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[Pilsu]

Nice in concept but I dont know why you people are so frightened by enemy tunneling. Its a fortress, not a resort. Resort fortresses can be built in resort type places.

You're trying to remove the fortress from the equation entirely by allowing attackers to run through walls nilly willy. It should be no surprise this might raise an eyebrow or two

Doesn't help you're suggesting enemies attack the fortress from a foot wide hole. Really, think about it for a second


Then there's the question how the f would they know where your tunnels are

[Belteshazzar]

A better question would be how we know where 'they' are when no dwarf has yet seen them...

Everyone knows Humans already survey your fortress layout while trading, Elves would talk to the local nature spirits (who do you think is complaining about an monitoring your logging?) and Goblins are just as expert miners and spelunkers as dwarves, if not more so!

Note that this 'foot wide hole' is large enough to allow an infinite number of crawling elephants, dragons, GCS (and one standing Bronze Colossus) to pass through.

Besides trench warfare in WWI, and tunnel warfare in Vietnam took place under exactly these conditions.

One would assume that with Toady One's expertise with details we would not have much 'willy nilly tunnels' as you so called it. Only ratmen, dwarves or other such troglodite cultures would consider tunneling as the first attack path. It is also of note that material hardness as considered in mining and damaging structure will likely be considered.

[Timst]

The same way they know where your dwarf are, even if the only path to them is through a door at the other side of the mountain they never seen. We'll have to wait for an AI / Pathfinding rewrite to get enemies / dwarves that doesn't omnisciently know where every dwarf / sock is on the map.

Also, last year I posted a poll about this type of enemies, and the result was pretty clear (71 % For).
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=28846.0

They were still a strong debate about the specifics, but overall, it's safe to say most players want enemies that dig in a way or another.

[Stephen]

Regarding the whole, "dwarfs knowing where every item is in the fortress," I think it's best that way.  Really, I see it as just skipping over the part where the dwarf is given their orders, "go fetch a scepter from the craft shop and put it away."  It would be really annoying if each of our orders had to involve a dwarf that knew about the items in question walking over to the dwarf that's supposed to carry out the order, and telling them.

The dwarves aren't omniscient, we are, and we're psychically giving them orders.

[Niveras]

I'm sure there's a balance that can be struck. Generally I think Toady wants to look at digging as a creative way to get around death traps and completely blocked off fortresses. I don't think you'll see a siege appear, mill around for a while, then mill around for a while longer while the sappers dig a hole and tunnel straight to the nearest unblocked corridor inside your fort. I feel they should try to use digging as little as necessary - if you have an open entrace, they will still go for it. Only when they reach something 'impassable' (here we consider a trap that killed some of their scouts 'impassable') should they consider digging, whether it's under a wall or around a trap or raise bridge. Likewise for other creative ways around defenses, like temporary bridges or rope.

As mentioned previously, it will require a rewrite of pathfinding before that is possible, because it will require the enemies knowing where they can go if a particular obstruction wasn't there.

[Pilsu]

So is there a single reason to make your fort underground as opposed to above ground if enemies can just teleport dig through any wall?

I don't really care about polls when the idea itself makes no sense from realism or gameplay standpoints. "My standpoint is more popular than yours" is a poor justification in it's lonesome

[Sir Finkus]

So is there a single reason to make your fort underground as opposed to above ground if enemies can just teleport dig through any wall?

I don't really care about polls when the idea itself makes no sense from realism or gameplay standpoints. "My standpoint is more popular than yours" is a poor justification in it's lonesome

I do think that something needs to be done balance-wise.  The way I would prefer the situation to be handled is to have dwarves be less self sufficient.  Not so much that it is a pain in the ass to keep your fort running normally, but I don't think that you should be able to survive indefinitely underground. 

[Niveras]

So is there a single reason to make your fort underground as opposed to above ground if enemies can just teleport dig through any wall?

Even if it's above ground, the enemy can channel under your walls and collapse it, or perhaps even remove walls directly. Being above ground won't guarantee safety, though depending on just how it gets implemented, it might reduce the number of possible points of invasion.

Like I said earlier, though, my understanding of what Toady wants to do is that digging will only be used (from siege standpoint) to bypass otherwise impassable defenses. In that case you may avoid their digging entirely by keeping an open pathway, even if it leads into a maze of death traps, though they may also dig into walls to bypass traps after they've been discovered.

[Pilsu]

depending on just how it gets implemented, it might reduce the number of possible points of invasion.

Precisely. Defending against enemies toppling walls is a lot easier than trying to defend against ceiling cat, resulting in the bizarre scenario that underground forts are actually less secure. Ventilation should be the primary weakness of such a setup


You can tie attrition to medicine.

[Stephen]

With an above-ground fort, you could simply leave the first floor (the only one vulnerable to digging) completely empty, then connect it to your upper floors by a single well-guarded passageway on floor 2.  You'd need flying enemies that can burst through walls in order to have the same effect.

[winner]

it's pretty easy to make impenetrable walls in an underground fort, you just make them out of water or magma.

[alfie275]

Sorry if this has been mentioned, but how about enemies only tunnel through soil(unless the seige is long enough) and the tunnels require supports at intervals (dwarfs dont because they are awsome)and you can tell a dwarf to collapse a enemy tunnel and he will use a rope or cloth thread (of sufficient length)to link the supports selected(or all if just ordered to collapse whole tunnel) and then lights the rope and they all burn after one another.

[dafinchy]

it's pretty easy to make impenetrable walls in an underground fort, you just make them out of water or magma.

Seconded. I was going to say something about cavity walls myself. A tactic I used on dungeon keeper was to surround my dungeon in a border tunnel, so wherever those pesky dwarves (?) dug in, they would find a route that lead in via my entrance, rather than my lair. Obviously a trapped entrance would spark another round of digging, but filling the cavity with deadly things would solve that issue straight away.

...Unless you had digging merfolk or lavaslugmen or whatever. Both layers? Mining Demons.

Essentially, I think it should probably be nigh-impossible to completely seal yourself against all comers, but that with some engineering you could halt most mundane invaders. Those who like pristine fortresses can simply add an elegant lava moat around the whole thing. Or turn it off in init.

[Stephen]

The way I see it, sealing yourself off completely is already pretty well discouraged.  Without being able to trade or get anything from outdoors, survival is going to be very hard, and sieges don't go away.  Most players are going to have to fight off the enemy eventually.

[Sweedumz]

Digging enemies should be implemented, but I don't think people have fully considered just how difficult a challenge 3D tunnelling enemies could present. Imagine your fortress being breached from the floor or ceiling by bow equiped enemies. How to you properly defend? Given the right enemy mix, your situation could be made hopeless by one troop you never even saw coming. What about enemy induced cave ins, floods, magma breaches?

Done right, tunnelling enemies could be fun. Done wrong, they could literally break the game.