I think the idea of this game is to avoid "early land grabs" altogether.  Which is why there is an "efficiency limit" on the number of cities you can easily maintain.  Do you want a large an unwieldy empire (ie lots of vassals to keep happy and possibly betray you) or a small and streamlined nation?  Also, since you can establish cities without essence only on already fertile tiles, actually making a major land grab could be very costly in other ways... namely the opportunity cost of using essence to imbue land as opposed to enhancing heroes, making your channeller stronger or preparing for those end of world spells later on in the game.

So in summary, I don't think that starting off next to a dungeon or series of spawn points would necessarily be a bad thing.  It may just shape the type of game you play away from an empire heavy one (where you expand as much as possible), and towards one that is very hero or channeler centric (think of all those monsters as an opportunity to gain experience and gold).  I think the beauty of this game is that it should be possible to be an extremely powerful and influential nation with only one or two cities.

goodmorning all

Part of the reason i suggested the multiple cave levels think was so that at the starting game you are never overwhelmed by the spawned monsters.   At the start, at best, the monsters would come up out of the cave,  Walk to some thing of intest, river, trade route, if they know where yor trade routs are, a forest, an outskirt of a town,  whatever, they would steal something petty and retreat back to the cave (only if they take it from a town, or trade route, or building you build out in the land whould it matter what they took.)  At the start it would be mostly Food, and occationally building supplies, some types of monsters wouldn't even nessisaraily take gold, because what use do they have for it.

The idea being that the first level of monsters are almost ignorable,  they will never seriously attack your towns. They are in a steady state, living off the land like they have since the cataclisim, and have no more interest in your cities, then bears do,  "nice place to find food once and a while, but wouldn't want to live there." 

It's only when you're strong and inpolite enough to evict them, (or strong enough to have an uncontroled hero ( party )l eave your town and go evict them for thier own reasons.)  By then your stronger,  and so the monsters get stronger, and only after the first layer would they ever start to get aggressive,  depening on thier relation to the level above. (two caves with orcs on level 2, only the ones that set up a vassalage with the goblins on level one would be vindictive, the ones that were caught in a long and unwinable war [eather larger goblin tride, or smaller orc tribe] might acutally by glad you evicted their enamies. . . depends on story.)

So if you had 3 caves, the only thing you would want to do is probably not have all level 1's emptied at once. Nomatter how many level 1 caves you start with, you can always play it safe and ignore them safe inthe knoledged that level 1 caves never span anything vindictive, or intersted in more then petty change and a backpack full of food.

Take care all

Robbie Price

Goodmorning all,

Yup, it lets in a bit of statagie,  The first level is hard to kill only for a very low level chaneller, or hero small army. but it's mostly benign.   However when you clear it you discover what lies benith, which could be out of your league, of if you waited, just enough of a challange again to be good for farming XP off off for a while.  If you do nothing too long, somebody in your town, or a wandering hero, will empty the level for you just to get the glittering prizes,

Now you have a stratigic choice, 

Empty the cave soon, hope below it is just rock, or not overly agressive.

Wait a few turns, develop stealth movment training, and cave crawling training, and send in a scout or two, till you know what awaits you and make an informed choice of when to pummel it.

Don't invest in scouting, and speed to get strength so that you'r confident that whatever is on level 2 (it's only level 2, no dragons or beasts from the deep with more arms and tenticals then the immagination has use for) isn't going to be able to run you over.

or lastly,  Never bother the cave, wait till somebody clears it out of you, then hope they blow the booty chez toi (your place/town). 

It's nicer then just global monsters that pop at aribitrary locations just because you arn't looking. Monsters who's strength is detirmined pritty exclusively by what turn it is.
Robbie Price

I'm more of a proponent of the original idea of small neutral-ish power bases of different types that expand if not taken care of in early game, eg- dragon, necromancer, etc.

