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[HebaruSan]

... screw caravans, ...

This is arguably a problem in itself--the game has an entire mechanic that can be ignored completely (trade). Structurally, trade ought to be the mechanic that balances the trade-off of ignoring the surface world; when the player is deciding whether to allow an unobstructed path from the edge of the map into the interior of his fort, goblins are the downside and caravans are the upside (and I suppose migrants are both). That choice would become less of a no-brainer if the upside was stronger. And frankly, I doubt that Toady went to the trouble of writing all the caravan code with the intention that no one would use it.

Also, once the world map arc gets going, a mountainhome under siege should have difficulty in sending out settlers and reclamation parties and otherwise managing its empire. Ignoring a siege amounts to cutting yourself off from the outside world, so additional interaction with far-off places is another potential source of balance.

[NW_Kohaku]

... screw caravans, ...

This is arguably a problem in itself--the game has an entire mechanic that can be ignored completely (trade). Structurally, trade ought to be the mechanic that balances the trade-off of ignoring the surface world; when the player is deciding whether to allow an unobstructed path from the edge of the map into the interior of his fort, goblins are the downside and caravans are the upside (and I suppose migrants are both). That choice would become less of a no-brainer if the upside was stronger. And frankly, I doubt that Toady went to the trouble of writing all the caravan code with the intention that no one would use it.

If you want us to care about trade, you need to stop giving us everything we could ever need (except maybe sand) in one place all the time.  It used to be that I would export my finished goods in small numbers for large amounts of bulk raw materials that were relatively rare, like steel, platinum, aluminum, and gold.  Now, those are fairly common.  I just need to look for sand and the right biome alignment, and I'm set.

Also, once the world map arc gets going, a mountainhome under siege should have difficulty in sending out settlers and reclamation parties and otherwise managing its empire. Ignoring a siege amounts to cutting yourself off from the outside world, so additional interaction with far-off places is another potential source of balance.

"Break the seige, or you don't get the neat bits in the new arc" sounds nice, and all...

But I still don't like the notion of having to send troops outside.  I build my static defenses for a reason, darnit.  I want goblins to have to run through them in a suicidal charge before breaking off when half of them are dead before seeing a dwarf.  Using actual footsoldiers is undwarvenly.

[Hyndis]

If resources are more limited caravans also need to be able to bring more than a few items. If I tell the liaison that I need iron ore and nothing else, he'll bring maybe a couple chunks of iron ore. Thats not enough.

If you the liaison discussions were meaningful such that you could import enough materials to make a difference then the caravans would be a lot more important. Vital even, if your entire metal industry depends on the caravan getting through.

[NW_Kohaku]

There's also wood.  I never have enough wood.  Setting up a serious and proper subterranean wood farming operation takes serious work, and is probably the last thing I do before I'm pretty much done with anything related to the necessities of running a fortress, and start breaking open the M.C. Escher waterwheel powerplant to start seeing what computer logic I can program with gears and axles.

I even welcome elves if they just bring more straight logs and less elaborately decorated cloth sacks.

[LordSlowpoke]

But I still don't like the notion of having to send troops outside.  I build my static defenses for a reason, darnit.  I want goblins to have to run through them in a suicidal charge before breaking off when half of them are dead before seeing a dwarf.  Using actual footsoldiers is undwarvenly.

Agreed. In every fortress I have, the military gets picked from the first migrant wave, assigned iron weapons/armor, and left to train. They're only interrupted if I have berserk dorfs, or a FB in the caverns - or the part of which that I didn't close off properly, such cases. And caravans? I have two separate ways for them to get in, both aboveground, guarded solely by traps and the occasional chained wildlife.

[HebaruSan]

If you want us to care about trade, you need to stop giving us everything we could ever need (except maybe sand) in one place all the time.  It used to be that I would export my finished goods in small numbers for large amounts of bulk raw materials that were relatively rare, like steel, platinum, aluminum, and gold.  Now, those are fairly common.  I just need to look for sand and the right biome alignment, and I'm set.

I mostly agree, but I also think there's a worthwhile distinction here between "need" and "want." I doubt anyone wishes for it to be the case that forts consistently perish from unmet "needs" without trade, but if the caravans could offer something that you wanted badly enough, that could still outweigh the risk or annoyance of clearing a path for them.

But I still don't like the notion of having to send troops outside.  I build my static defenses for a reason, darnit.  I want goblins to have to run through them in a suicidal charge before breaking off when half of them are dead before seeing a dwarf.  Using actual footsoldiers is undwarvenly.

I guess it depends which dwarves you're talking about. Dwarven footsoldiers are hardly rare in fantasy settings (whereas timid cowardice and heavy reliance on elaborate gadgets are more often characteristics of gnomes). I figure that Toady's dwarves are whatever he decides they need to be to make DF work, so if he designs the game to require a military, then a military thereby becomes dwarvenly.

[NW_Kohaku]

I mostly agree, but I also think there's a worthwhile distinction here between "need" and "want." I doubt anyone wishes for it to be the case that forts consistently perish from unmet "needs" without trade, but if the caravans could offer something that you wanted badly enough, that could still outweigh the risk or annoyance of clearing a path for them.

Aside from enough Gold to literally pave your streets in it, just to prove you could, what does a DF player WANT that he doesn't NEED? Aside, maybe from water, magma, and maybe more logs, all of which are available currently in theoretically infinite quantities.

