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They come too early. Ambushes should be at 50 pop and sieges at 100 pop.

22 (15.8%)

They are fine right now, dont fix what's not broken.

38 (27.3%)

Sieges are fine, but ambushes should come earlier

8 (5.8%)

Sieges should come earlier, like at 50 pop, but ambushes are just fine

36 (25.9%)

They should both come sooner.

35 (25.2%)

Total Members Voted: 139

Voting closed: January 29, 2011, 01:53:18 pm

[DwarvenScience]

Ambushes personally annoy the hell out of me, your military always takes forever to get their arses into gear and get outside to defend the fort, meanwhile the stealthed units have had ample time to cut the buttocks off any dwarves chilling out on the surface.

Sieges i think could benefit from being more varied, they always follow the same monotonous order of incrementally better troops with better equipment and better minions/mounts. How about a goblin siege with sappers who mine into your base from off the edge of the map? Or a sneak attack through the network of underground caverns sieging you simultaneously from above and below? Or a small squad of stealthed units setting up traps outside your entrance then fleeing before the bigger contingent shows up to siege proper? Or towing ballistas and catapults behind war elephants?

I always find myself getting bored of enemy invasions of either kind, after you have a squad of axe lords kitted out in cotton candy who can eviscerate 50 times their own weight in goblins without a scratch it just becomes an annoyance, a dull monotonous task akin to designating excess stone to be atom-smashed... Dismembering hordes of poorly equipped goblins and troll clothiers should never be boring.

[The Dog Delusion]

Perhaps having a setting in the init file for he population or wealth required for each would be nice.

And of course, having a way to tell urist mclegendary not to wander out of the front gates during a siege to loiter around the river with "no job" would also be cool.

[synkell]

Well... as for me , I would prefer sieges to come earlier and with more manpower and firepower. Having a bloodbath in my trade halls are a highlight of any siege for me.

[Cassicotca]

I think sieges and ambushes come at the right time but the sieges should be way bigger. Now they are usually 2x the size of ambushes that you can instantly see.

[Ivan Issaccs]

The thing for sieges with me is that the Goblin civilisations tend to send theirs leaders to die very quickly and then no more mounts. The most deadly siege unit I ever had to face consisted of crossbow goblins mounted on giant bats, then their civ leader ran into menacing wooden spike and from then on no more mounts and a pattern of three squads of varying Goblins, one troll squad and one blizzard man squad for the rest of that forts life once a year.
I do however mod the goblins to siege earlier as I set my pop cap at 60.

[Sandrew]

I play Fortress Defense so sieges appear to be awesomely balanced for me. In vanilla DF sieges take too long to come and even longer to build up strength. I've been attacked by well over a hundred goblins and trolls or ogres, but only after more than six, seven years. My FD fort got sieged by fifty dark stranglers on camels, forty tigermen on alligators and war grizzly bears followed by another fifty dark stranglers on camels. All within a single season, and that while I was only in year two or three. It was quite exciting and I can't wait to see how my battles go when more competent enemies show up.

So yeah, earlier and larger/more frequent sieges would be an improvement. Ambushes are just annoying and the reason I never let anyone do any outdoor jobs.

[lotopius]

I don't think the real problem lies in wether it comes earlier or sooner, with more enemies or not; but rather in being different or not.
Sieges are currently exactly like ambushes with more enemies (and are announced).
The pop cap at which they appear is relevant to the computer's FPS and player's preferences at the moment, rather than being a real game balance issue since beyond 20-30 dwarves they are easily pushed back; and even with 20 dwarves you can create traps and/or wall-off your fortress and survive just fine.

On the other hand; it doesn't realy feel like a siege to me; more like a pillaging army. When I see a siege coming, my first reaction isn't "holy carp! A siege! OMG what now??" but "Meh, I guess that woodcutter will take the blunt. Raise the bridges and wait and/or send army out". It doesn't feel like my fortress itself is at stake; it's only a little inconvenience which is part of the yearly dwarven routine that can turn into a problem if unattended.
EDIT: I don't mean it's boring per se, but rather that it doesn't do justice to its name. I am aware that there are limitations due to the game being in alpha, is coded by one person only, that they are plenty dangerous, etc etc...

