Massive Undergrounds are... not so massive

[Greymane]

Yeah, I'm whining about this again.

Pretty sure anyone who has played the game has found at least some issue with the underground and while it has at least improved from the release state of endless swarms of wall monsters, it still leaves a lot to be desired.

Just for an example, the Massive Underground map trait. There is absolutely nothing massive about it. The problem, as I'm noticing it, is that the only places in the entire underground that are good for settling cities are the ones spawned around players with Underground Start. Otherwise? Trash. The overwhelming majority of the area is un-diggable, uninhabitable bedrock, equally uninhabitable one-lane paths through said bedrock, bodies of water that are also unclaimable, or completely useless lava (seriously, what's the point of lava?). Most open space is limited to tiny 2x2 chambers, which is what you'll find any city-state not blessed with a tunnel crammed into.

Right now, the only value in ever expanding into the underground for any degree is as a source of fireforge stone, arcanium ore, and focus crystals or just incidentally if you're at war with someone whose capital is down there. Even the computer seems to recognize the futility of being underground and runs for surface locations to settle asap.

It's disappointing because being a basement dweller was always one of my favorite things in older Age of Wonders titles (and Master of Magic, for that matter). I guess it would just be really nice if a dev or a community manager or someone could let us know that more effort to make the underground enjoyable to use was at least being planned, even if they can't/won't share any other details.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

Well, a truly massive underground would collapse under its own weight.

On a gameplay notice, making the underground too massive renders it too similar to the surface.

 

[Raketensegler]

It is also very rare to have more than one Tunneling Spider Den, as even the Devs noted in their playthrough.

 

[TirAsleen]

Feels bad how, freshly digged up sectors are still uninhabitable and you could end up with a city that is only max 3 sectors big, if there is a lava pool, too or just a lot of bedrock.

Happend with massive undergrounds.

Currently, water habitats are better than the massive underground.

 

[Tropical Sunset]

Yep. I started with three factions upon playing AoW4:

- Frostlings
- Dark Sun Desert Barbarians
- Drow of the Underdark

Guess correctly what faction does not see further play and you will win as many washing machines as you can carry.

 

[acesman56]

Yeah, I'm whining about this again.

Pretty sure anyone who has played the game has found at least some issue with the underground and while it has at least improved from the release state of endless swarms of wall monsters, it still leaves a lot to be desired.

Just for an example, the Massive Underground map trait. There is absolutely nothing massive about it. The problem, as I'm noticing it, is that the only places in the entire underground that are good for settling cities are the ones spawned around players with Underground Start. Otherwise? Trash. The overwhelming majority of the area is un-diggable, uninhabitable bedrock, equally uninhabitable one-lane paths through said bedrock, bodies of water that are also unclaimable, or completely useless lava (seriously, what's the point of lava?). Most open space is limited to tiny 2x2 chambers, which is what you'll find any city-state not blessed with a tunnel crammed into.

Right now, the only value in ever expanding into the underground for any degree is as a source of fireforge stone, arcanium ore, and focus crystals or just incidentally if you're at war with someone whose capital is down there. Even the computer seems to recognize the futility of being underground and runs for surface locations to settle asap.

It's disappointing because being a basement dweller was always one of my favorite things in older Age of Wonders titles (and Master of Magic, for that matter). I guess it would just be really nice if a dev or a community manager or someone could let us know that more effort to make the underground enjoyable to use was at least being planned, even if they can't/won't share any other details.

I agree. In AOW 2 and AOW 3 starting/existing in the underground is viable. There is a primal deity that is good for underground only. And yet the underground did not "feel like the surface". If you are going to do a proper underground, do it. If not, just scrub the entire idea of races making a go of it underground, get rid of the burrowing spiders Primal Trait, and make something else. Don't just half a## it. As for the lava lakes, that NOTHING can cross, in AOW 3 and AOW 2/SM fliers could. Lava lakes in the world would only be found near a active volcano, and they would surge into caverns, or found VERY deep in the earth. There are too many in the normal game, and there is no nuance to how many, it is an all or nothing proposition. And the massive amount of walls that cannot be excavated do not reflect anything like the surface. There are no similar impassable terrains on the surface, why are they underground only. The underground is currently gimped, and why anyone would choose underground adaptation or burrowing spiders is beyond me.

 

[Greymane]

Well, a truly massive underground would collapse under its own weight.

On a gameplay notice, making the underground too massive renders it too similar to the surface.

I get not wanting it to be "the surface, but more brown," but there are better ways to make it distinct than to make it a non-viable option for empire building.

 

[NorthernDruid]

I wish there'd be one of two additions to massively help underground cities.

One is to let you build special province improvements in bedrock provinces adjacent to your domain. Which would easily triple the available space in many smaller caverns. I imagine it as building up along the cave walls, which seems like a pretty natural way to make the most use out of the available space.

The other, (which would also help the current iteration of Hermit Kingdoms feel a lot better), would be to introduce some sort of way to use population without taking up a province: Older Civilization games at least had something like that (the one I'm most familiar with is Civ 4's specialist system). It would be pretty nice to be able to assign Population to equivalents of the various basic improvements in the city itself. Ideally it would still help count for giving Boosts and for Guilds; and the downsides of not actually getting the province for extra resource nodes (including fewer magic materials), larger friendly terrain and less adjacencies on SPIs makes it always preferable to go for the regular expansion.

