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[Tormy]

Let's bring this discussion back slightly from the historical side of things. Yes, historically sappers were used. In some cases more successfully than others, but with limitations. However, no matter how realistic this game is we still have to take into account that it is a fantasy world with races that do a lot of work underground.

Given what's already in Dwarf fortress, I think we HAVE to assume that goblins have decent tunneling abilities. Maybe not to the level of dwarves, but they are the only other race to make tunnels between settlements during world gen. This implies that they are reasonably good at digging through rock. Therefore while tunneling might be slow, might be easy to spot, and might be easy for a well prepared fortress to stop, it should still exist.

Especially if the game eventually includes the ability to fight other dwarven civs (or revolt against your own). I think it is very reasonable to assume that they'd have a team of miners available to make their own way in. It'd be one of the big challenges about fighting another dwarven civ.

I absolutely agree. I bolded out the most important parts in your post. Also one more thing, even if it's not so important in this case: Modding. What if I would like to mod in X number of underground civs? I guess they should be able to create tunnels, correct?

[Neonivek]

Under the Spoiler is me dealing with Pilsu, if your uninterested don't look. I didn't want to clutter it up.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well Pilsu if you want to be informed I guess.

I really don't see why having single entities ala Wizards with magic and a few areas with wonky features somehow instantly translates to the game being a D&D clone

Alright then lets get this party solves.

with a million artifacts of hemorrhoid vanquishing

ARTIFACT ARC: Special items made by the dwarves aren't very interesting right now, and there's not much for an adventurer to do with them. These objects should have magical powers and they should have a huge influence on the actions of entities that come into contact with them. Even if your adventurer can't make use of a particular artifact, you could arrange for buyers in the nobility, and use those opportunitites to get a home or good entity standing, for instance. Related to Core79, Core80, Req395, Bloat49, Bloat173, PowerGoal13, PowerGoal60, PowerGoal68 and PowerGoal134.

epic quests abound where every damn thing is magical.

Well beyond what we ALREADY have... which is pretty dang magic in it of itself (Spherical Lands and Megabeasts) how about: Core40, Core67, Core80, Core93-96.

In the Reqs: 135, 336, 355 *Reads the rest of Pilsu's post*

Also your exagerating once again on what I have said. I did not say everything is magical. I said that we also should remember that being a mythical/magical place that it wouldn't matter the historical context because it would make no sense for a world with Giant Ants to have no tunnels as tunnels. So 

"Especially when the current game just has a few patches of land with undead and more vanilla nasty critters and a few good spots with nasty critters and berries. Some really nasty critters hide in caves on occasion "

So your agreeing with me?

Ohhh I see... your misunderstanding my statements and are argueing unrelatedly.

So here is what is happening

Neonivek says: "We should also take into account that this is a magical/mythological world"
Pilsu Imagines: "Dwarf Fortress is a fantasy land dripping with magic and should be"
Pilsu Says: "No it isn't it would ruin the world as you would take away the realism"
Neonivek Imagines: "There shouldn't be any magic"
Neonivek Says: "But... not only is it supported under the RAWs, Devs, and Threetoe stories... but even Toady mentioned the more mythological components plenty of times"

And that is what the arguement between me and Pilsu is. A Double misunderstanding based off both of us believing the other is extreme and insane... At least I hope so... otherwise the arguement is going to *Deleted because it will hurt all of mankind's feelings*

You know on this topic... It really says that perhaps we should be able to get Civilian units into our armies. I mean. Wouldn't Sieges be aided by Farmers?

Miners to use against the enemy would be a bonus.

[BonSequitur]

What if tunnels dug by tunneling creatures were unstable, and automagically refilled after some time? This would balance out the extra difficulty of tunneling creatures against the sheer aesthetic/logistic damage they can cause.

[irmo]

What if tunnels dug by tunneling creatures were unstable, and automagically refilled after some time? This would balance out the extra difficulty of tunneling creatures against the sheer aesthetic/logistic damage they can cause.

This is why you need to read the rest of the thread before posting.

[mickel]

Our homes we protect by the weapons we wield with the strength in our arms, the will of our minds, and the power of our unmovable conviction.

And in my case, a truly staggering amount of traps.

[sweitx]

Let's bring this discussion back slightly from the historical side of things. Yes, historically sappers were used. In some cases more successfully than others, but with limitations. However, no matter how realistic this game is we still have to take into account that it is a fantasy world with races that do a lot of work underground.

Given what's already in Dwarf fortress, I think we HAVE to assume that goblins have decent tunneling abilities. Maybe not to the level of dwarves, but they are the only other race to make tunnels between settlements during world gen. This implies that they are reasonably good at digging through rock. Therefore while tunneling might be slow, might be easy to spot, and might be easy for a well prepared fortress to stop, it should still exist.