It would greatly increase the "siege" feeling if the attackers were a little proactive and persistent. I mean, they are there to destroy your fortress; not skirmish it: that's what ambushes are for. So you would think they would come at least a little prepared, and not mindlessly charge your front gates and stop stupidly in front of a 1 tile wall.

For example give them the ability to build siege weapons such as ballistas and/or catapults if you decide to wait it out. Those catapults would take a season to be built, maybe require some wood and would create cave-ins where they hit, forcing you to do a sortie. Or enable them to build bridges to walk over channels if no path to your fortress is available for a given period of time.
Or some of the creatures could be amphibious, building destroyers and rather than wreak havoc run to the entrance doors and seize them to let the army in. Some of the creatures could be immune to traps and instead of fighting pull random levers they encounter.
The army could have sappers that very slowly dig their way to your fortress interior.

I know the above require a lot of work and coding and aren't necessarily feasible, they are just examples of how the enemy could (should?) force you to actively defend yourself and actually come for you during a siege.

[rephikul]

So you would think they would come at least a little prepared, and not mindlessly charge your front gates and stop stupidly in front of a 1 tile wall.

Right now there's no way for them to bypass the raised bridge, to put it simply, most sieges are designed without a wall-in strategy in mind. I dont think it's fair to call sieges "boring" while the player in question purposefully exploit it. Sieges are better judged when you face it they way they are expected to.

Ambushes are just annoying and the reason I never let anyone do any outdoor jobs.

But that's the whole point of ambushes.

[lotopius]

Right now there's no way for them to bypass the raised bridge, to put it simply, most sieges are designed without a wall-in strategy in mind. I dont think it's fair to call sieges "boring" while the player in question purposefully exploit it. Sieges are better judged when you face it the way they are expected to.

I know, I was using the wall-in strategy just as an easy example and was talking about constructed walls (since the fact that bridges cannot be destroyed is due to a bug an not a lacking feature); it is obvious that exploiting the weaknesses of the incomplete system cannot be used as an argument.
My point was that sieges; while plenty dangerous, do not really have that "Ima inexorably drill my way to your house and kill you" but rather "Mega Ambush, chaaarge!!" feeling to them, which can be achieved by the ambushes themselves.

[Girlinhat]

Personally, I'd like to just see ambushes delayed by a few days each.  I've not received a single trade caravan in years because the caravan spawns, and the ambush spawns RIGHT on top of them, or else the slowpoke donkeys take to long that they're halfway to my depot before the ambush hits them.  As annoying as ambushes are, I've learned to burrow my important dorfs and let my Lye Makers go harvest wood, but at current I've had every caravan for the last 3 or so years (which is about 9 caravans) die well outside my gate because they get ambushed at spawn.  I'd like to be able to buy some platinum from Dwarves and buy those caged elephants from the Elves without having to risk life and limb to venture out and salvage it from their corpses.

That, and, I'm currently under constant ambush.  Ambush arrives, I call civilian alert, and the gobos loiter outside for the better part of two seasons before leaving, and I don't have enough time to even cut down trees before another one arrives.  I enjoy a challenge as much as the next girl, but there seems to be no curve here, it goes from "nothing" the first year to "ambush every week" on the second year.

Also, since I regularly get migrant waves of 20+, the population limit for attacks seems wonky.  If I left it uncapped, I could probably hit 200 dwarves by spring of 3rd years.  That's not enough time to actually train anyone to any significant military level, at which point the soldiers die, their friends tantrum, and the fort ends.

[JoshBrickstien]

I totally think that ambushes should come sooner. Why? In my DF career, I have never once, ever ever ever seen a siege, or Ambush in one of my forts. Ever.

