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[Funk]

if the longer the siege is the more siegers trun up,maybe with wagons that are unload in to a store/have fun stuff i.e.poison, ammo for both man and siege weapon,siege weapon,savage beasts and so on.
basicy the longer the siege go on the harder it get rid of.

[Hyndis]

Sieges were waiting games not assaults.

It was a waiting game to see if the attacking army's supplies would run out before the city/castle ran out of supplies. The army could not effectively forage for food while holding a blockade around the walls, so they had to rely on their stockpiles of supplies. If the attacking army broke the stockpile to resupply, the city/castle would also take that opportunity to resupply.

If the city/castle could hold more food than the attacking army could hold, the attacking army would just give up and go elsewhere.

If the city/castle ran out of food it would surrender.



This doesn't quite work in DF because farming is so incredibly efficient. If goblins come and cover the entire surface of the map, so what? Dwarves don't need the surface. Dwarves can ignore the surface completely and still be just fine forever, below ground. That means that its hard for sieges to really be compelling for dwarves.

One way to make it compelling would be negative thoughts. Maybe they're thoughts about being trapped inside the walls? Maybe they're thoughts about being a coward and refusing to fight honorably? The longer the siege goes on the more those negative thoughts pile up, and eventually you might have a problem on your hands. The siege would eventually lift as the goblins run out of supplies and give up, but it would still cause an unhappy fortress.

Is it very honorable or dwarvenly to hide, refusing to fight? You don't write legends about cowering behind walls and refusing to meet the enemy in glorious battle! That only gets you engravings of cheese or circles. Or circles made of cheese.

[NW_Kohaku]

Is it very honorable or dwarvenly to hide, refusing to fight? You don't write legends about cowering behind walls and refusing to meet the enemy in glorious battle! That only gets you engravings of cheese or circles. Or circles made of cheese.

Is it dwarvenly to charge forth, OUTSIDE, WITH THAT ACCURSED BALL OF FIRE ABOVE when there is so much magma just below our feet, just begging for our engineers to spill it forth, and become the cause of, and solution to, all life's problems?!

... sorry, that's just my reaction to someone trying to use a phrase like "honorable and dwarvenly"...

Honestly, if a fortress has completely sealed itself off (at least, to the surface, not the caverns), to the point of literally walling itself off completely, screw caravans, then they might not even know there was a "seige" going on, anyway.  Why would they worry?  I do think that total "fallout bunker" style fortresses should be able to exist without going crazy just because someone wants to make some kind of incintive to force dwarves to sally out of their defenses when they have no other reason to.

[Hyndis]

I agree that if your fortress is entirely self sufficient there would be no need to even pay attention to the surface anymore. However if you want to force sieges to be something that must be paid attention to it would probably be better to do it with unhappy thoughts than diggers.

Diggers just opens up a huge can of worms. All sorts of problems and mayhem could be caused by them. What if they dig through the adamantine? After a few years the landscape would look like swiss cheese, which not only would be an eyesore but it would also mean that what you can engrave will be severely limited.

A siege on a dwarven fortress would be sort of like laying siege to a city that has its own food, water, and natural resources to exploit all safe within city walls. They have everything they need already. They can wait for literally decades behind the walls with no ill effects. The only thing they'd be deprived of would be exotic imports which are luxury items.

The only way a siege of this type could ever make sense would be if the attackers would launch an assault rather than a siege.


This means breaking down walls, digging, something like that. And if you let goblins dig or destroy constructions all sorts of wacky mayhem will happen, including digging down into caverns to discover them, digging into adamantine, and rendering all of your defenses instantly obsolete. Why even bother with walls if the enemy can just walk through them?

All of those fancy traps, mazes, crossbow positions, fortifications, battlements, bridges, all rendered useless when a goblin can just walk through solid rock into your dining room. There really is no happy medium. Either you are required to engage them in hand to hand combat, or you can just seal yourself off from the surface forever.

[NW_Kohaku]

I agree that if your fortress is entirely self sufficient there would be no need to even pay attention to the surface anymore. However if you want to force sieges to be something that must be paid attention to it would probably be better to do it with unhappy thoughts than diggers.