Especially if the game eventually includes the ability to fight other dwarven civs (or revolt against your own). I think it is very reasonable to assume that they'd have a team of miners available to make their own way in. It'd be one of the big challenges about fighting another dwarven civ.

I absolutely agree. I bolded out the most important parts in your post. Also one more thing, even if it's not so important in this case: Modding. What if I would like to mod in X number of underground civs? I guess they should be able to create tunnels, correct?

I also believe we should have tunneling as a siege "weapon".  Probably not any time soon, first the possibility of tunnel collapse must be implemented (requiring digger to reinforce tunnels, slowing them down enough for you to muster enough forces to break the siege).

In addition, there must be a mechanism to refill the siege tunnel.  Basically a way to refill the tunnel back to their "pristine" state (so they get treated as an un-mined terrain).  For example use a rock (or 2) to create a new "wall" or nothing to create a dirt wall.

[Silverionmox]

I don't think the answer is to erase the traces of a bad AI with magic.

Tunneling is appropriate only when the siege has come to a stalemate, and the sieger doesn't want or isn't able to blockade the fortress until it surrenders. That's because tunneling is hard, hazardous, time-consuming and far from certain to deliver result. To minimize the risk of failure, the sieger should start digging as close as possible to the obstacle to be overcome, and through soft soil whenever possible. If that's not possible, any non-dwarves will only dig a short tunnel before giving up.

This rewards the player for fortifying properly, and digging into the rock instead of dallying near the surface. Places that are under regular assault badly need fortification anyway.

[Awayfarer]

Against. Having something else put tunnels where I don't want them would be irritating to say the least.

[Guy Montag]

I like the idea of a "entrance tile" that represents a foriegn tunnel, without actually having antmen or seigers make swiss cheese out of your map.

How about an event that causes a "bottomless pit" tile to appear at the bottom z-level and nasty things come out and attack you? You could use the pit to dump your rocks and shit or build a floor over it to keep the baddies from spawning in your fort. It'd be a bit like the chasm was back in the 2d version.

As for units that actually mines and tunnels, I can see that slowing the game down to a crawl and making your typical OCD DF player foam at the mouth when goblins dig a shit ton of irregular tunnels into their farms. I don't dig that idea much.

I just think there needs to be some threat to the fortress that is difficult to defend against. Goblins and Humans and everyone should beable to kick down your doors. You can do it in adventurer mode, seigers should beable to do it in Fortress Mode. Trap avoid tags for more units. No group or civ will be caught in the same trap in the same location twice. Any intelligent, agressive soldier should beable to topple structures like a building destroyer does now, but they should just be more selective about what they topple. They should avoid knocking down random floodgates. They should kick down your doors and pull down your statues and wreck your shit in general, just like invading soldiers do in real life.

Some way to circumvent moats, or fill them in, deconstruct constructed walls like your aboveground walls. A dwarf child can knock down a wall, why not a goblin? How about seige engines that knock down walls from a distance? Goblins show up on scene, hang back and start assembling catapults to batter down your fortress, giving you a reason to get out of your comfort zone of your fortress and go do battle with them in the open, or give you incentive to build forward bunkers and fortifications out in the feild, at least.

Walls would act as a means to slow down the enemy, add incentive to make them thicker, but would never be an absolute barrier to aggressors, just like they were in warfare historically. No fortress, no fortification is inpenetratable.

There are ways to make seiges challenging without having the AI burrow holes into your fortress. A scripted event that opens a "hole" in a wall or floor that seigers or antmen pour out of into a part of your fortress would be fine. Something easy to repair or fix that won't permanately ruin the asthetics of a player's fortress with permenant AI-dug rooms and tunnels everywhere. Imagine what the map would eventiually look like with seigers digging new tunnels every year?




Well there. Thats my opinion on it.

[Tormy]

I don't think the answer is to erase the traces of a bad AI with magic.

Tunneling is appropriate only when the siege has come to a stalemate, and the sieger doesn't want or isn't able to blockade the fortress until it surrenders. That's because tunneling is hard, hazardous, time-consuming and far from certain to deliver result. To minimize the risk of failure, the sieger should start digging as close as possible to the obstacle to be overcome, and through soft soil whenever possible. If that's not possible, any non-dwarves will only dig a short tunnel before giving up.

This rewards the player for fortifying properly, and digging into the rock instead of dallying near the surface. Places that are under regular assault badly need fortification anyway.