[fervor]

I totally think that ambushes should come sooner. Why? In my DF career, I have never once, ever ever ever seen a siege, or Ambush in one of my forts. Ever.

Something sounds wrong with your settings.  Did you turn off Invaders?  Or do you quit playing each fortress really quickly and move on to the next?

[rephikul]

Personally, I'd like to just see ambushes delayed by a few days each.  I've not received a single trade caravan in years because the caravan spawns, and the ambush spawns RIGHT on top of them, or else the slowpoke donkeys take to long that they're halfway to my depot before the ambush hits them.  As annoying as ambushes are, I've learned to burrow my important dorfs and let my Lye Makers go harvest wood, but at current I've had every caravan for the last 3 or so years (which is about 9 caravans) die well outside my gate because they get ambushed at spawn.  I'd like to be able to buy some platinum from Dwarves and buy those caged elephants from the Elves without having to risk life and limb to venture out and salvage it from their corpses.

That, and, I'm currently under constant ambush.  Ambush arrives, I call civilian alert, and the gobos loiter outside for the better part of two seasons before leaving, and I don't have enough time to even cut down trees before another one arrives.  I enjoy a challenge as much as the next girl, but there seems to be no curve here, it goes from "nothing" the first year to "ambush every week" on the second year.

Also, since I regularly get migrant waves of 20+, the population limit for attacks seems wonky.  If I left it uncapped, I could probably hit 200 dwarves by spring of 3rd years.  That's not enough time to actually train anyone to any significant military level, at which point the soldiers die, their friends tantrum, and the fort ends.

This is not a guiding thread per se but I'd give some advices:
1) You get at most 1 ambush per season, which might have more then one squad, usually around caravan time. If you kill them quick, you have longer break, it's that simple. If you let 2 seasons passing by, the next ambush has all the rights to show up immediately.
2) Design your fort so caravans can easily get to safety. It's possible to manipulate for favorable caravan spawn location. I'd leave you to figure out how by yourself.
3) All dwarves except the last are designed to be disposable. Dont feel bad about their death.  And you almost always outnumber goblins.
4) Busy dwarves make no friends and small losses still give good resistance to death-related traumas

[Korva]

Personally, I'd like to just see ambushes delayed by a few days each.  I've not received a single trade caravan in years because the caravan spawns, and the ambush spawns RIGHT on top of them, or else the slowpoke donkeys take to long that they're halfway to my depot before the ambush hits them.

Seconded. I enjoy battles, but this is an annoying issue. It is also the reason why I don't try certain mods -- it sounds to me as if they make trading as good as impossible. That might be fun if I just wanted a wargame, but I enjoy all aspects of Fortress Mode. (Although trading could use some work. Caravans shouldn't be so happy to give me all their valuable ore, gems and beasts for some blood-soaked goblin plunder or a single metal serrated disc or statue.)

I too hope that sieges will eventually come with nasty tricks like crossing moats, scaling walls etc. and I think it's in the long-term development plan. As long as there are good ways to counter those tricks, it should be good Fun.

[Sutremaine]

I've not received a single trade caravan in years because the caravan spawns, and the ambush spawns RIGHT on top of them, or else the slowpoke donkeys take to long that they're halfway to my depot before the ambush hits them.

You can set squads to go out and be on alert during the month the traders arrive, and then give them a move order towards the caravan when it turns up.
If you don't want to use military to cover the map, then you can force traders to spawn at a particular point by doing the following:

1. Dig a 3-tile-wide ramp right at the edge of the map, and then dig a tunnel connecting the ramp to your fortress.
2. Seal up the area around the ramp so that that only three edge tiles are connected to the ramp.

Since mobile wagons don't exist at the moment you can get away with a 1-tile ramp. Traders (and trade liaisons) will spawn on a completely random edge tile, but traders will only spawn on tiles that give them access to the depot.
There's a very small chance that invaders will spawn on those few tiles, and your map will be covered in dead liaisons, but overall it works very well and unlucky invader spawns can be dealt with by stationing a single squad right up against the edge.