You dare bring light to my Lair?! news - Hyrule Conquest mod for 0 A.D. Empires Ascendant

Last time we took a look at the upcoming Node system and how maps will be designed and bases will work. Another feature I've been wanting to add to Hyrule Conquest is directly connected to map Nodes, and that feature would be Lairs.

Once again if you have played The Battle for Middle Earth you have some idea of how Lairs work. Lairs are "structures" that a player can encounter that continually spawn hostile wildlife until they are destroyed. Often they represent some kind of nest that wild creatures settle in to raise their families, lay eggs, or otherwise spawn future generations of themselves.

So how does this tie to Nodes? Simply put, players will have to overcome and destroy Lairs in order to actually capture Nodes. With some exceptions, most Nodes start the game with some kind of Lair guarding them. The size of the Lair and the number of creatures that live nearby scales with the value of the Node. As an example, a Lumber Node out in the middle of the woods probably will only have a tiny Lair occupied by several Skulltulas, while you can expect the extremely valuable Outpost Node to house a giant cavern full of an entire pack of raging Dodongos ready to slaughter your approaching troops.

Not all Lairs are equal, however. The biome of a map and the nature of the creatures occupying the Lairs can change the dynamics of how players must deal with them. A cave full of Dodongos will likely mind their own business until you go out of your way to antagonize them, never leaving the bounds of their territory if you decide to run away. A den of Arachas on the other hand may go into a frenzied rage and send swarms of attackers to retaliate and destroy your base once you've attacked them.

Other creatures like Leevers will actively leave their Lairs and seek out prey to kill, only returning if the Lair is being threatened. The insanely huge roster of creatures from the Zelda series means that there will be no shortage of Lair encounters and there will be a lot of fun in discovering just how some of these creatures react to your armies when you threaten their nests.

Ultimately, the game-ending Wonder Nodes are guarded by a giant Boss monster. You'll have to earn that Wonder Victory by defeating such a Boss. Several Boss creatures have been in Hyrule Conquest for some time, and more details and features for these huge creatures will be added down the road when the Hero system and Hero abilities have been added to the engine.

And that is a general overview of Lairs, a very simple feature but one that I really enjoy and look forward to putting more detail in as time goes on. Next time I'll go into more detail about yet another new feature that is directly tied to the new Node system, a feature I've been extremely excited for for a long time.