Well, I never really suggested plopping down deep story lines into dungeons to begin with.  I'm personally not so much in favor of getting hit with paragraphs of backstory every time you enter a dungeon, rather the idea was that dungeons would have a marked effect on the landscape, which in an of itself would inadvertently create a story.  In other words, if you and the other sovereigns were to "step away from the computer" for 100 turns, the world would still be alive with activity and, upon return, the landscape of the world would have changed in your absence. 

 And thanks Raven

I think this idea is awesome. It is an excellent occasion for modders too, because such thing may add new stories to the game.

The dungeon files should have following properties:

spawn condition of the dungeon: initial condition for spawning the living cave. For start: game starts, area not in someone's influence, in players influence, city of <size> defeated*), city created, megaevent, terrain is <type>, battle has been fought here/nearby, the place has not been in in anyone's vision for at least <n> turns**

(* vilages and small town will attract lower type dungeons, however if you burn a megapolis, it may attract powerful encounters.
(** all these conditions are not considered to be automatic, but you should have a chance per turn they happen. You set what the chance is at the game begining (often, sometimes, never, like anomalies in GC2)). If the game realizes some dungeon shall be started, it chooses randomly from those, theirs starting conditions are met. 

The dungeon shall have following properties:
level - every dungeon starts at level 1 (no matter how powerful the dungeon is)
cloth map icon - the picture, that shows the dungeon on the cloth map
description - the description that shows up on the map, if a tile is chosen

The following things should be level depended:

map object - the object, that appears on the map. It should be possible to choose any object, that can appear in the game. The modder chooses it. For a group of bandits it may be some building, for a group of trolls some stone pile or a cave... If the object is level depended, it may follow the stage of the dungeon. A group of bandit may have a tavern at the begining, later a keep or something.
guarding monsters - type and minimal and maximal ammount. More types of monsters can be added.

Actions


The actions will define the "life of the dungeon". The action will be fired, if:
<n> turns passed and the dungeon has not yet been defeated
p% probability (per turn)

The action have one of the following results (one or more):
the level of the dungeon is changed (increased or decreased)
some units are spawn
nearby players may hire units
nearby players receive/loose some gold(resources)
nearby player(s) gets an option to change the level of the dungeon (for gold, resources or simply by a decision)
the dungeon is removed from the map.

Some examples:

Trolls settled down in some place and they are terorizing the area. If left there, their village grows and they overrun the area

<dungeon>
   <name>Troll dungeon</name>
   <description>
      Trolls settled in this location
   </description>
   <clothmapicon>.....</clothmapicon>
   <level number="1">
      <monsters>
        <monster type="troll" min="2" max="3" />
      </monsters>
      <treasure>
        <gold min="10" max="50" />
        <artifact id="1d8faffa" />
      </treasure>
      <actions>
        <probability p="10"> <!-- 10% chance per turn -->
          <spawnmonster type="troll" min="1" max="1" />
        </probability>
        <turnspassed turnsmin="10" turnsmax="20">
           <message text="Troll lair grew in strength" /> <!-- inform the player, if it is in his dominion -->
           <setlevel level="2">
        </turnspassed>
      </actions>
   </level>
   <level number="2">
      <monsters>
        <monster type="troll" min="5" max="8" />
      </monsters>
      .......
      <actions>
        <probability p="50"> <!-- 10% chance per turn -->
          <spawnmonster type="troll" min="1" max="2" />
        </probability>
        <turnspassed turnsmin="10" turnsmax="20">
           <message text="Troll lair grew in its strength" /> <!-- inform the player, if it is in his dominion -->
           <setlevel level="2">
        </turnspassed>
      </actions>
   </level>
</dungeon>

