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[Xether]

I mentioned in another thread about sappers ages ago but really got unheard. I havn't read this thread so i don't know if someone already said it but Siege sappers should be in the game and the tunnel that the sappers build collapses within a season because it is quickly dug out without supports. This means your fortresses wont get "ruined" with tunnels because they eventually collapse and also allow sieges to actually attack you. Best of both worlds.

[Footkerchief]

I havn't read this thread so i don't know if someone already said it

Yes.

[Tormy]

I'd personally like to see the number of vanilla animals/monsters who can tunnel through stone be severely limited. I think the rarity of such beasts (in both frequency and numbers) would help allieviate a lot of concerns.

Soil tunneling could be a lot more common, ofcourse, and among the Civs the ability to tunnel just makes sense. Nothing to be done about that, without destroying a lot of the realism going on in the game.

Yeah I agree. Also, not all of the vanilla civs should be allowed to dig tunnels. I am thinking about the elves for example.

[The-Moon]

what i would like is if goblins wouldn't dig underground if there was no other options. If you have a castle to be sieged, then they should try and siege that first.

If it cant be sieged, then they goto digging underground.

[Raz]

I'm pretty dumbstruck that so many people chose 'no'. The aesthetic argument is pretty.. nevermind. I find it pretty weird that you're willing to vote against such a deep feature for the sake of preserving your forts' aesthetics.

[Neonivek]

I'm pretty dumbstruck that so many people chose 'no'. The aesthetic argument is pretty.. nevermind. I find it pretty weird that you're willing to vote against such a deep feature for the sake of preserving your forts' aesthetics.

Well a significant number of people who say "No" are saying it in the immediate sense.

Just read the comments. They arn't against tunnelers they are just against the idea of it happening immediately with phrases such as "Sieges are broken and Tunneling shouldn't be used to fix it".

Despite the vote meaning "Ever" rather then "Immediately"

[Urist McDetective]

Yeah. I think it needs to be reinforced in people's minds that most suggestions look forward to a time when dwarves (or others) are not dumb enough to collapse the floor they're standing on .. without a reason. Or some other relevant improvements.
'X is currently dumb' shouldn't be a counter to anything in a suggestion thread.

[Neonivek]

It is just one of the things you have to get used to on the suggestion forum. One of the three largest unreasonable shoot downs.

They are as follows in no particular order.
1) It isn't immediately implimentable: You will get this a lot. People will shot ideas down based on the idea that the game as it is currently could not support the idea.
-Example Phrase: Ranged weapons are broken so we shouldn't add Longbows.
2) It isn't for Dwarves: Despite having 5 races you will often see people shoot down ideas because they don't apply to Dwarves.
-Example Phrase: Juice isn't very Dwarf-like, why would they drink someone that isn't alcoholic?
3) It isn't like how the game is currently: Similar to the first one but it represents theme rather then mechanics. Basically taking the game as it is currently as a end result.
-Example Phrase: Elves don't need homes, they sleep on the dirt.

Note: Examples to ACTUAL complaints are coincidental.

You will get people who will refuse ideas as they go against how the game currently plays often ignoring long term goals or even the Devs themselves making it particularly frustrating. Though you also get the exact same thing on the suggestion side as well.

It is all part of the Dwarf Fortress experience.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Yeah I agree. Also, not all of the vanilla civs should be allowed to dig tunnels. I am thinking about the elves for example.

Elves don't need to tunnel. They've got treants to do that for them.
Roots are a bastard for soil.

Oh and I second (and have personally experienced) everything Neonivek just said.

[Neonivek]

Elves don't need to tunnel. They've got treants to do that for them.
Roots are a bastard for soil.

Well Trents and the possibility for hundreds of different kinds of animalmen. (Though as I understand about the way they are presented, Elves are diplomatic with them rather then controlling).

Just take any digging animal and boom!

[Aquillion]

I would be fine with tunnelers as a rare event -- something on par with a megabeast attack, something that happens maybe once or twice in the lifetime of a long-lived fortress (of course, it could be a big attack of some sort.)

But from a design standpoint, having your fortress constantly smashed up by tunnelers who you can't really keep out until they're already inside wrecking your stuff is not very fun for simulationist-types.

And from a gameplay standpoint, having constant random breaks in your wall would be annoying.  It would force everyone to rely on a very big military for defense, and would mean that every fortress would have to be able to deal with random deaths of dwarves (since a break-in could happen next to any dwarf at any time, just about.)

