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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

[Girlinhat]

You don't seem to grasp the speed of these ambushes.  Since I have a functioning military now (a hundred or so gladiator-ed prisoners and a danger room work wonders) I've started to try and guard the caravans, but I've had a LOT of caravans that get ambushed the instant they appear.  That is, the caravan appears, I unpause the game, and then it pauses to inform me of an ambush.  Since I enjoy importing platinum from my liaison, I'd prefer if the liaison and caravan survived long enough to actually deliver the goods.  Half the time they get killed outright, and the other half one trader dies and the others leave, so I can't even loot the platinum off their corpses.

When I DO station my military for defense, then either the caravan arrives from another direction, or the gobo archers kill a trader and the others leave.

[Sutremaine]

How many squads are you getting to an ambush if they're appearing right over your caravans that often? Usually I see three or so. And, just wondering, how big is your map?

Take the second option then, and force the traders to appear where you want them to.

[Girlinhat]

5x5 embark, 3-4 squads most time.  They seem to taper off suddenly after about year 8 though, and I've had few ambushes...

[Sutremaine]

Hmm. Hey, I'm kind of curious, can you stick the save and raws (if not vanilla) up on DFFD? Maybe from the heavy ambush days if you have backups.

[Girlinhat]

It is vanilla, except I modded monkeys to be [PET] and wolves for [TRAINABLE] but that shouldn't influence the ambushes.  I was averaging 3-4 per year, with 60 pop and a lot of generated wealth, which may be an issue.  I quickly got into steel and had a good armorsmith migrant who produced a few masterworks.

[TheyTarget]

I think they both come at the right time. The only annoying part is that you dont get one ambush, you get 1-3 at a time. Also I hate the constant caravan slaughter. Caravans should have a guard strong enough to last against a single ambush at least, along with the liason.

[rephikul]

I think they both come at the right time. The only annoying part is that you dont get one ambush, you get 1-3 at a time. Also I hate the constant caravan slaughter. Caravans should have a guard strong enough to last against a single ambush at least, along with the liason.

Caravans have 1 guard assigned to each trader. You can make caravan stronger by giving them massive profits. That way they'd send bigger caravans and along with it, more guards.

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

Sieges should come before ambushes, as ambushes are much, much, much, much more dangerous than sieges. To repel a siege, just raise the drawbridge and you're done. To repel an ambush? Well, too bad-- they just teleported into your f***ing DINING HALL.

[Erkki]

I think ambushes are OK, maybe a bit too frequent. They're ambushes, they should come as surprise(more or less), not 1 to up to 5 each season.

Sieges however... Almost no challenge. Largest siege I've ever had had around 80 goblins of 30-ish mounted. Good part of them never got through the trap corridor which had only 120 war hammers and 2 cage traps. I'd like to see proper sieges by real goblin hordes. 200+ of them. All riding bats/jabberers. I dont use danger rooms either and only small-ish amount of traps but sieges as they are now, are not much of a challenge really, unless humans and goblins siege simultaneously and happen to be allied.

[fervor]

I think ambushes are OK, maybe a bit too frequent. They're ambushes, they should come as surprise(more or less), not 1 to up to 5 each season.

Sieges however... Almost no challenge. Largest siege I've ever had had around 80 goblins of 30-ish mounted. Good part of them never got through the trap corridor which had only 120 war hammers and 2 cage traps. I'd like to see proper sieges by real goblin hordes. 200+ of them. All riding bats/jabberers. I dont use danger rooms either and only small-ish amount of traps but sieges as they are now, are not much of a challenge really, unless humans and goblins siege simultaneously and happen to be allied.

If you want more Fun from the sieges, stop relying so much on traps.  Limit yourself or don't use them at all.  If the 80 goblins or whatever had swarmed your fortress with only your own army to defend it, the end result could have been quite different.  It's no fun just watching your enemy die to mindless traps.

Another option is running a mod like the Fortress Defense Mod because a bunch of the new enemy races ignore traps completely.

I had the same experience as you.  Sieges and megabeasts were so disappointing because a bunch of traps would destroy them.

The game is so much more fun now that I don't rely on traps at all.  I do stick a drawbridge at the entrance in case I get sieged when I'm not ready, though.  Losing the game completely isn't as fun as fending off a siege with my own army.  So I'll drop the drawbridge and attack when I'm ready.  It seems my soldiers like to take naps or take long lazy strolls and ignore my frantic alerts, hehe.

[BigD145]

The invaders need to bring catapults to tear my walls down. Where are the trebuchets?

[Tanelorn]

I would agree with other posters that ambushes are more dangerous than sieges, and ambushes should therefore come later.

Losing to a siege is lame, because enemies are visible so it is easy to prepare: the numbers of attackers and their positions is known.

But ambushes only become known at the last minute, and even is 3 are dealt with, there could still be more on the map!

[Girlinhat]

Oh yeah, if you're not having fun with sieges, just bottle them.  Replace all those weapon traps with cage traps.  Place cages in a gladiator pit, release all the goblins, still armed.

[The Dog Delusion]

I agree with pretty much everything that folks have suggested about siege/ambush balance: Sieges are just plain-sight ambushes, which halves their dangerousness.

Ambushes should involve perhaps fewer units, but better trained (or better specialized to either loot, kidnap, or attack), while sieges should be less frequent but significantly better prepared. Siege engines to destroy doors/bridges/walls, cross moats, and even hurl things over the line of defense. More enemies with better AI and significantly more determination. If you wall up and try to "wait them out," they should set up camp and start building siege engines, or even send for more troops to wait you out. I realize that DF is still in alpha, so I expect great things in the future, but regarding sieges, the "They locked the door and wouldn't let us in so we waiting for a week and then took off" thing is pretty lame. A reasonable placeholder, considering the alternatives, but still lame.

[Blurk]

get DF defense mod

dead fortress

also alot of fun.

i do agree that in vanilla sieges are abit too easy :/