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For !

Against !

[Hectonkhyres]

For... with the requirement that siege tunnels be crude, temporary structures that collapse after perhaps a season. These should be treated as if they are one tile wide tunnels or holes in the wall except for the fact they do not actually disrupt the constructions themselves, merely circumvent them.

I would also be for this proposition (even without tunnels being temporary) once the different sorts of materials (rock, wood, etc) start having actual properties. For example, trying to mine through a three tile wide curtain wall where the middle tile is actually filled with several metric tons of broken glass/obsidian shards will quickly turn tunnelers into a bloody, skinless mess. Similarly mining should be harder with constructed walls (perhaps near impossible if we have the architecture skill applied to walls before building) and walls made out of tougher material. If you make a wall out of steel plates, nothing short of a god should be mining its way through. Tunnelers also should only path through soil tiles or really small distances of rock. No burrowing through fifteen miles of solid obsidian to get into my legendary dining room.

[Joakim]

Voted for.

If you have some forewarning ("Goblins have struck Microline!"), i.e. you can see them from some distance away and they're pretty slow, I think tunnelers would be pretty easy to defend against.

Tunneler from the side: Carve a Fortification in it's path, post a marksdwarf on and shoot tunneler in the face.
Tunneler from below: Dig a channel where he'll appear so he can't make stairs. Put a grate on top and a marksdwarf on the grate, shoot tunneler in the face.
Tunneler from above: Put a spike trap where he will appear and watch him impale himself when he falls down from the ceiling. Post an axedwarf beside to finish off survivors.

This assumes that we get a spike trap that actually works like that, i.e. does damage to someone who falls on it, and that we can control our dwarves better in the future. And that the tunnelers path is easily predicted. Might get trickier if he starts doing evasive maneuvers.

[LegacyCWAL]

Y'know, I just realized how many "For, but..." posts I'm seeing.  It makes me believe that the current poll is flawed, because it assumes unconditional support or unconditional refusal.  There's so many people, myself included, in between the two that I don't really think such a poll could be considered valid unless there was a third option, "For, but only if certain conditions are met first."

[Granite26]

More than 100 users (102) has voted now, and the odds are 71.6% for the implementation of tunellers, and 28.4 % against.

The problem is, if you read the comments, everybody wants it in theory, but not if it means the enemy tunnels into THEIR fort

I think you're right, Legacy

[Royal Surveyor]

I'd like to fend off enemy sappers desperately attempting to pierce my fortress.  It would give me an excuse to make a cube surrounded by a layer of magma (and make it self-sealing somehow, too!)

[SirHoneyBadger]

I'm for sappers doing their best to get into mine, my own, my personal fortress.

That's why I built the giant death-labyrinth!
That's why I captured the zombie minotaur!

I say bring it on.

[LegoLord]

More than 100 users (102) has voted now, and the odds are 71.6% for the implementation of tunellers, and 28.4 % against.

The problem is, if you read the comments, everybody wants it in theory, but not if it means the enemy tunnels into THEIR fort

I think you're right, Legacy

I think so too.  I'm not entirely against tunneling;  I don't like it but know that Toady could add an init option.  I'm only against it in the poll because the common defense for tunneling is that "sieges aren't good enough," even though tunneling wouldn't change normal sieges one bit.  I think it can wait until . . . well, after just about every other addition to sieges.

[SirHoneyBadger]

That's a good point. Tunneling might be an aspect of seiges, but there's a lot of different things that could make seiges more interesting than just tunneling.

[Neonivek]

Y'know, I just realized how many "For, but..." posts I'm seeing.  It makes me believe that the current poll is flawed, because it assumes unconditional support or unconditional refusal.  There's so many people, myself included, in between the two that I don't really think such a poll could be considered valid unless there was a third option, "For, but only if certain conditions are met first."

I expressed this issue earlier.

I said that too many people were voting against Tunnelers based on the current status of the game rather then "If Tunnelers should EVER be included in the game".

[katana0182]

I think that this is a fine idea - better than the "invisible baby snatcher" and the "invisible goblin raider" modality of sneak attacks. However, it ought to be implemented much later in the game after realistic tunneling behavior is implemented. Digging a tunnel - at least for invaders - under hostile fire - ought not be a trivial task:

• Tunneling needs to be implemented with the modality of permanent underground terrain - for example, at least impassable rock seams.
• Shoring of the invasion tunnel should be required, forcing the cutting of wood. Passage through an invasion tunnel of many soldiers ought to be limited. For example, if invaders dislodged the shoring while passing through the tunnel - always a possibility with clumsy trolls - the entire tunnel system should collapse on their heads.
• Dwarves ought to be able to fire catapults at shallow tunnels and force them to collapse.
• Metal walls ought to be impassable to any creature short of a fire-breathing dragon, a balrog, an epic level spellcaster or the possessor of a major artifact, or a hidden fun creature from the hidden fun place.
• Perhaps there could be depth or length restrictions on invasion tunnels.

Tunneling ought to be limited, slow, and balanced.

[Othob Rithol]

Like those previous, the poll is flawed...but does also say the feature is wanted more than not wanted.

We had a very brief discussion of burrowing creatures over in UD and it was clear there that some distinction has to be made over what creature/effect can go through what material (no Giant Moles ripping through granite)

My "But" also has to do with the aesthetics crowd and is a feature request. Change the way walls are constructed. A rock tile (which looks and acts like an original rock tile) can be constructed out of rock, and the walls we have now are made from bricks. An added "super restore" would be an occasional (yearly or seasonal, or even at save/reload) that "unreveals" tiles that are completely surrounded by rock or wall.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I'd like to add to Othob's idea, that dwarfs ought to have access to *some* kind of method for both restoring, and expanding, natural stone.

Might take a lot of time and effort, but I think it would add a lot to the game, both strategically and aesthetically.

[eerr]

What, no third option, not even a cop-out!?

[RavingManiac]

Should tunnelers get implemented, I want them to happen only once every dozen or so sieges, so that a player's reaction to them will be "HOLY SHIT!", not "Sigh, not again...".

I want a tunneling incident to be epic.


If tunneling becomes routine, then sieges will be utterly broken.

[Neonivek]

Metal walls ought to be impassable to any creature short of a fire-breathing dragon, a balrog, an epic level spellcaster or the possessor of a major artifact, or a hidden fun creature from the hidden fun place

I hope you mean while tunneling.

Lets not underestimate Siege machines now.