for "against", shouldn't worry at all. This feature must be controllable in the raws, if it's gonna be implemented ever [..lets hope so]. [IE: turn it off completely, alter the speed of the tunnelers etc. etc.]

[lizard]

From the siege perspective, I'd much rather have bridging and use of ladders.  It accomplishes most of the goals with much less cost.  The main fortress defenses that people whine about are moats and bridges; the obvious and realistic way to fix that is with ladders and counter-bridges.

Think about how often you, as the sieger, would actually want to spend months digging through rock in the hopes that you breach someplace given that a) they will have heard you coming and turned the exit into a death trap and b) they are experts at mining and will probably undermine and collapse your tunnel.  The only case that I can think of is there being a hallway of trap death or corner that I want to bypass.  The former is easier to build into the game with slow/incomplete trap disarming.  The latter is rare and way too complex for the AI to use.

I set up fortress design "unrealistically" shallow knowing that they can't dig.  If they could I'd just dig deeper and twistier to make it useless.

It would probably be good (and much easier) to build in "obvious" digging like knocking down fortifications, doors, floors and ceilings.

[Skid]

For, on the condition that they're limited to dirt digging for the most part and/or can't cross smoothed wall or artificial walls made of blocks.

[LegacyCWAL]

I'm more worried about tunnelers flooding themselves.  Seriously, they can't even navigate a covered roadway right now, and it would be pretty damned anticlimactic when they screw up digging in 3D (which, mind you, even experienced players can do sometimes) and annihilate their own siege by drowning themselves in lava.

[Samyotix]

I don't think this suggestion would work well.
Mostly because a 1- or 2-tile wide channel around the fortress is standard already.
Prefect digger defense = extending that channel to the bottom level, right?

I'd guess it would make more sense, and less problems with self-drowning squads of digging enemies, to have the Goblins bring mobile Catapults and/or ballistae for sieges.

[Mephansteras]

I am all for it, provided that it's done in a way that allows us to fortify our fortresses against it somewhat and that tunnelers avoid warm/damp squares. Also, I'd like there to be varying dig speeds for creatures. Humans shouldn't be able to dig as fast as dwarves, who may be somewhat slower then gigantic rock worms.

Creatures that tunnel through rock should be rare, although dirt digging creatures should probably be fairly common. Rock diggers should probably also stay deep. I'd imagine that they can't handle temperature variations very well, so they wouldn't try to risk going to the surface very often. This will have the side benefit of meaning that most forts won't have to worry about them too much at first. Once you're a little more established and actually start digging down more, they become more of an issue. But you also have the resources and dwarf power to deal with them a bit.

[Timst]

I'm more worried about tunnelers flooding themselves.  Seriously, they can't even navigate a covered roadway right now, and it would be pretty damned anticlimactic when they screw up digging in 3D (which, mind you, even experienced players can do sometimes) and annihilate their own siege by drowning themselves in lava.

Yes, but we're talking about an AI here. The computer is able to see damp & warm wall, and to avoid them... if properly coded, the idea of a computer-controled invader flooding himself with lava seems improbable.

[Footkerchief]

On the other hand it would be hilarious to see incompetent goblins accidentally dig into magma and die horribly.

[Mephansteras]

Yeah, but that might be too risky for the player. Of course, loosing is fun...maybe if it was rare?

On the other hand, I find the prospect of flooding the goblin siege tunnels with water/magma quite amusing.