Day 32
Mountain 1
image [https://imgur.com/deRdZDj.jpg]
Mountain 1
image [https://imgur.com/orwFdWw.jpg]
Trap A
image [https://imgur.com/6AXeYPQ.jpg]
Trap A
image [https://imgur.com/PElKE6S.jpg]
Mountain 1
image [https://imgur.com/9bjfNqh.jpg]
Trap A
image [https://imgur.com/TeMw3zU.jpg]
image [https://imgur.com/01Vxh4A.jpg]
Status Day 32, Mana:1193/1445, Water: 163/1445, Ice: 28/1445 Size:2890, core 26,
Nineteen upgrades available
It sounds like that smallest lake without any reported structures is roughly five hundred by two hundred spaces. That should be plenty big for some sharks, perhaps even giant sharks.
On top of that, I think I want to get the raptor defenders and use the other nest for some ice eagles, or possibly giant ice eagles.
That sounds like a good plan for activities while I am waiting on the core killers to try and enslave my trap core.
With almost twelve hundred mana available today, I should have plenty available to deploy three sub-cores, especially as one of those cores is not intended to be hidden.
On the other hand, if I give it a smaller version of the water tunnel defense, I can test that out. Not more than twelve deep, as I want them to be able to find it, but I can at least determine how hard it is for them to deal with.
First things first, just under eight hundred mana to duplicate the Trap A layout north and south of the spawn area, giving me about four hundred for the trap itself and to add wing-like extensions to the three observation areas. Hmm, I probably want to add another observation area on the fourth side, but that will need to wait until tomorrow. Twelve deep with the normal icy hook, but I do not think I want to bother with grass or trees in the trap core room, it is not expected to be a long-term structure after all, and I am already going to need to spend a lot on surface trees.
So, after I add the missing trees to the Trap A core room, I am down to about three hundred mana to use for baiting the trap. If I put in a ten-xy-ten(or eleven-by-ten if you count the areas next to the wall, but those cannot have trees), I can put fifty trees in that area for a couple hundred mana, leaving me enough to add the missing trees to Trap A, a nest to each of the trap observation posts, and a dove scout in Trap 1E.
That puts the trap at about half-again the number of trees I had in my orchard when the hillside fell in. if I add that many again tomorrow, hopefully that will make some nice tempting bait for the core-killers.
While I am at it, Trap A no longer seems like a useful designation. I think Trap 1, Trap 1E, Trap 1N, and Trap 1S are good names for these trap-related designations.
So, how many sub-cores do I have now? Fifteen? Seems like a lot. Most of them with their own entrance and even surface area. Except for the half-dozen buried under the sand. Trying to have any sort of surface area there would stand out too much to work for a hidden base.
Although with the trap observation areas, I am adding a lot of area without mana generation to fill it, so I may want to look at adding more mana to my existing areas going forward. I could add another hundred and twenty grass to my starting surface area for example, and there is probably room for twice that many more trees even without expanding the area.
Although I doubt I really want to paint that large of a target on the area with my main core, so that should probably wait until I build a more secure area under that lake near M1.
Speaking of the lake, tomorrow I am going to need my ice doves to find invaders to take to the lake so I can target it.
I probably want to get the locations of each of the shores so I can have a better understanding of the exact size and location of the lake. I do not think I can remotely place a core on water, so I’ll need to start it next to the shore and then claim down into the water, so knowing where those shores are will be important.
Hmm, I do not seem to have any invaders clustering around M1, so I may need to have them bring invaders from the lake so I can track where they came from.
So I’ll instruct my ice doves to fetch some invaders from around the lake and bring them to M1 in time for the day change. Hmm, with only three Ice doves, I guess one to keep watch on M1, and the other two will grab invaders from opposite shores, then land briefly on the shore at the adjacent compass point before bringing them back to M1 for tracking?
Sounds like a plan.
Now, before I take down the last pieces of the aiming tower I used to place my three new sub-cores, what do I want to query from the information source?
If actual damage to the dungeon is supposed to be rare and difficult, what information can I get about them trying to take control of my cores?
Intruder Detected
It seems that they found the grove. They seem very excited about the trees, good.
There seems to be a lot of interest in them, lots of invaders coming to look at the trees
Lots of pointing and yelling.
Finally, once it starts growing darker, one invader comes into the trees with an axe and a lamp, sets the lamp on the ground and starts chopping down the trees!
Really?
At least the invader gives up once their lamp starts to go out, having chopped down the fifteen trees closest to the wall.
Hopefully they will leave some of them long enough to discover the fruit, otherwise this trap will not work very well.