I see both of those as bad things.  Players should be able to run fortresses without a military if they work at it, and players should be able to minimize deaths (to an extent) if they work at it.  I prefer player-created and player-determined challenges and goals to RPG-ish "A canned monster appears!  Kill it now!" challenges; those get old fast, to me.

Having every siege bring tunnelers is an absolutely insane proposition to me.  As things are now, it would make it so you can't play the game on later stages as anything other than a massive military simulation.  That is a terrible thing.

Basically, players should be able to play the game however they want.  Occasional tunnelers as a special challenge to overcome are not bad; but regular tunnelers, as a core seasonal opponent, would be forcing players to play the game in a particular fashion, and are therefore bad.

I'm pretty dumbstruck that so many people chose 'no'. The aesthetic argument is pretty.. nevermind. I find it pretty weird that you're willing to vote against such a deep feature for the sake of preserving your forts' aesthetics.

Different people play the game differently.  Some people play it as a challenging military game, building a castle to fend off endless sieges.  Others are more simulationist, and are more interested in designing and administrating a stable fortress rather than focusing on military applications.

The game should not force you to play in one particular style.  Players who just want to throw up elaborate deathtraps to defend themselves, and train no army at all, should definitely be able to do so.  Players who want to focus on building an interesting fortress and not on waging wars should be able to do so.

Not everyone plays the games for the same reasons you do, basically.

[Neonivek]

Well Aquillon from a certain perspective the gameplay needs to include ways of spotting tunnelers such as using a Scout system or simply stopping them from ever comming in range using your actual army.

Some aspects of your comments are a bit iffy when you add in the likelyhood that sieges will likely bring siege-engines which have as much potential to destroy your walls and base as Tunnelers hypothetically do as well.

They don't need to be as rare as Megebeasts they just need to be handled well especially since Megabeasts are SUPPOSED to be base destroying beasts who can lay waste to your fortress while Tunnelers are annoying skirmishers who can thin your forces and weaken your overall defense.

The game should not force you to play in one particular style.  Players who just want to throw up elaborate deathtraps to defend themselves, and train no army at all, should definitely be able to do so.  Players who want to focus on building an interesting fortress and not on waging wars should be able to do so.

The problem is that ultimately the players have to actually play the game. There is a certain level of "Style" that is acceptable and some that is better left to modding. If a player wants to only build and ignore their surroundings, then that is better left to a modded game that removes those kind of difficulties.

The inclusion of the "I don't want anything bad to happen" style is a limiting style that excludes many others.

You want to be careful not to be sucked into the current game Aquillion as Sieges, Megabeasts, and others won't be pathetic pushovers forever and eventually the player will need to actually have a plan or fall victum to the world's relentless backdrop. Simple walls and Bridges arn't always going to cut it.

[Tormy]

Elves don't need to tunnel. They've got treants to do that for them.
Roots are a bastard for soil.

Well Trents and the possibility for hundreds of different kinds of animalmen.

Well yeah, perhaps that could work. I was just thinking about the concept of the elves in DF, that is why I've said, what I've said. 

[Aquillion]

The problem is that ultimately the players have to actually play the game. There is a certain level of "Style" that is acceptable and some that is better left to modding. If a player wants to only build and ignore their surroundings, then that is better left to a modded game that removes those kind of difficulties.

The inclusion of the "I don't want anything bad to happen" style is a limiting style that excludes many others.

You want to be careful not to be sucked into the current game Aquillion as Sieges, Megabeasts, and others won't be pathetic pushovers forever and eventually the player will need to actually have a plan or fall victum to the world's relentless backdrop. Simple walls and Bridges arn't always going to cut it.

It's not a matter of "I don't want anything bad."  I like the idea of smarter and more interesting sieges, since that will force me to make a more clever fortress to stop them.

But I object to heavy, frequent use of tunneling, because by definition that simply negates the fortress design aspect of the game -- asking for siegers and attackers to regularly use tunneling is asking for a 'hard cap' to be placed on the amount that can be done using fortess design, walls, levers, and traps.

I think that that is a terrible idea.  I want new challenges, but I feel that they should be ones that make fortress design deeper and more interesting, rather than ones (like giving every sieger tunneling) that would take away from it.

[Iden]

(Something posted in another thread, very relevant, and i'm not sure that everyone's seen it, so i'm resposting it here with some minor edits.)

It's clear that when people mention whether or not creatures should tunnel, it's not a very well defined scenario.

Tunneling creatures? Well it depends, really.

I'd daresay that it might be acceptable to have some large creatures digging in dirt, though tunneling as such shouldn't be random clusterfck, ever. It should act somewhat intelligently in designing a nest of sorts, and only through dirt. Maybe a few of these creatures working to build (and maintain) a nest in an area. Of course it's only in dirt, and you could exterminate them from it getting out of hand, though if it's limited to a relative small nest size.

