Cave Terrain

[khamul]

At the moment cave terrain is limited to cave floor, and cave walls. I believe there is work planned to add things like stalagmite/stalagtite forests, mushroom forests, rubble mounds, etc.

Would it be possible to introduce cave terrain types that are illuminated - crystal veins filtering light down from above, phosphorescent rocks, glowing mushrooms/molds, whatever... A unit in these hexes would count as in twilight (like a unit underground illuminated by a mage of light). Preferrably, an illuminated (by a mage of light) unit in one of these hexes would count as in full daylight.

It would add an interesting dimension to cave combat, and make it tactically different to above-ground combat: "...if I put my units _here_, the troll has to attack me _there_ and does 25% less damage because of the light..."

Another idea might be a 'crawlspace' cave wall tile - tight passages and squeezes that are impassible to most units, but movement cost 1 and defense 80% to dwarves (for example), with their small size and superior experience. Dwarves (and potentially other units) could use them to get around the choke points common on most cave maps.

[martenzo]

Great, now the caverns are given some life into them. Just what they need. The only thing is, that somebody has to do the graphics.

[Tux2B]

Try to open a thread in the art devlopment forum

[kangounator]

yes a labyrinth in a cave where undeads must defeat hidden dwarves (with fog of war)

good idea (personaly i like battle in the dark)

but terrain is very difficult to draw and you will have to change all the units stats because of movement and armour

[khamul]

I haven't opened this thread to discuss the concept of new cave terrains, as it has already been discussed here: http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2559

I've opened this thread to discuss the idea of terrain tiles (underground) that have a different light level to other terrain tiles - can we do it, and is it a good idea?

I also wanted to discuss the idea of 'crawlspace' tiles that cannot be passed through by most units.

As this is the ideas forum, please don't dismiss the ideas out of hand on the basis that no-one will do the artwork - I'm hoping to have a shot myself. My question is whether people feel the terrains outlined above would be useful and balanced?

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Edited to remove typo.

[Boucman]

Khamul I love your idea....

not because it's "cool"

I love it because you are the first one who has an idea to make underground more strategic and doing it in a way that is interesting and different from overground fighting...

replacing "terrain management" by "light management" underground would be nice.

[Attila]

there should also be a:
chasm
bridge
mine (as an alternative town)



(I trried to draw all of these but failed)

[scott]

As this is the ideas forum, please don't dismiss the ideas out of hand on the basis that no-one will do the artwork - I'm hoping to have a shot myself. .

Hey, in that case, no one can stop you. More cave terrain could be good. There is a lot more cave in the game than water. I personally would want to be cautious about giving out terrain bonuses underground because there is a racial flavor when underground you should try to preserve.

[khamul]

I personally would want to be cautious about giving out terrain bonuses underground because there is a racial flavor when underground you should try to preserve.

I've been thinking about that, and we have a possibility, I think, to make underground combat tactically very different to above-ground combat.

At the moment no-one has particularly good defense in caves - dwarves and trolls are only on 50% and 40% default, and they're the only races which have decent movement in caves. We could come up with a bunch of new terrain types (rubble, stalagmites, etc) that give dwarves 70% like elves in forest, and so on, and keep things an analogue of how things work beneath the sun.

Or, we could have the various underground terrain types have very limited effect on defense, but big effect on movement - for example, trolls move 1 on cave floor, 2 in stalagmites, 3 in rubble. Defense varies by 10%. Dwarves move 1 on pretty much anything - including tough cave terrains.

Caves, almost by definition, consist of open spaces and choke points. Make the key factor in cave terrain how it affects movement - and suddenly the balance of power in control of choke points changes, as Dwarves are able to out-maneuover trolls (where the terrain supports it).

This gives the map maker a lot of interesting options in the opportunity the map presents to the player.

I haven't (so far) played much multiplayer. I'd love to hear from some of the multiplayer players on whether they understand what I'm suggesting, and whether they think it would be fun.

Scott - have I answered your concerns about racial flavour?
I'm certainly not suggesting that caves become more accessible to the overground races - just enhancing tactical options for the fights that do happen there.

[scott]

Yes, it sounds fine. Changing movement while holding defense (more or less) could work pretty well.

It seems like you would need to make a "fast cave" tile, maybe one for each race.
- are you set on mushroom forest, stagmite, and rubble? Anything else? You could assign each race to 0 or more of these types for a 1 point movement bonus.
- the current cave tile should remain the same since its use is so prevalent in existing work
- you really can't make many slower cave tiles because most topside races are so slow already... maybe 1 slower tile that is 1 MP more for everybody
- I wouldn't change defenses by more than 10%

The lighting effects would be cool but they can only be achieved through some unwieldy WML right now. It might get easier if [time_area] could be a child of [event] so you could automatically perform a location filter on the terrain type, but right now it would have to be hand-coded by map. ott or another might be able to write a perl script to parse the map file and come up with appropriate [time_area] WML.

A cathedral ceiling/high vault tile would be cool to allow flying units to be unrestricted, but what would it look like? Normal cave tile I suppose, but you have to make sure it is only placed in the middle of a large room.

[khamul]

It seems like you would need to make a "fast cave" tile, maybe one for each race.

I was planning to focus on making things more interesting for the cave-dwelling races, like dwarf/troll. A fast cave tile might be a good idea for the races that struggle undergroud - some of the maps can get quite tedious - but I think we already have what we need with the 'dirt' tiles: the cave floor/wall transitions already look fine, IMHO.

- are you set on mushroom forest, stagmite, and rubble? Anything else?

Not particularly. I actually dislike the idea of mushroom forest - it's a hackneyed DnD idea, it's going to be hard to draw, and it doesn't meet any of my ideas of realism within context: WHY giant mushrooms in a cave? I think rubble piles lack imagination as well.

But those were the terrains settled on in the art thread on this issue (see link above), and I'd rather go with what is already approved than spend the time arguing and possibly have the new tiles never get used.

- the current cave tile should remain the same since its use is so prevalent in existing work

Agreed. There's no reason to change cave floor - I just want to add some new options.

- you really can't make many slower cave tiles because most topside races are so slow already... maybe 1 slower tile that is 1 MP more for everybody

I'm thinking that surface-dweller movement remains much the same: elves are move cost 3 on cave floor and in stalagmites - they hate everything underground the same. It only really takes effect for things like trolls and bats that CAN move fairly easily underground.

Things like cavalry would be stopped dead. Something like a pikeman might go from MP2 to MP3 in stalagmites, but gain some defense.

A cathedral ceiling/high vault tile would be cool to allow flying units to be unrestricted, but what would it look like? Normal cave tile I suppose, but you have to make sure it is only placed in the middle of a large room.

That's a really good idea. It'd be nice to have some kind of visual cue - maybe a cave floor tile that looks dry and dusty instead of slightly slimy. Might be better movement for most races as well (not elves?).

[Disto]

And maybe have a kind of smoother tile where the cave is smooth enough for a horse or elf too move quickly and not having to worry about getting over large rocks or boulders.

[turin]

The "quick moving" cave terrain is very easy to do - put a dirt hex in the cave. It is used in many scenarios, and looks good. Using an existing terrain is better than adding a new one.

[Tux2B]

Goldmines are better than villages, I think, because it can be more realistic in some campaigns, when you have no inhabitants in the cave. And even when there are villages, there are not enough of them. Goldmines would be a kind of village that would give you gold but that wouldn't heal you.

[Dreadwing]

Here some terrain i though of in caves...
Spring-water
Tar pit-swamp
Rock mount-hill
Ruin statue-mountain
Ice crystals-snow