Scouting Report
An appropriate structure was found north of the area designated Trap and the invader was deposited as instructed. No such structure was located south of the area designated as Trap, so the invader was deposited in the middle of the search area.
An invader was deposited against the outer wall of the collection of structures.
A large body of water was located approximately one hundred miles west of Mountain 1, a small lake less than half a mile long and half that wide was located two and a half miles to the south east. A larger lake two and a half miles long was located six miles to the north west.
The mountains extend to the north east and south west.
Structures were spotted near the lake to the north west, and possible structures were spotted near the shore of the large body of water to the west.
One ice dove was lost to an eagle.
No new hazards were identified in the vicinity of the dungeon.
A caravan spent the day camping at Hazard 1, heading away from the dungeon as the sun was setting.
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The scouting party consisted of nineteen doves, twelve bats, twelve coyotes, and three ice doves.
Eighteen doves, ten bats, twelve coyotes and Three ice dove returned.
There were two invaders killed and no resources harvested.
Some invaders are not content with allowing a dungeon to grow and develop naturally, and will want to seize control of one or more dungeon cores. When this occurs, it is usually best to close all connections to the lost core(s) and treat them as destroyed. While control of such cores will be regained once the controller dies, this can take decades and can even be subverted in some cases. If the stolen core(s) re-open the connection to other cores, they can be used to subvert dungeon control and even take control of other cores. This is especially problematic when the main core is subverted, as it will take most of the connected dungeon territory, and produces more mana than individual sub-cores.
To resist such attempts, it is best to cut-off any probes made by subverted cores, claim territory away from it, and eventually reclaim or destroy the core itself, assuming the uncontrolled cores can either out-produce or out-maneuver the subverted cores, otherwise the entire dungeon may be taken over and controlled by the invader.
An alternate approach is to send defenders to destroy the controlling invader, the means of control, or even the controlled core itself. This is especially effective if a dungeon has several separated sections, allowing multiple sections to work together against any captured section(s).
As a last resort, a dungeon that is losing territory to seized core(s) can place a distant sub-core with a significant physical barrier between that and the main dungeon, potentially allowing the dungeon to create a new territory from which to assault the captured territory once it has built up the capacity to fight back.
Day 33
Trap 1N and 1S
image [https://imgur.com/6AXeYPQ.jpg]
Trap 1N and 1S
image [https://imgur.com/PElKE6S.jpg]
Trap 1N and 1S
image [https://imgur.com/9bjfNqh.jpg]
image [https://imgur.com/mfYiAWH.jpg]
Trap 1
image [https://imgur.com/r11Hv7D.jpg]
Trap 1
image [https://imgur.com/grHPvok,jpg]
status Day 33, Mana:1288/1725, Water: 154/1725, Ice: 43/1725 Size: 3451,
Twenty Two upgrades available
I am not sure if the issue is having the ice doves carry the invaders, or if the issue is carrying those invaders into a naturally ice aspected area(as evidenced by the ice grass when all I did was plant grass outside), but one or both of those was apparently not survivable for whatever sorts of invaders the doves managed to collect from around the lake.
Well, the ice doves are back, even if their passengers have expired. I wonder if I could track the doves?
Ok, that was unpleasant, for a few moments it felt like I was both in my normal areas, and offset from my normal location a small amount, while also overlapping myself. Looks like the tracking effect only lasts for a few moments when used on one of my defenders, which is fortunate, as it also seems to cause some sort of odd feed-back. On the plus side, I still have the historic information for the day before tracking started. Or at least I do for the places it landed. It seems that such history is limited to places where it was on the ground, so I cannot track locations that are completely surrounded by air? I wonder if that would apply to water as well, or if it is limited to my opposite element? I’ll need to test that once I have established a base under the lake.
Seems like that dove visited a couple spots in that direction, and otherwise stayed in the air when away from the nest.
OK, let’s see if I can brace myself to lessen the effect when I track the other dove to try and get the other reference points.
Still not a fun experience, but it was both shorter and milder than the first time, so the bracing probably helped.
Ok, now that I have an idea where the lake is, I’ll move my targeting core up top and see if I can target it. Hopefully, as it is less than a third of the distance I usually target, and this peak is much higher up than my targeting towers.
After scanning the area with a bunch of shots, it seems that there is a ridge or something blocking direct access to the shore of the lake, but also the side of the ridge on the far side of the lake is also pretty steep, so I can still get fairly close, even if the stability of the landing point might be questionable.
Ok, seems stable for now, seems to be a few hundred away from the closed scouted point, but that is a fair bit to the side, so it may be a lot closer if I just claim down-hill.
The water was a bit further down than I had hoped, at about two hundred and fifty spaces.
