* Probably free movement is tier 2. That'd solve much of the ship trouble - unless the others feel otherwise ofc.
* Why are there undead in the Caves of Lore? If they've discovered them they should be there in more forces... If they haven't, and the teleporter locations seem to indicate that they haven't, then shouldn't there be archons (or their leftover guardians) there?
* Tiers 2 and 3 should be probably defended by some tougher critters. I'd say the classic teleport raze result of 1 syrons & some spirit puppets for tier 2 and even stronger for tier 3? The syrons could have been attracted by the magical forces unleashed in the archon spaceship departure or similar...

That's a nice lore improvement and good suggestions in general.

Locking the centre is easier said than done. At the beginning, if I didn't have that dragon ship - and removing tier 1 FM solves that - I'd only have a stack of goblins and orcs. The second player that buys aligned cities will match that and two players can always team up and go 2:1.
Plus, there's sneaking: as soon as that stack moves one way the others can go for spells on the other side. If the sides are all more or less equally desirable that solves locking.

The single teleport destination is fantastic as it creates a driver for conflict straight from the beginning. Sitting there with one's stack is crazy because you don't see what's coming - you can camp the teleport destination but all the others see your stack and can plan and send in forces tailored against that. One can always put a cloud of poison and/or a flame on the destination... But that would damage incoming units too. A better option could be to have the destinations be adjacent rather than the same, so the driver for conflict is the same and they can't all be camped.

Making towers not be choke points reduces firstcomer advantage by a lot. On the other hand, the towers make it somewhat harder to have formal alliances, as they block allies, which I find desirable to keep the pace so I'm not so sure. It seems that everyone has access to elephants anyway.

Southern, as teleporters can be razed, it's probably a bad idea to use them to separate tier 3 - again, firstcomers have a big advantage as they can raze them and force the others to waste several turns to rebuild them.

A hindrance to slow down access is all that is needed so requiring some resources is perfectly fine. Ballistas+cavalry+archers for tier 2, and stronger monsters for tier 3 - dragons and basiisks? Long range makes microing harder. Some random units would be nice too, to avoid that we have perfect intel next time. I don't know if that's possible without placing cities though.

Carwyn of the Dark Elves, day 8

My troops in the Caves of Lore eat up maintenance uselessly as they wander without an idea of what to do. At least I clear out some more undead.

That doesn't really solve the issue of free moving free warships, especially a ship with 40 move, 30 hp, a ballista, and Transport 7.

I think the lore is that this is the Undead repository of knowledge, but they've grown careless because they've already won. It doesn't matter if they guard it because we can't stop their eventual victory even if we do take it. Bare bones (ha!) guards are enough as far as lore is concerned, and the rest of their guards may have been pulled to help secure their final victory.

When those extra stacks become available in important (if they become available and the player hasn't blown through too much of their starting gold by the time they find them), and you neglect the question of who goes first in the 2v1. The player to make the sacrifice is setting themselves back, possibly only to be blocked by the person making the follow up attack.

I think my bigger concern isn't blocking the teleporter into the center, but blocking access to a whole section of the caves by using the chokepoints that show up there.

I saw Arnuz's kobold camping at the presumable entrance to the summon section. If he has blockaded that, no one else can reasonably get any summons unless they happened to get there first. The early bought stacks may be able to do that.

Yeah, that would be a major concern to address.

-----

My suggestion might be to add a web of tunnels connecting each tier of spells, so locking down spells would require locking the front door of a section but also locking both side doors at each level of spells. Have tunnels connecting the Tier 1 spell areas together, have the T2 spells looped together, and the T3 spells looped. Within a specific section, T1 connects to T2 and T2 connects to T3 as it currently is.

Low gold income will keep players interested in the caverns throughout the game.

-----

Orcs, Day 8

We continue exploration and nearly lose our leader in a fight against some T1 indies.

TS

Ok but then, you're not talking of "locking the centre" but rather about slowing people down. I wouldn't consider a kobold a blockade lol

That's a good idea, and there are already tunnels in those directions.

In all of this... We're ignoring warp party... A major pain point for me. Should warp party allow the lucky ones to navigate without issue the caves?

I figured it was primarily a warning unit, to make sure you knew no one was slipping past, while the real muscle was busy deeper in the cave. :)

Warp Party comes with its own risks, including requiring a valuable caster and ending up on the surface or something. It isn't a reliable way of travel; your warp party attempt might end up landing you closer to a doom stack.

Of course, I have no idea how one would keep someone from trying it, anyway. XD

Speaking of doom stacks and warp party, I ended up with my leader and two casters down the tier III at north east path. I see DE rolling up with a FM DS and army. A few summoned spiders in my army? Yikes, I'm outta' here. I cast warp party and appeared a hex away from a Dark Elf FM galleon on the next level. Luckily the next cast was okay!

There are some warp party weaknesses on the map. Goblins can warp party near the secret victory objectives. Azracs can warp party near the hidden 4-block Undead cities. that can be helped by filling empty spaces with towers (or something else), and having the Undead pre-own the buildings. There is still potential for landing on the teleporter, but if you watch the spacing, you can entirely eliminate the potential for landing on it.

I actually don't see anything wrong with this being a theoretical possibility, though I might space out the secret objectives and clog the undead catacombs with towers, thanks for the ideas


Dwarves, Day 9
Dammit, six undead swordsmen have appeared on the overworld.
Also, if I know the Necromancers, the skies will be filled with poison and smoke, more than they are already, in coming weeks.

Carwyn of the dark elves, day 9

We explore the caves of lore a bit more, aware that we can't waste a single piece of gold on spells... While apparently the azrac don't mind spending all they have on spells to then complain that they have no resources.

Right, so had I not had the ships, the game would be all but gone in smoke - you'd have killed my only digger... At turn 8, by a single warp party roll or two.

Great spell!

Orcs, Day 9

A scout runs right into a Dark Elf FM DS with guards. RIP scout.

Our income finally nears the point of going positive, yay!

Oh good grief that's a lot of smoke and poison cloud! We duck right back into the caves again, thanks.

TS

Carwyn of the Dark Elves, day 10

Eliminating the orc scout proves the point of the firstcomer advantage - the first that came here without any forces but swordsmen and could with these take all the needed spells, to then stand back and laugh at the battle among poors that ensued.

On the surface, the undead are invading again the lands that we freed. The lack of defences makes it painfully obvious that we have overcommited in the Caves of Lore, which - barring lucky party warps - have no exit, to the detriment of our economy.

Orcs, Day 10

We slaughter the unreasonable guards of a dark elf town that wanted more than 300 gold which we don't have.

In other news, we encounter our first undead unit that seems to be wandering the wasteland freely. Of course, we don't see it until we're parked directly next to some demons gleefully sitting on a ransacked city. I guess we'll see whether the AI is smart enough to know stationary guards can still participate in battle, and whether an elephant is of sufficient value to warrant the distraction from where ever that lowly skeleton was going.

Also, right on schedule, a stack of guards show up at the entrance to the Summon branch to remove our scout. XD

TS

I just realized that with these two-way routes to the surface, we may be on a very hefty timer to win before the undead AI kills us all.

My assumption is that the AI is too garbage to win unless you give it multiple starting dragon stacks. Will be funny if we actually die to it though.