...

All of those fancy traps, mazes, crossbow positions, fortifications, battlements, bridges, all rendered useless when a goblin can just walk through solid rock into your dining room. There really is no happy medium. Either you are required to engage them in hand to hand combat, or you can just seal yourself off from the surface forever.

I'll take the "can just seal yourself off from the surface forever" and "make seiges something you can just ignore" option then, thanks.

[ZebioLizard2]

What if tiling/walling/smoothing could be a deterrant? Or the invaders being limited to piercing certain stone. Copper picks being unable to break iron tiles/walls inside the place.

[NW_Kohaku]

I'd rather that they simply have a finite number of tiles they can tunnel, and have those tunnels be "built" so that they are deconstructable.

If the magic number is three, then any wall at least four tiles thick is impervious to attackers, and nobody even tries to pierce that.

That'd at least stop the swiss cheesing, and it would make generating complete walled off fortresses feasable, but making it still possible for enemies to be able to punch holes in the outer perimeter of defenses.

Of course, I have to wonder how drawbridges would work with this?  You don't dig through drawbridges, and if a drawbridge is raised, would you be deconstructing it to get past?  What if you make a drawbridge like that a trap, and have magma behind one part of it, and a quick path into your fortress behind the other, divided by a little wall (and a pressure plate that immediately closes off the fortress from harm)?

[j0nas]

I assume this has already been said, but instead of complaining that the AI has insufficient means to defeat what is essentially an infinite set of intricate, and often cheap, defenses, just limit yourself to what the AI can handle and what you feel gives the right amount of challenge.

Such as no moats, no bridges, no locked doors, no traps.  There, plenty of challenge all of a sudden.

[Solace]

This thread made me think of something... what happens if you leave a goblin siege out until it kills enough elves that the elves attack? Do they fight each other, or join forces against you? Both would be pretty hilarious.

[nbonaparte]

This thread made me think of something... what happens if you leave a goblin siege out until it kills enough elves that the elves attack? Do they fight each other, or join forces against you? Both would be pretty hilarious.

Okay, now I need to figure out a way to have elves, goblins, and humans banging at my gates at the same time.

[Pilsu]

I see no reason why the player should be able to pick out reliable guards conveniently. It makes the entire mechanic pointless if you can easily and conveniently powergame your way around it. If you want unbreachable defenses, you better be prepared to handpick your men.

[Magick]

Holy crap so many posts.

I'd rather that they simply have a finite number of tiles they can tunnel, and have those tunnels be "built" so that they are deconstructable.

I like this idea a lot. How would it be implemented though? "In travelling the great distance to your fort, their pick has become old and rusty?"

Of course, I have to wonder how drawbridges would work with this?  You don't dig through drawbridges, and if a drawbridge is raised, would you be deconstructing it to get past?  What if you make a drawbridge like that a trap, and have magma behind one part of it, and a quick path into your fortress behind the other, divided by a little wall (and a pressure plate that immediately closes off the fortress from harm)?

Uh, i dunno, dig a large pit under/around most of the bridge? So that our goblin friends can't get to it without expending plenty of resources.

Or simply have the miner go really slow and in a straight line, slow enough for crafty players to have surprises waiting of the "so I herd u liek magma" variety.

"This stone's getting warm!" "That means we're getting close, dig through it!"

Oh god, that's great.
"Wait a minute, STOP DIGGING YOU F- NGOSU IT BURNS LIKE THE UNHOLY HELLFIRE OF OUR DEMON LORDS, SAVE US! FLAARGGHHHhhhh...."
*sizzle*

This thread made me think of something... what happens if you leave a goblin siege out until it kills enough elves that the elves attack? Do they fight each other, or join forces against you? Both would be pretty hilarious.

Okay, now I need to figure out a way to have elves, goblins, and humans banging at my gates at the same time.

nbonaparte: I believe you can only have one siege at a time. Sorry!

I see no reason why the player should be able to pick out reliable guards conveniently. It makes the entire mechanic pointless if you can easily and conveniently powergame your way around it. If you want unbreachable defenses, you better be prepared to handpick your men.

