About caves and darkness

[Twan]

I was thinking the idea of caves with perma darkness was abandonned since a long time, but someone showed me that "caves are not dark as they should be" is still in the bug list.

Hum... If it's just considered a bug, to be honest I hope it won't be fixed soon. Seriously darkness is a level 6 spell, extremely powerful against some nations, extending the effect for free to all caves provinces IMO will have one only effect : make maps with caves unused for balance reasons (or force mapmakers using caves to make them border mountains to avoid the effect).

(so as the only maps I've made have lots of caves I feel concerned )

Anyway I also find unthematic that darkvisions nations don't have some reasonable advantage in caves. So I have a suggestion (no two in fact) :

-Create an half-darkness state (non magical = non ultra extreme darkness) for caves, with effects comparable to those of a swamp or quagmire spells (or even a little bigger, say -2 att and -4 prec, lowered by darkvision %).

-Or another one (if you find time to implement that) : give caves the default darkness effect, but add specific counter to non magical (caves) darkness (items or spells in the paths the most nations without darkvision have - air&fire I think-, allowing them to be competitive in caves in mid-game, not only one astral high level spell with a high gem cost).

A third option would be to add lots of counters to darkness in general but nations actually using the spell won't like that.

[konming]

Maybe half darkness, so attack and defense are reduced by 1/4, not 1/2, and precision reduced by 3/8.

Another way is to assume that everyone carries torches in caves. This would replace shield and give penalty to those who use two hand weapons. Precision is reduced as usual.

[Sombre]

Well it isn't like there are a lot of maps with cave provinces and those that do have them the designer might not have even been aware that caves don't cast darkness.

I really hope caves/cave forts/possibly deep seas too get autocast darkness in the future. To me it makes perfect sense and most of the nations with darkvision (Atlantis, Agartha, Abysia) are pretty underpowered anyway.

[Twan]

I think some other nations would become underpowered on maps with caves if darkness is total/without more counters (human nations without death especially if their force is archers). And they are already weak on maps with many seas. IMO it may lead to caves map not considered good for MP, or nations like Man or Tien Chi not played on them.

For dark cave forts, I think it's a good national advantage for Agartha, and would find magical darkness normal for them even if an half-dark effect is added (but don't think other darkvision nations really need the same effect - are Atlantis and Abysia really underpowered ? always seen them having good results).

[Agrajag]

Cave like they were meant to be shouldn't be too different from sea provinces, just dedicated to other races, and a bit harder to infiltrate.
EDIT: (Which is why I'll be happy if they will just work as intended.)
[Not that I've seen many/any cave provinces, afaik they are rarely used (maybe because they don't work properly?)]

[Twan]

Sea nations can't build all their units out of seas and often may not even use all, so it can't be the same.

Agartha (with att < 10 units weaker than others out of darkness) may be designed to be the cave nation in maps with some dark caves but I see no other darkvision nation having this weakness in light lands, and all may build all units under the sun...

[Agrajag]

What you are saying is that the advantage sea nations receive in their exclusivity of provinces is balanced by their hardships in taking land provinces, while cave nations have no disadvantage to balance their exclusivity on cave provinces, except for Agartha.
Well, I say that since cave provinces are so few, the advantage isn't that big. Its only considerable where there are "landmasses" of caves, and those would tend to be for thematic purposes (like underground passages), in which case balance isn't a consideration. Furthermore, a disadvantage in "light" lands would make these nations much weaker, since they still rely mostly on land provinces. (again, except for thematic maps.)
This would make underground units more of a perk (like free scrying) than anything to really base a strategy around.
The last argument I have for now is that darkvision is only useful under darkness, which currently is a D4 spell costing 4 death gems, which makes it a rarely used skill. And even Agartha which is a darkvision race, has a hard time casting darkness (one in 2 400 gold mages requires two boosting items to be able to cast it.)

Finally, which nations do you consider as cave nations?

[Twan]

No nation as IMO caves shouldn't be treated like seas (reserved lands for nations starting there) but as swamps are (provinces with something like a quagmire effect advantaging a little some creatures/nations -also able live/start elsewhere- but not needing exceptionnal magic/pretender build to win with any nation against them).

Only two nations have full darkvision on all units (EA Abysia and Agartha) but many have units with half vision (the fey nations Tir Na Nog, Eriu ; EA Jomon, Fomoria... ; and all sea nations iirc). But death nations would be more advantaged than them by dark caves I think (if maps use them in numbers comparable with say forest or swamp).

Another option may be to simply give darkvision/blindness to more summons out of death/earth paths (ie : mindless monsters even if not undeads/statues) or create some massable summons with darkvision (cave animals) in low level nature , so as it is teh ultra-common path all nations would be able to invade caves with say giant ants or other summoned molebeast).

But anyway I think something should be done to balance the effect if darkness is added to caves (if the bug is fixed someday).

[Endoperez]

Caves aren't used in numbers comparable to forests, swamps or even seas. Your point would be true if, and only if, caves were either

1) common enough to be just another type of terrain, like mountains of farmlands.
2) large and with many connections to the neighbouring provinces, like seas, thus forming important waypoints

If cave provinces aren't common and don't give the controlling nation the strategic movement of underwater races, it doesn't matter that your army can't take control of it. If they are, the map is probably somewhat unbalanced in multiplayer. To my knowledge, the only map that uses caves to a larger extent is the World of Geometry, but in that one caves are part of the story.

In short, I think that a map can be made so that having darkvision is a major bonus, but also so that the cave provinces are just a small bonus for several races, some of which really appreciate the help. What kind of darkness effect is in them doesn't really matter.

[Agrajag]

Twan said:
No nation as IMO caves shouldn't be treated like seas

I meant darkvision nations. No need to nitpick.

That said, the only nation I see as a real darkvision nation is Agartha. Abysia has one unit with full darkvision, and it isn't a good one. Other nations have either 50 darkvision or only have darkvision by virtue of access to darkvision summons, which technically everyone can get.
And if it is so, then a minor boost to Agartha would hardly imbalance the game. (especially since you said yourself that their darkvision troops are lousy.)

EDIT: Actually, EA Abysia could use a boost as well anyway :S