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[Footkerchief]

The threshold for going on a killing spree is just a bit smaller when you're a 30 foot lizard, not a 3 foot kobold swordsman you know?

Single adventurers would be a little strange, although it should definitely happen if somebody that insane/badass wanders into the area.  But Muz clarified that he was talking about parties of adventurers anyway -- the kind that could move through the wilderness without getting ripped apart by a pack of wolves, unlike solo kobolds.

[RantingRodent]

I think it would make a lot more sense if adventurers would come to your town to stay the night and maybe trade as well.  Allow a bedroom, meeting room and dining room to be designated as "Inn", and set about making your fortress a home away from home for wanderers and adventurers?  I think that would be fun.   Until a bar fight broke out in a room full of champions anyway, then it would be "fun".

[Christes]

Rumors of wealth and awesome artifact weapons and armor should be enough to motivate some adventurers to attack.

[Tack]

how about we just make it "big fish, little fish" mechanics.

i.e. a small fortress would be an easy hit, so the little fish, as in useless adventurers, would have a go at it.

As the fortress gets more prosperous and more well known, it attracts the attention of big fish, which go for the fortress to make them rich. The little fish avoid the fortress because it'd be too hard to attack, and they don't want to get eaten by the big fish.

Little fish can also team up with other little fish, which increases the rating to make their school classed as a "big fish", therefore you could have parties of champions attacking your super mega awesome fortress of doom.

sorry for the horrible analogy.

[JoshuaFH]

adventurers? whats next!? a band of 5 adventures: 1 tank, 1 DPS, 1 white mage, 1 black mage, and 1 bard assaulting you like players in an MMO?

"oh crap! the big one got all the aggro! and the white mage is healing him! OH NOES!"

[Tack]

nah, more like a macegoblin, swordgoblin, two bowgoblin and a troll.

Hey, where'd my champion squad go?

[Muz]

I got the idea while DMing a D&D game, and realizing that my players, upon seeing a poorly defended village will try to conquer it. They seem to be smart enough to not attack any highly populated towns, but small (orc) villages are fair game.

Anyway, a lot of the people who think too much into this fantasy game things state that kings will normally give land and stuff or marry off their daughters/sons to powerful adventurers in order to placate them and so they don't get killed. AD&D (D&D 2) actually says that many adventurers who reach level 9 actually have a fortress of their own, whether they steal it or whether they are given to them.

So basically, I see three motivations for this:
Bloodthirst
Obvious. Adventurers are bored and powerful and want to kill something.. anything. More likely if you have a poor relationship with the adventurer's civilization.

Greed
Obvious. Adventurers know that a Dwarf Fortress, of all things, has plenty of -steel chain mail-, artifacts, and spare sapphires lying around. Yes, they are no better than kobold thieves in this case, but a hell lot more powerful and harder to satiate. Here, like in Evil Genius, the best strategy would be to leave a treasure chest full of valuables outside which they will loot, be happy about and leave. Also, it only works in the starting levels, when the fortress would probably be too weak - adventurers don't always loot things that they can't handle.

Power & Conquest
Obvious. A Dwarf Fortress is much more well defended than any human castle. But dwarves nobles are corrupt and don't deserve such power. So, an adventurer will see fit to 'liberate' a Dwarf Fortress, by killing the nobles and claiming the Fortress for himself. Or he might just kill everyone and place his own favored lackeys in there.


Advanced siege mechanics? Pfft. All you need is a champion with a big-ass sword, a weak mage who could melt axedwarfs with his mind, a rogue who could sneak into the castle and disable random levers as well as assassinating champion dwarves, and to top it off, a heavily armored cleric who heals and resurrects the others.

Now that's fun

[Footkerchief]

a rogue who could sneak into the castle and disable random levers as well as assassinating champion dwarves,

Shit yes.  Thieves should be more devious, have more objectives than "grab nearest baby/shiny item," and should be able to get their sneaking status back after being revealed.

[Tack]

how about immediate stabbing, or throwing, or blowdarting of the dwarves able to see him, and once no dwarves can see him, he returns to invisibility.

i.e. Rogue sneaks into nobles quarters, rogue is discovered by noble, noble dies, royal guards rush to nobles room, NOBODY THERE!

[Pilsu]

Well, the game is supposed to work on real life logic so 5 men trying to conquer a fortress would be rather stupid to say the least

A band of elves you're in war with sneaking into the designated nobles quarters to wait for their prey would be interesting. Or if guard posts are ever put in the game, elves could try to sneak up on your positions and covertly take out the sentries before the siege arrives. If no one but the target has LoS, the player isn't given notification for discovering them or the message for the target's death


I can't help but to think they'd be pathetic opponents at best though. 3 wide corridor with even a little traffic would foil their plans. It'd only work if the game ever gets a night rhythm and the dwarves start sleeping at night. Perfect time for assassins to creep in

[Groveller]

Well, the game is supposed to work on real life logic so 5 men trying to conquer a fortress would be rather stupid to say the least

No... it's supposed to work on generic fantasy world logic. In real life, you don't get [DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS] when you mine blue metal, do you? What about an entire society committing suicide because there's a rotten biscuit on the floor?

Rumors of wealth and awesome artifact weapons and armor should be enough to motivate some adventurers to attack.

