Why traps?

[City Builder]

[Edit: I'm not suggesting the complete and total removal of teleporting, but I would advocate finding a way of balancing teleporting with creating a need to use traps in the game, as it is now, there really isn't a reason to use traps when I can simply teleport my troops directly into the event rooms]

I've seen a couple posts questioning why we even have traps or use traps when there is only a finite supply of enemies in our game, I tried really hard to come up with a reason that one would want to use traps but just couldn't.

What I did however come up with is one reason that a user has no reason to use traps and while I'm sure this suggestion/idea goes against the grain of quite a few players for one reason or another, I'm still going to just come out and say it.

It's the ability to teleport our dwarves that we don't need to use traps. Here me out.
(did you get that reference? Think Prince)

I instruct a worker drone (err, I mean digger dwarf) to dig down into one of the event chambers. I find out that it contains 2 level 7 goblins. Instead of letting the goblins teleport into the tunnel and make their way up to my main kingdom, I teleport 5 of my warriors to the chamber instead. They easily defeat the goblins being that they are a higher level than the gobs and then I simply teleport them back to the main kingdom level or to their bedrooms etc.

So you see there was no need to lay out meticulous traps along the tunnels on the way up to my main base, there was no reason to lay out a bunch of traps on the main layer where my base is to catch anybody that got through the rest of the traps that I have layed out in the tunnels.

Instead of the fight coming to my base kingdom, I took my dwarves to the fight, hence no need to place any traps at all.

If teleport was put into the game because the AI's pathfinding is not good enough to get my troops in down to where the gobsmackers killed my digger dwarf then that's one thing that would/should need to be fixed, but to have teleport magic in the game to avoid fixing it really shouldn't be. I'm not saying that is the reason for teleporting, just IF it were the reason.

Because quite honestly, I don't see a reason to even have teleporting in the game with the exception of providing the big red easy button for players like myself that don't pay enough attention to my dwarves and any that get stuck for too long and who would perish if it wasn't for teleporting them to the main level almost on top of a food table. But that's my problem for not paying close enough attention to what all of my little dwarvies are doing and the game should not compensate me for that.

Sure, I understand it's easier to teleport that dwarf out of the hole that he just dug the iron out of instead of placing a ladder but again that's my lazyness that the game's easy button would be compensating me for.

Do away with teleporting and we have a reason to place traps all along the tunnels that we dig so as to at least try to prevent a game over situation.

I realize this is not going to be a popular choice, but honestly as long as I have the ability to teleport the dwarves anywhere I want instead of preparing in advance with the use of traps, I'm going to use it (teleporting that is, not traps) and that kind of takes away part of the game that could be a whole hell of a lot of fun. I loved the traps in Evil Genius game and used them to the fullest of my advantage but I don't recall having a teleport mechanism in Evil Genius to move my guards around in the same fashion as we have in aGoD.

If you read this far, then you'll know that this topics secret word is

Spoiler

Banana

 

[Xerkis]

I am not all the thrilled about teleportation being in the game either and use it very rarely - next to never is more like it. The times I do is when I want to assign a certain mix of Military to an area. I teleport them in then set the Outpost flag and then the ones I sent there “usually” will stay. But other than that, I don’t use it. If it’s the starving Dwarf then I try and fix it through other means, if he dies then he dies – all part of the game.

But I wouldn’t want to see teleporting taken out of the game though, but the cool-down period perhaps needs to be increased. So it doesn’t become a mode of transportation.

Very nice write you by the way.
. . . . . and I want my cookie but I don't like bananas

 

[unmerged(323385)]

Teleport was included because we liked the "pick up your minions"-mechanic from Dungeon Keeper and wanted our own version as a homage.

Have you tried the advanced settings in custom? Hard difficulty, many enemies etc etc

 

[Illanair]

I loved the traps in Evil Genius game and used them to the fullest of my advantage but I don't recall having a teleport mechanism in Evil Genius to move my guards around in the same fashion as we have in aGoD.

Funny you should mention Evil Genius - I didn't use traps for the exact reason that my personnel didn't properly circumvent them. Most of my on site deaths were due to my minions running into traps and triggering them or getting caught in traps when someone else triggered them. What I wouldn't have given for some proper AI or mechanic to let my minions sneak around them (aside from the "disable trap" thing that often failed)

 

[City Builder]

Teleport was included because we liked the "pick up your minions"-mechanic from Dungeon Keeper and wanted our own version as a homage.

Have you tried the advanced settings in custom? Hard difficulty, many enemies etc etc

Is there any other way to play the game?
Even with hard enemies it still depends on my opening the event rooms for mobs to be there so there is a limited amount of mobs that are going to be a problem at any one time and with enough warriors of high enough level it's easily circumvented by using the teleport to quickly move my dwarvies around the map.

By the way, please consider breaking difficulty out of the map size and making difficulty it's own option independent of the size of the map.

 

[Ferizo]

I wouldn't want to see the teleport button get removed in itself but like Xerkis mentioned, maybe increase the cooldown on it.
I still use it to either get dwarves unstuck out of 'contraptions' I built or get them out of the way because for example they're annoying me by sitting on that chair I wanted to move.

As for military use, I rarely use it if ever. The way I approach new mobs is by building ladders/a valid pathing to my tunnels so the mobs would just walk instead of teleporting giving me time to react to it.
I always put the rally banner near the mines/tunnels of my digger dwarves anyway, so they should never come near the main halls unless they overpowered them.

Never used traps so far except when they were needed for quests. But with the same way I approach new mobs I could easily create tower-defense like tunnels to see them funnel their way towards certain death.
Actually that would be quite nice to try out sometime.. because Orcs Must Die.. right..?

Anyway, I can see the problem how teleport can be considered OP but if it were to be removed, it would only be fair if they removed it for enemy mobs as well.
To still have it for getting stuck problems, maybe change it into a 'recall button' that ports dwarves directly to the spawning pool with a cooldown of like a minute or so, maybe longer.