Like I've said a while ago, tunneling should only happen IF the sieging force is decent enough...which is why I've suggested Siege Camps for example. 
Tunneling should be an absolute valid tactic, when the player's fortress is under blockade. I guess we agree?
Also [..but I've mentioned this already], some specific creatues must be able to dig tunnels. [Giant worms is a perfect example - think about the movie called "Dune".]
Note: There should be more TAGs for individual creatures. Example:
[TUNNELING:SOFT] -> This creature Only digs tunnels through soft materials
[TUNNELING:HARD] -> This creature should be able to dig through rock even

[AncientEnemy]

I haven't read the whole thread so forgive me if i'm rehashing some points.

Personally, I'm in favor of tunneling units, I'm really in favor of anything that makes the game challenging without having to impose handicaps upon yourself (okay, i wont make my fort invincible, or too many traps... or should i build no traps... what's fair? etc)

although I think tunneling should be limited, only used rarely and only by certain threats. I think two steps that should be included before tunneling with regards to sieges:
-goblins being able to build crude bridges or rafts to cross channels/moats (or being able to swim over small ones, perhaps with a chance to drown in the process)
-goblins being able to break down any constructed walls/barriers after some time (and perhaps requiring multiple goblins working on the same tile). this would give a more realistic under siege feel, with archers trying to kill off the invaders while the invaders try to break in, instead of current seigers milling around on the other corner of the map while you sit inside comfortably.

and these could happen over subsequent seiges; eg goblins arrive and your fortress is impenetrable. perhaps they will attempt to break down wooden doors/bridges to get in. if they can't and eventually leave, the next seige comes prepared to cross channels and break down walls. if that fails, the next seige comes prepared to tunnel in.

i am also obsessed with aesthetics and dig the idea of temporary tunnels that would only admit the small/narrow creatures that dug them and close up after a time.

[Guy Montag]

I imagine that AI digging would be very difficult to impliment... If they don't dig wet or hot stone, then you could simply just fill your moat with water. I can see them strictly into dirt, to encourage the player to build walls that extend down to the bedrock though.

DF already has crippling issues with pathfinding, I can't imagine how a digging AI unit could do anything besides grind your FPS to a halt.

I think there are more simple and effective things that can be implimented to help seigers gain access to your fort besides making tunnels everywhere. Knocking down constructions and doors, and making traps more avoidable would be easy to impliment and would be difficult to defend against.

Seigers constructing something to cross over a moat would be hard to code, I think, not to mention it'd be a pathfinding nightmare.... How about seigers go straight to your raised drawbridge, and interact with the bridge in a way that deconstructs it, and replaces it with their own bridge. A peice of seige equipment that crosses the moat and prevents the drawbridge from lowering, or something to that effect.

Seige equipment like mobile towers that allow them to go over walls or at least fill in moats have existed historically. A lot more common then the seigers attempting to dig under the walls. Digging tunnels IRL takes a very long time, its very loud and the defenders know you are digging and would wait for you to break through before they pour molten tar down your tunnel.

Nothing like dwarves that mine through clay faster then a man can run.

[praguepride]

What if they didn't actually dig? Could they spawn similar to the old 2D chasm? Here's a scenario:

You are seiged by units that have a digger. They'll move to a point near your fortress and if they can't pathfind, they'll dig. They basically dissappear from the map and then you're in trouble.

A) Maybe some clues are given as to where they might break in before hand (kind of like maisma but a "you hear digging noises from this area)
B) No warning

And then they spawn at a point within your base. They don't actually "tunnel" (it can be assumed that their unsupported tunnel collapsed behind them. But spawn in your base.  Again options:

A) Only able to spawn in certain sections, like unsmoothed walls
B) Can spawn anywhere. Again assumed that dwarves patch up the wall so it doesn't actually "breaK' anything.

[Neonivek]

You are seiged by units that have a digger. They'll move to a point near your fortress and if they can't pathfind, they'll dig

So they could probably dig even if there was a dirrect path possibly to hit you somewhere else by surprise. (You REALLY gotta use those scouts...)

[praguepride]

I don't think I understand what you're saying.

I'll explain my thoughts and maybe that'll clear something up. My thoughts would be that digging would be a "plan B" for siegers. If you've got a nice open way into your base, they'll charge right through the front doors. If you lock your base up, raise the drawbridges etc. etc. then they'll dig and spawn randomly in your fort.

Then again maybe it's a preference thing. Maybe some races/tactics would just go straight for digging and then if there's no diggable way into your base they'll try charging the main doors.


By having them only able to spawn from natural rock it would eliminate the WTF of them spawning on top of your tower. Then again it could be assumed that they scaled the sides and broke in through a window or weak point. Either way works depending on your perspective. The key is that the *how* can be imagined/assumed and doesn't necessarily have to be simulated.