Another (positive) example: dwarwen merchants have settled in the area. You may let them be (you receive money per turn) or kill them and loot their treasures.
<dungeon>
  <name>Dwarven merchants</name>
  <description>Dwarven merchants sell their goods here. They pay you for the "protection"</description>
  <clothmapicon>...</clothmapiicon>
  <level number="1">
      <monsters>
        <monster type="dwarvenwarrior" min="5" max="10" />
        <monster type="dwarvensmith" min="2" max="3"  />
      </monsters>
      <treasure>
         <gold min="200" max="500" />
         <artifact id="a4f5afaf" />
         <artifact id="ffafadf1" />
      </treasure>
      <actions>
         <turnspassed turnsmin="1" turnsmax="1">
            <givegold min="3" max="5" /> <!-- The player receives 3-5 GP per turn -->
         </turnspassed>
         <turnspassed turnsmin="50" turnsmax="100">
           <dismisdungeon message="The dwarwes have left..." />  <!-- the dwarwes leave after 50-100 turns -->
         </turnspassed>
      </actions>
  </level>
</dungeon>

Wow, some awesome examples mrakomo!  You set some great, but simple, parameters by which an infinite variety of dungeons can spring up through the world that would influence the landscape.  Perhaps upon emmergence, they can also have a variable that observers proximity to civilization and that civilization's might (trolls are likely to spawn in the distant wilderness, but a dwarven caravan is not.)  Keep up the good thinking

Second: this concept does not solve the reaction of the AI to the dungeon. Analyzing the dungeon properties may be difficult, so perhaps some good/bad property may should be added. This property shall be level depended (the bad dungeon is simply not as bad in early stages). And if the dungeon is in the enemies area, it is good if it is bad. And otherwise if it is good, it is bad for the player/AI, if it is in hands of the enemy, because he may gain some profit.

wowo awesome work mrakomo! That would be really interesting to see it implementend in the final version (else we ever have the mods)

Very good work, guys !
+1 Karma Demiansky

1) A dynamic dungeon system would give a wonderful RPG flavor.

2) It's a perfect area for modding. Let people imagine dungeons, treasures, monsters, dynamic rules of evolving.

3) Dungeons could be a threat (monsters) AND an opportunity (treasures and xp). This could give players critical choices. Will you build yourself powerful weapons in your forge or will you try to find those already existing in the world ?

4) Idea : player could research techs about ancient knowledge => clues about localisation of relics, artefacts...

5) Idea : a "guild of adventurers" building => find dungeons (larger area for each additional upgrade), identify defenders... Maybe you could give adventurers a directive : "find powerful shields", "find gems"

6) Add interactions :
- make deals with a dungeon leader (if sentient) : "2 virgins sacrifice per week for no attack", "500 gold to leave the place and cross the frontier"
- chase the pack of wolves from your borders, easier than killing them
- help a dungeon developement in opponent territory

If dungeons can "spawn" then it wouldn't be hard to make them spawn in meaningfull locations.

This is in possible loot of all stages of the living Dragon-Lair dungeon.

I think that every dragon would have at least one egg ... kind of like a pheonix, and if you kill the dragon, what-not, you can capture the egg. The egg by itself would be massively expensive, and for those so inclined, it could be used for a quick massive gold bonus, or a very high diplomacy bonus (especially if you give the egg to a nation that has the reptilian homage civ-trait, and wishes to do more than keep a precious bauble.

however, if you keep the egg, at a certain technology, your animal handlers will be able to properly hatch the egg, and you can start to grow your own little wyrmling, slowly into a dragon. Most likely, it would take as long for a civilization to grow to fruition as it would take for this wyrmling to grow to full strength. In all likelyhood, it would be almost as important to keep the drake alive (until reaching maximum potential) as to keep your Soveriegn and cities alive. Although Soveriegn is more of an "ultimate" fate. I wonder though ... to increase or dilute the importance of a single worm ... Im thinking you can carry up to 10 eggs, but only one can be alive at a time. I think this may have to do with territorial tendencies of dragons. In addition, you would probably only be able to keep one type of lizardmen in your army. One army could have black-swamp lizadmen, and another army could have red-cave lizardmen, although red cavelizards and black swamplizards would not be able to get along in a single army, suffering morale penalties, at the very least (to each other). In addition, the territorial nature of a dragon would be such that it would wish to eat another dragon (unless the same species, perhaps?) Either way ... its an important question as to how many dragons a nation can raise at one time. Also to what level of technology would be required.