Well, since you can view their minds at the push of a button, there's really no way around that except to cut out the guards at the gate concept entirely.

What if tiling/walling/smoothing could be a deterrant? Or the invaders being limited to piercing certain stone. Copper picks being unable to break iron tiles/walls inside the place.

Very realistic ideas! And of course, they would be unable to deconstruct walls stronger than steel.

Guard personalities should affect their effectiveness at finding enemies. Lazy, sloppy guards would be easily distracted and would let some invaders through. I could see the traders offering soldiers stationed nearby gifts and drink, just laced with poison if they're hostile. The player could set laws that guards are prohibited from accepting such gifts but that'd make some of them angry and, being people, they would occasionally disobey orders. Also gives the justice system more to do, should you survive.

I could also see the goblins doing legitimate trading for a while to establish trust. Guards that are familiar with the particular traders or even friends with them would be much more likely to just let them through. Should the player order strict searches and his men obey due to dutifulness, it'd irritate legitimate traders over time.

Great idea, but see above!
The gift thing would be hilarious.
"Oh, here comes the elven caravan...They're coming into the depot and-
wait, what?!?! Why did he die!? He wasn't even wounde-
oh god they're dropping like fli-"
"An ambush! Curse them!"

I myself have another suggestion. Sieges should bring livestock that they can butcher.
Then, when siege catapults are implemented (read: moving catapults), they fling the rotting corpses over your walls and into the aboveground gate complex you so foolishly built.

[Hyndis]

I assume this has already been said, but instead of complaining that the AI has insufficient means to defeat what is essentially an infinite set of intricate, and often cheap, defenses, just limit yourself to what the AI can handle and what you feel gives the right amount of challenge.

Such as no moats, no bridges, no locked doors, no traps.  There, plenty of challenge all of a sudden.

This is what I do. I of course enjoy using complex traps, preferably those that require multiple levers or repeaters. But I don't lock the doors. The traps are also not deathtraps. Their main goal is to capture an entire siege into a holding pen, where I can then decide their fate. Sometimes their fate will be to dumped into the deathtrap, but generally I prefer arena combat instead.

Once 31.11 hits I'm going to once again rely entirely on the military, since that will resolve the issue of dead dwarves staying in their squads.

[ZebioLizard2]

What if tiling/walling/smoothing could be a deterrant? Or the invaders being limited to piercing certain stone. Copper picks being unable to break iron tiles/walls inside the place.

Very realistic ideas! And of course, they would be unable to deconstruct walls stronger than steel.

Just to expand upon this, possibly blocks could be made stronger then normal "Stone" Walls, ever see how long it would take to deconstruct the base of an Egyption Pyramid with only tunneling tools? Those stone blocks would made a more thicker material then normal stone walls.

Of course mainly my idea expands upon actual wall effectiveness, as it is currently the walls all seem to fall to the same things, when in reality a wooden built wall could possibly be torn down by people with spiked mace, and stone walls fall at the same rate to building destroyers. Not to mention setting fire to a wooden fort.

[Pilsu]

I see no reason why the player should be able to pick out reliable guards conveniently. It makes the entire mechanic pointless if you can easily and conveniently powergame your way around it. If you want unbreachable defenses, you better be prepared to handpick your men.

Well, since you can view their minds at the push of a button, there's really no way around that except to cut out the guards at the gate concept entirely.

Shifting through your military manually counts as handpicking in my book. It's not like you have to do it, I probably wouldn't bother. Makes for better storytelling when a slacker guard lets the enemies through and things get Fun™. The AI might actually be able to track cause and effect on this one, facilitating grudges being formed should people end up dying.

As for the poison, I was thinking more on the lines of stuff you can combat. No failing a fortitude check and dying instantly, more like growing nauseous, weak, being stunned and the like. Makes them easy pickings. It could be lethal in the long term if no antidote is applied but generally worst that should happen is fatalities in combat (which can, admittedly, be extensive) or should you win, months of bedrest and general malaise, sometimes resulting in death.

Such a mechanic would allow for mundane uses as well, such as thieving merchants bribing or distracting guards or just plain trying to earn a good reputation with the locals.