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Author Topic: Can enemies destroy your walls and bridges?  (Read 1702 times)

Can enemies destroy your walls and bridges?
« on: December 30, 2021, 09:44:26 am »

During siege, can goblins, necromancer armies, etc. destroy your walls and/or bridges? Do they use siege equipment like catapults/ballistas etc.?
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Quietust

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Re: Can enemies destroy your walls and bridges?
« Reply #1 on: December 30, 2021, 10:39:52 am »

During siege, can goblins, necromancer armies, etc. destroy your walls and/or bridges?
No. The only way bridges can be destroyed is if you try to use them to atom-smash something excessively large, or if they get melted (e.g. from magma or from dragonfire).
Do they use siege equipment like catapults/ballistas etc.?
No.
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Re: Can enemies destroy your walls and bridges?
« Reply #2 on: December 30, 2021, 10:44:38 am »

So there's no way siege can bring "fun" after you seal your fort. So why are we doing military stuff then?
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Can enemies destroy your walls and bridges?
« Reply #3 on: December 30, 2021, 11:23:52 am »

So there's no way siege can bring "fun" after you seal your fort. So why are we doing military stuff then?
Well, some players want the additional challenge of actually fighting the invaders even if they could wait them out. Also, there may be resources on the surface that you might actually want to use. After all, the game is full of features you don't have to use if you don't want to.

In addition to that, you may not be able to seal your fortress in time (or misjudge it when trying to save a last civilian), weres turning in the tavern, necros raising dead in the tavern during brawls, nasties from the caverns...

Finally, there's been talk about invaders being capable of digging in conjunction with the improved sieges phase after release, and that will be the effective death of sealed fortresses unless there are ways to counter it (including the counters being left on the cutting floor as time runs out). (Sure, there are ways that can probably defeat diggers with no added counters, but they tend to require huge amounts of effort, and so becoming effective only after a decade or two of dedicated work).
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DwarfUli

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Re: Can enemies destroy your walls and bridges?
« Reply #4 on: December 30, 2021, 12:46:24 pm »

I had my first siege couple nights back. Most of my dorfs were murdered and those that I locked safely inside my fort ended up being overwhelmed by dark thoughts when dozens of ghosts from my killed dorfs started flying through my drawbridge. If you want to wait it out, it can take up to a year I guess.

There is a Kitfox video I found on youtube with Threetoe where he discusses sieges. He states that sieges will not end unless somehow dealt with, but this is a video about the steam release coming out, which I believe is the same as ascii version but with "modernized" graphics. Also realize that during a siege, all traders stay away and you might have to go without trade for a while.

Threetoe's video with timestamp about sieges lasting indefintely (3:15min into video); https://youtu.be/hAznS9QBKME?t=180
« Last Edit: December 30, 2021, 12:48:07 pm by DwarfUli »
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Can enemies destroy your walls and bridges?
« Reply #5 on: December 31, 2021, 05:02:31 am »

The current siege behavior is that sieges last for either one season or one year (random), apart from a small number of anomalous durations reported from credible sources.
Threetoe doesn't give any additional info about siege duration in the video, so "forever" may refer to the current siege durations (even a season feels fairly long, and a year is definitely a fair bit of time), or it may refer to changes to be made during the "improved sieges" phase (after the Premium release, post release patching, and, I think, finishing of the truncated Villains release). It doesn't make much sense to change this isolated facet of sieges in the Premium release, though.
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Quietust

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Re: Can enemies destroy your walls and bridges?
« Reply #6 on: December 31, 2021, 11:21:26 am »

The current siege behavior is that sieges last for either one season or one year (random), apart from a small number of anomalous durations reported from credible sources.
In older versions (i.e. 0.34.11 and earlier), sieges from Human civilizations (and anything else with [SIEGER]) lasted 1 year while other sieges else lasted 1 season. I'm not sure how Undead Invasions were treated, though.
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It's amazing how dwarves can make a stack of bones completely waterproof and magmaproof.
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Can enemies destroy your walls and bridges?
« Reply #7 on: January 01, 2022, 04:04:40 am »

The current siege behavior is that sieges last for either one season or one year (random), apart from a small number of anomalous durations reported from credible sources.
In older versions (i.e. 0.34.11 and earlier), sieges from Human civilizations (and anything else with [SIEGER]) lasted 1 year while other sieges else lasted 1 season. I'm not sure how Undead Invasions were treated, though.
I don't know anything about the old versions, but both goblins and undead have used the random 1 season or year since I started with DF 0.40.6 (or something like that), although I haven't had many cases of full duration sieges for the last few years due to the usage of traps to whittle the siegers down until they flee. I do remember one case when experimental creatures were fresh, though, where I was caught early (and finding that some of the experiments were trap avoiders, some were building destroyers, and some were very fast was a bit of a shock...) and had to wait a siege out, at which time the experiments had produced offspring that was left behind when they gave up the siege.
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Chief10

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Re: Can enemies destroy your walls and bridges?
« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2022, 11:26:25 pm »

So there's no way siege can bring "fun" after you seal your fort. So why are we doing military stuff then?

I always role play a mostly surface level castle-and-village style fort for this reason. Too much surface activity to always save everyone, and even if I get everyone locked inside with a gate, I can shoot out of the towers at them. It's much harder this way but so much more fun.

Similarly I personally avoid cage traps, because these can ruin the fun for me by making the game so easy that a military is unnecessary.
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