In either case, the core issue is that the underground doesn't have enough space in it to make proper use of a fully grown city's population. And it should be addressed either on the map generation layer, or by adding an alternative way to make use of population.

 

[morforys]

It's almost like the default "normal underground" and "massive underground" settings are reverse. With an underground start culture, I never choose massive underground anymore since the normal default underground seems to be have more open area, and resource dense expansion locations.

 

[Sifer2]

Yes ideally with settings it would be like follows IMO:

No Underground: Self explanatory, and makes those unique resources spawn above ground as they used to.

Small Underground: Tiny uninhabitable pockets only to provide dungeon delving experience. Probably also moves the unique resources above ground.

Normal Underground: Similar to now where some Empires start in big inhabitable pockets, and unique resources underground.

Large Underground: Lot's of large extra inhabitable pockets so you could build full size Empire's underground.

Connected or Unconnected Underground setting: Determines whether diggable tunnels connecting the large pockets to each other will generate.

 

[David12596]

I think the core of my issue with underground as other have either mention here or in the past is that a lot of it is not connected. Like I know some of my friends love that about the underground start, but me personally I would love if most if not all of it is connected some way. That and usually we barely have room for two cities in a lot of starts and if our free city start near us, a lot of times for me at least, they have like 4-5 hexes at best.

I mean I am not against giving players the option to have more control on how the underground spawns things is. Like how connected we want it to be, how much space, etc.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

I think the core of my issue with underground as other have either mention here or in the past is that a lot of it is not connected. Like I know some of my friends love that about the underground start, but me personally I would love if most if not all of it is connected some way. That and usually we barely have room for two cities in a lot of starts and if our free city start near us, a lot of times for me at least, they have like 4-5 hexes at best.

I mean I am not against giving players the option to have more control on how the underground spawns things is. Like how connected we want it to be, how much space, etc.

It is normally connectable if you dig.

 

[Holiness]

It is normally connectable if you dig.

Except for the fact that the tunnel you dig out is uninhabitable, and thus 95 percent of the underground is not even worth settling, cause they will be only 4 or 5 province's.

All u can do with under us drop an outpost for rare resources. Which is lame as... stuff.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

Except for the fact that the tunnel you dig out is uninhabitable, and thus 95 percent of the underground is not even worth settling, cause they will be only 4 or 5 province's.

All u can do with under us drop an outpost for rare resources. Which is lame as... stuff.

Keep digging, you can always build roads through uninhabitable areas or use teleporters to ignore distance altogether.

 

[Holiness]

Keep digging, you can always build roads through uninhabitable areas or use teleporters to ignore distance altogether.

To what end? There has not been a game where I found a spot to settle a second city. Even the city states I'm the underground have small area. I already said i just place outpost on resources. There is no where to settle. You're just missing the point entirely.

 

[Tropical Sunset]

Yeah. My Drow would start in pretty Menzoberranzan. All further cities laid out were cursed to stay villages. Not my cup of tea.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

To what end? There has not been a game where I found a spot to settle a second city. Even the city states I'm the underground have small area. I already said i just place outpost on resources. There is no where to settle. You're just missing the point entirely.

Then leave the underground and go settle on the surface, you always start on a pretty decent cavern in my experience. You can also research the tomes of fertility and glades, so that you can build decent cities on blasted ashland caverns.

You seem to be complaining that the RNG has not given you a second habitable cavern nearby, but you can always build on the surface as well. Giving you a guarantee of several nearby habitable caverns, that is basically giving you a huge advantage.

Remember that even if the quality of the caverns is variable, nobody is likely competing with you for them. Also nobody is preventing you from settling on the surface, so for balance reasons you cannot be given guaranteed habitable caverns nearby.

 

[NorthernDruid]

The main issue with the underground is that a fully underground empire is unfeasible, like what we expect in a fantasy setting as it's a common trope. (Of a meagre 3 cities)

"Just go settle on the surface" doesn't adress that. Alternate ways of using population would, if a map generation / underground layout design rework is unlikely.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

The main issue with the underground is that a fully underground empire is unfeasible, like what we expect in a fantasy setting as it's a common trope. (Of a meagre 3 cities)

"Just go settle on the surface" doesn't address that. Alternate ways of using population would, if a map generation / underground layout design rework is unlikely.

A fully underground empire is also one of the sillier fantasy tropes. Habitable caverns are always accessible to the surface, because it is ultimately the surface that makes caverns (somewhat) habitable to begin with, but with that being the case, why stay underground at all? Why not do what we presently do, go aboveground for the food and underground for the minerals.

The only way to make that a possibility is to outright ban people from settling on the surface. That in turn creates problems for factions that like to burn all enemy cities to the ground.

The issue with the underground is that it amounts to giving you two cities to begin with, because you will always build a city above you on the surface. If you find a second habitable cavern nearby, that goes up to four cities (so on). There is a large strategic advantage to compactness and this is why I have always played underground factions often, right since the game started.