As for digging through rock? Well, the occassional, very rare rock-digigng monster. Perhaps solitary or in very small groups (2-4). They would tend to live in mountains, generally in natural underground caverns and carve out some tunnel systems throught it. It would be good for when the Underground Diversity is finished, have some rock-digging creatures at an underground lake with a cave tunnel nearby. Not much more than that though. They shouldn't dig like crazy. Just a very little bit around their "home".

As for tunneling for by intelligent humanoids? Well first off, rock digging needs to be slowed down a lot, imo. High level digging is like nothing. Albiet other races aren't as good at digging as dwarves, and certainly would never get as high a skill in digging as dwarves do, but it still needs to be taken down a notch as it increases in skill, imo.

Lets use an example here. Goblins assaulting your fort. They need a way in, there is none -- you've lowered an iron gate. They'd go through some basic tactics first. Advanced pathing would be used to determine other possibilities. Set priorities on what happens next if you can't walk in. If anything, next option would have a % chance to be used, if fails % roll, try something else until you get a useable tactic. Siege tactic AI would go through lists of potential things to try.

• Is their a way around? Is there a back entrance they can try to walk into?
• Is there a way to swim across a river or moat, maybe?
• Can you build a bridge to get across a channel or river?
• Is there a wall you can try to get over? Can we build siege ladders [that would act like ramps when placed] to use to get over a wall?
• Should we build a ram to try to break down (presumably) metal bars?
• Should we try to dig? How far would we need to dig? Through what: dirt, or stone?
• Could we build siege weapons [cats, ballista, treb] to try to break down the gate or the walls to get in?
• Sitting and waiting out a siege. Blocking off any caravans, hoping that it'll hurt your economy. Ambush anyone trying to get out. Possibility of trying a different tactic after a long period of time sitting at a siege, if any others are possible.
• Qutting the siege (this is always an option, unless maybe a bunch of gobos being lead by a demon?).

Just some examples. It would calculate difficulty of different things before trying anything.

Building ladders, bridges, rams, or siege weapons would require wood to be built with and someone in the attackers to have an axe to chop wood. No trees or no axe - none of these can be done, try something else.

Digging would require someone to have a pick. No pick, no digging. It's really that simple! If you're digging through stone, difficulty is exponentially greater than when digging through dirt. The farther you dig, the much more difficult it will be. Dirt should be fairly easy to attempt. This would also encourage not building on top of lots of dirt. A long way in dirt would be easier than a short way in stone. Digging through stone would also take a lot longer than dirt (obviously). If the difficulty for digging is higher than it would be for trying siege ladders, try that choice first. If that fails, then this can be used. This should never be the first option. Also digging speeds should be lowered simply because of this. You don't want someone digging into your base in 5 seconds. That gives you no time to respond. That's no fun.

Tunnels would also be one space wide. Maybe more if the # of siegers > a certain large number... say 25? They would also path to try to enter your base through the new entrance if it wasn't covered up. You'd basically have to block it up with a wall or gate.  Though this would just give them an easier route to dig through. Theyd just bust through your new wall you put up or one nearby, using the same tunnel, rather than making 100 different tunnels, they'd use the same ones, unless you plug it up completely, giving them nowhere to start. Though chances are if that spot was chosen the in the first place, it was chosen because it was the quickest and shortest route possible to dig through, so chances are they'd probably choose it again. We don't need superstellarAI. Just good AI.

Also. Once you have a good chance of being able to try a few different things.. such as after digging a tunnel into a base and being pushed out, only to have the dwarves put up iron bars. Having siegers pull coordinated attacks becomes possible. Build 2 rams, both rams take down both gates at the same time, while you have some goblins trying to take ladders over an aboveground wall. You'd have to split your resources. Could be fun.

I do also like the idea of being able to "collapse" a tunnel or "fill in" to get rid of these. Would help a lot. Though you could always just fill a tunnel with iron bars. But then they should just try to tunnel around them. having to retunnel would be a lot more of a benefit to the defender, than having to just dig a few spaces around some bars.

Though the ideas i've presented would definately keep swisscheese to a bare minimum.

Edit: To clear up a possible misconception: If there is a clear path into the fortress, you use that immediately, until it is cut off and you no longer have a clear path. That'swhat option #1 on the list is supposed to express. The pathing to check for another clear path into the fortress. There's no reason to attempt siege ladders or digging (or anything else) if you can just walk in. If there isn't a clear path, then you would try other ways to get in.