Damn straight!

adventurers? whats next!? a band of 5 adventures: 1 tank, 1 DPS, 1 white mage, 1 black mage, and 1 bard assaulting you like players in an MMO?

You know there were adventuring parties before MMOs came along, right?


Anyway. We're given quests in adventure mode to take out random civ leaders, right? Why shouldn't AI adventurers undertake insane quests? If we're lucky, they'll help us with the noble infestation.

[Tormy]

Considering all the times you hear players saying, "after I had depopulated every town in the world..."

So because players do something silly it suddenly makes sense for single guys to attack fortresses for no reason?

I could see bandits sneaking in to steal items, maybe even cultists beating people unconscious and putting them in sacks to take home for religious sacrifice but genocide for it's own sake isn't much of a motivation for an entity in a fantasy world simulator

I agree. Bigger adventurer parties [at least 5 highskilled adventurers + 10-15 henchmen ] attacking the fortress however...well that would be fun. Even tho, it would be extrremely easy to kill them all using the trap/def mechanisms/xbow dwarves method, and you will end up having adventurer corpses + their neat items and you wouldn't loose a single dwarf in the attack probably. So I am not sure that this feature is needed at all IF it will be so easy to defend the fortress like it is now...

[Pilsu]

I imagine adventurers of all people would know how to find and disable traps. Or at least have trap avoid

I don't think anything will ever be able to fight a drowning chamber, atom smasher or a sheer 15 z level drop below a disappearing bridge without outright cheating itself

[CobaltKobold]

I imagine adventurers of all people would know how to find and disable traps. Or at least have trap avoid

I don't think anything will ever be able to fight a drowning chamber, atom smasher or a sheer 15 z level drop below a disappearing bridge without outright cheating itself

It just requires more thinking/logic than "This tile is a trap."

"The room is 10'x10'. One section of wall appears to be fitted to be moved in and out of its sealed position, by an unseen mechanism. Several hatches are in place upon the muddy, still-damp floor, tightly sealed, with small puddles of water around them."
Drawbridges are almost insanely easy to spot usually...but the insta-retract bridge is kind of defiant of pre-spotting or avoiding consequences, though you might notice the floor ha'ing somewhere to go to [presently not required...]

Of course, once you get up to this le'el of thought, they're probably sneaking and climbing o'er the walls anyway. Or disguising themsel'es as dorfs and hiding in plain sight and  Storing Item in Stockpile. And if you actually wholly seal off your fort, lifting off a tile/pulling some rocks out of the way for a little to slip in. Unless your fort is submerged in magma, then you better ha'e some serious stuff worth hauling away before they seriously bother.

[Grishnak]

I got the idea while DMing a D&D game, and realizing that my players, upon seeing a poorly defended village will try to conquer it. They seem to be smart enough to not attack any highly populated towns, but small (orc) villages are fair game.

Anyway, a lot of the people who think too much into this fantasy game things state that kings will normally give land and stuff or marry off their daughters/sons to powerful adventurers in order to placate them and so they don't get killed. AD&D (D&D 2) actually says that many adventurers who reach level 9 actually have a fortress of their own, whether they steal it or whether they are given to them.

So basically, I see three motivations for this:
Bloodthirst
Obvious. Adventurers are bored and powerful and want to kill something.. anything. More likely if you have a poor relationship with the adventurer's civilization.

Greed
Obvious. Adventurers know that a Dwarf Fortress, of all things, has plenty of -steel chain mail-, artifacts, and spare sapphires lying around. Yes, they are no better than kobold thieves in this case, but a hell lot more powerful and harder to satiate. Here, like in Evil Genius, the best strategy would be to leave a treasure chest full of valuables outside which they will loot, be happy about and leave. Also, it only works in the starting levels, when the fortress would probably be too weak - adventurers don't always loot things that they can't handle.

Power & Conquest
Obvious. A Dwarf Fortress is much more well defended than any human castle. But dwarves nobles are corrupt and don't deserve such power. So, an adventurer will see fit to 'liberate' a Dwarf Fortress, by killing the nobles and claiming the Fortress for himself. Or he might just kill everyone and place his own favored lackeys in there.


Advanced siege mechanics? Pfft. All you need is a champion with a big-ass sword, a weak mage who could melt axedwarfs with his mind, a rogue who could sneak into the castle and disable random levers as well as assassinating champion dwarves, and to top it off, a heavily armored cleric who heals and resurrects the others.

Now that's fun

This game needs stuff like this. I mean, think about how easy the game is after you build a moat and get a farm going. Its so difficult to lose a fort after the first year, unless you do it on purpose.
Now imagine having adventurers coming to rape and pillage your fort ( Mebey more and more often the bigger it gets), a real, constant threat that you have to plan for and always be ready for. Not to mention how intense it would be watching a group of 4 guys coming in, devastating your fortress, while you watch helplessly ( Not to mention the stories that would end up coming out of it).

If it did get implemented, they would have to be intelligent enough to know when to run away and get more friends (if they got away), or debate if its worth it or not.

Also, I really like the Inn idea that someone stated before, which could end up being the death to you ( sneaky adventurers using it to gain easy access to the inside of your fort, ), or Adventurers that are currently staying in your fortress would possibly be willing to help.

All in all, DF needs more things like this to make the game harder and more dangerous to larger and older forts.