Yes, here at DaniWeb we have over 90 forums, and therefore we use numeric IDs, which eliminates creating a custom line for each forum in the .htaccess file. However, named forum URLs (especially ones which are keyword-rich) are very good for SEO purposes.

Regardless, the following are the differences should one want to go about using numeric forum IDs:

Step One => not needed

Step Two => All instances should be replaced with:
[php]<a href="forum$forum['forumid'].html">[/php]
instead of with
[php]<a href="$forum['url'].html">[/php]

Step Six => not needed

Everything else would remain the same as the above tutorial.