I've recently made a thread on the subject, but currently, dwarves only really need food, drink, shelter, some nice statues in the dining hall, and nothing actively killing them, and they are set for life.

I guess it depends which dwarves you're talking about. Dwarven footsoldiers are hardly rare in fantasy settings (whereas timid cowardice and heavy reliance on elaborate gadgets are more often characteristics of gnomes). I figure that Toady's dwarves are whatever he decides they need to be to make DF work, so if he designs the game to require a military, then a military thereby becomes dwarvenly.

Doing things in a simple, straightforward manner, when there is magma to be funneled and diverted straight from the very bowels of the earth?!  HERESY!  Magma (possibly when mixed with water) shall always be the DWARVEN answer to any military problem.

[Solace]

You could make it a happiness requirement. Some dwarves want to immigrate or emigrate, and denying that or allowing allied deaths on map could build up unhappiness. Even if none of the dwarves know the new immigrants or traders, they should still not like them getting at your fortress' door.

- For that matter, productive trade could also be a large part of the happiness equation, feeling connected to the mountianhome and such.

[Lord Darkstar]

In my current 31.10 fortress, my first siege arrived with multiple goblins riding GIANT BATS. I will repeat--- GIANT BATS. They flew around. They flew over walls. If you had a lot of those showing up in your sieges, you wouldn't say things like "when the goblins finally start using ladders"--- as they are ALREADY flying, just not in large numbers.

There isn't much trouble building air-locked trade depots. My biggest issue is that the silly trolls and other building destroyers enjoy breaking them before I've got my mature defenses in place. It's such a bother to have to get all those items moved aside so my dwarves can build the depot back again.

I like caravan ambushes idea. I just don't see it being a big deal. Most people, at least on these forums, airlock the depot. You get an ambushing caravan, you are just going to put your civvy dwarves on red alert, send in your military, and retreat behind yet more layers of traps and air moats and drawbridges. And maybe hurry up on setting the magma up to flood the entire trade depot area for the NEXT ambush...

[stonemt]

i find that having a ceiling makes air attacks a moot point... i would supose it would cancel out ladders as well.
but having them build stuff? i can just see my entire fort getting built around. and over.

[Solace]

my first siege arrived with multiple goblins riding GIANT BATS. I will repeat--- GIANT BATS. They flew around. They flew over walls. If you had a lot of those showing up in your sieges, you wouldn't say things like "when the goblins finally start using ladders"--- as they are ALREADY flying, just not in large numbers.

There isn't much trouble building air-locked trade depots. My biggest issue is that the silly trolls and other building destroyers enjoy breaking them before I've got my mature defenses in place.

Build a bridge inside a tunnel or at least with a roof over to deal with fliers, and for the trolls, make sure to make a pit large enough under the bridge the trolls can't reach it. By the end of your first season you can be protected from everything but a flying building-destroyer. As long as you don't see trolls with giant bat mounts...

[Starver]

[...] I of course enjoy using complex traps, preferably those that require multiple levers or repeaters.

I keep meaning to doing something like the following checkerboard-trapped hallway (only with repeater-driven spikes) and high/low traffic patterns to persuade my own population to walk on the correctly spots.

edited because I messed up the image inclusion

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Except that (having snipped your bit about them not being deathtraps, as well) I've had a bad experience of a dwarf being caged[1] having probably for some reason gone unconscious on the trap, and ended up dying.  So I tend to not use deathtraps at all (outside of carefully constructed torture-mazes) and suffer the perils of having to deal with cages due to be collected while further attackers are hovering around trying to work out what they want to do.  (Also herds of wildlife, albeit less automatically hostile towards the animal haulers, but still bothering them.)

[1] Back when I didn't know what to do with him...  I even built the cage, but didn't know I could release anyone inside, so starvation/dehydration ensued, IIRC...

[Starver]

You could make [caravans/traders] a happiness requirement. Some dwarves want to immigrate or emigrate, and denying that or allowing allied deaths on map could build up unhappiness. Even if none of the dwarves know the new immigrants or traders, they should still not like them getting at your fortress' door.

- For that matter, productive trade could also be a large part of the happiness equation, feeling connected to the mountianhome and such.

I was going to say how it's always handy when a noble wanting something made of something specific that you don't have can be satisfied by the next caravan coming along.  Assuming there's enough time before the noble decides that Urist McRandom is to blame for an accident of geology, botany or herd management on this particular slice of the current continent.

As for flying troops, don't they still only path (by air, if they feel it necessary) to places that they can walk to?  (At least at the time of starting their charge.)  Flying Building Destroyers might of course still path to the nearest externally accessible destroyable building, and from there path through, although a refinement of the tunnel-bridge idea might be a 'U-bend airlock' dug down and back up into natural rock and topped, on the inside, with a bridge 'roof' over the ramps up into the entrance proper being the protection you need if they don't (as I've heard) attack things above them.  Or variant, thereof.

[edited: forums being very slow right now, for me at least, and something went wrong with originally copied composite reply message when trying to resubmit]

[Shrugging Khan]

I'm alright with goblins tunnelling ONCE there's a feature to re-fill mined rock and soil. I don't care if it's magical or whatever, but I'm sick and tired of running out of ground! 

[billw]

Why would it need to be magical? Its hardly magic to dump some rock or soil in a hole.