lower terrain and cloth map

That would be a pretty funny coincidence. IIRC, one of MOM's terrain altering spells caused a similar problem.

There's definitely a problem with the lower land spell, which I mentioned before in other posts. I've never had a game crash on my system, but the lower land spell typically doesn't work 70% of the time I cast it. The mountains will actually disappear, but if you try to move your guys on the now-lowered square the game won't allow you to move there. Also, If you save the game & restart the terrain will revert back to the way it was before you cast the spell. The  game doesn't seem to like the spell for some reason. Sometimes I'll be able to move through & get caravan routs to run through like I want after I cast the spell, but this is the exception and not the rule.

With the type of strategy I use, lowering the land is fairly important, especially given the way the mountains typically either form very long "chains" with no breaks or "circular" enclosures which also have no breaks. I've even found, in a couple of my games, AIs that were in the center of these "circles" that were "1-town wonders," obviously never programmed to cast either "lower land" or "teleleport" thus making them unviable as a game opponent.

i find that in mountains you have to carve your way through them, simply casting the spell once or twice wont be enough. I've never had the spell not work not.

Also, the terrain the cloth map does not update properly after the spell is cast - mountains on the cloth just dissapear as if the land went flat but there is still a hill there. This might be what is causing the problem.

Yes. ai's stuck in a circle do seem to be a problem, although if currently the maps are prepared in advance and you get a random starting point with your custom faction that is a cause for concern. Especially since it seems the only way to get the terrain spells is by choosing the earth spell category.

Flying units would help counteract this problem, put in flying units  - that's the answer - hear that Stardock  ? F-L-Y-I-N-G. I know. It's a dirty word.

although, seriously. slingers would be a nice touch - something to reach in the tech tree before archery, or ax throwing. (sword throwing ) (knife throwing)

javelins to take out the opponent's shield. etc etc.

eagerly awaiting v1.1

You've never had it not work? really. I frequently find it doesn't work, but I exclusively play on cloth maps just because I like them better than the graphics map. I always seem to need to cast this spell 3 or 4 times before I can carve a path through a mountain which I can actually cross.

I wonder if this problem is just with cloth map mode, how many of you have had problems with this spell on the graphic map?

... I was wondering when someone other than myself would bring this up. I knew I couldn't be the only one experiencing problems with the lower land spell.

It always works for me as well. Just an update problem with large mountains. IE: if you lower one out of a 4 tile mountain (on cloth map), 3 tile should remain as mountain, but all 4 disappears and "looks" like empty land. One of those 4 is actually hills (not updated to look like hills either) and can be moved in, the other 3 are still mountains but doesn't display as such on the cloth map, and thus ends up being very confusing. The only way to know which is which is to activate the terrain info box and check them individually.

The above example is pretty much the only reason I leave cloth map mode.

Thats due to the funny way the mountains are displayed.

If there is a 2x2 mountain, that's actually one piece of gfx covering 2x2 squares.

If you remove but one tile of it, the whole 2x2 gfx are removed.

This is "fixed" by a save / load, upon which the terrain gfx are properly loaded from HDD again. This time as 3 single 1x1 tiles covering the 3 remaining tiles.

In short, it's one of the many "does not update upon change" issues.

That's exactly what happens, the problem is related to the big 4square-mtns, I usually don't have a problem on the 1-square mountains.

Where is the "terrain info box," I can't find anything about this in the manual?

What gazz described is exactly what happens - which if you cast many lower terrain on the cloth map, causes the game to go all wonky and it crashes. It's probably trying to figure out the differences between the cloth map and the other one. anyways i never cast lower terrain on the cloth map anymore. not after today which is when i started doing that - too bad it was faster that way.