Fortunately, it gets a lot less steep once I am in the water. It takes another hundred spaces before I get to what seems to be the bottom of the lake. Judging by the locations of my scouting points, I may only be about a third of the way across, but I think the other side was also less steep. Now, how deep do I want my shark-guarded new core-room to be? The water is only about fifteen floors deep, so I’ll want another fifty or more just to have room to grow without my gathering aura breaking the surface.
I still have over nine hundred mana left for the day, so a hundred floors down is not unreasonable, perhaps with a hidden side passage every thirty-ish floors to make a series of H shapes to discourage and confuse invaders?
Looks good, it feels like I need to cover the passage with water mana if I want the empty hatch on the core level to keep out the water, but that is extra cheap using water mana on an area already filled with water.
Dig out and populate a standard core room, move the secondary core into place so I do not lose control of my current main core room.
Now it is time to move my main core into its new home and spawn a giant ice eagle scout on the peak to keep watch for anyone approaching my lake.
[Upgrade Complete, New Defender: Raptors]
The spawn is pretty expensive, probably because it is flying, icy, and giant. It also looks like I can only fit one spawn per nest, so I probably want another nest on the other side of the peak so they can patrol in all four directions. Yea, patrol, these are not scouts even if I gave them the scouting option, these are front-line defenders. The doves can spot larger groups from further away, but the eagles will be keeping an eye out for individuals or small groups that the doves might have missed, then dive in and take them out. Even if they track the eagles back to the mountain top, that is still miles away from the lake they are defending. Speaking of the lake, at some point I will need to claim the entire shore to detect anyone approaching. Only after that can I start on trying to claim the entire lake area.
But before I get to that, I need to expand the grove at Trap 1 to make sure there is enough fruit to make sure the core killers come and try to capture it.
Hmm, with my daily mana hundreds below my max mana, I should probably throw down a bunch of grass. Fill up that claimed area in the place I started, then square off Expansion 1 and throw a bunch of grass there too.
That is over two hundred mana just on grass, so that should help.
Before I put that last dozen mana on grassing that trail down to the lake, I want to instruct my ne defender to patrol the vicinity of my lake and kill any threat less than ten miles from the lake shore.
Now for the data access… I still need to learn about that ruminate group.
Intruder Detected
The invader with the axe is back. It seems confused and alarmed that the plantings it cut down were back, plus the on-cut plants got a lot bigger and another set got planted right next to them.
It starts at the wall again and starts cutting down my trees again. I am glad these grow back on their own or that would get annoying.
It manages to cut down those same fifteen it cut before, but this time it seemed to start melting as it cut at the last few trees.
I guess that is further evidence for wide spread vampirism in this area, as I do not remember the invader guards melting, even though they made it a point to stand in the sun as much as they could, while this one tried to stay in the shadow of whichever tree it was cutting.
To make sure I did not have bits of invader littering my trap, I made sure to remove everything that dripped off of it as soon as it touched the ground.
I would not want little invaders to spawn out of such remnants after all.
Intruder Detected
Oh, the tree-cutter is back, and this time with help. It seems that the help is because the tree cutter cannot move the grown trees by itself after they are down, so it cuts the tree down, the other one starts cutting off branches, then they both move the trunk and branches out of my area. Even working together, they cannot manage nearly as many, only getting the next row of five trees done before they leave.
Scouting Report
A wolf that was approaching the lake was killed. Patrol parameters adjusted to exclude local fauna unless actively attempting to reach the core or wearing the designated emblem.
No new hazards were identified in the vicinity of the dungeon.
A caravan was spotted east of Hazard 1, heading away from the dungeon.
The scouting party consisted of twenty doves, twelve bats, twelve coyotes, four ice doves, one Giant Ice Eagle.
Twenty doves, ten bats, twelve coyotes, four ice doves and one giant ice eagle returned..
There was one invader killed and no resources harvested.
From the plentiful goat to the nearly mythical Mammoth, the group of ruminants and other large herbivorous mammals provides an assortment of seemingly inoffensive ground animals for nearly any environment. Some of them can also provide an impressive amount of force against passive defenses such as walls and stone buildings when in large groups.
Goats are prevalent anywhere with uneven terrain, Horses are popular beasts of burden among tool users, and sheep are frequently domesticated for their wool. While elephants are impressive in warm climates, Mammoths can be a force of nature in the cold.
All animals in this group require advanced spawning.
Some Rhinos, Some Elephants, Horses, Bison, zebras and Giraffes can spawn from grass.
Deer, Some Rhino, Some Elephants, and some Hippos can spawn from trees
Hippos require shallow water and water weeds
Mammoths require icy grass
Whales require deep water
[...]