Tunneling Trade Routes Through Mountains
From AgeofWiki
This tutorial demonstrates another way to make an Underground Trade Route or Railroad, using elevations, in AOE III with The Asian Dynasties Expansion.
This is an alternate method to that described in Underground Railroad and features props which retain their flat appearance, like a piece of cardboard, when placed on uneven ground.
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Example: Deccan Plateau - The Basics
The Object PROP UNDERBRUSH JUNGLE, a simple green mat of moss, does not conform to the contours of the terrain underneath it. Instead, it bridges small gaps in the terrain contour to create the illusion of solid ground. It can easily be positioned to bridge a small canyon encompassing a trade route. It also blends well with the forest types Yucatan and Amazon Rainforest. This terrain set luckily matches the natural terrain of many places in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. In this example, we make a massive plateau with a trade route tunneling underneath, ready to be upgraded to locomotive. The difference between this technique and the pillar-based technique, is that no buildings are necessary to cover the smaller gap. So the plateau need not be built-up, it can be a mountain in the wilderness, or a village, or a lonely bastion.
The tunnel openings should be oriented so that players can see only a small distance inside, because the walls of the cleft are very close together and are intended to be a narrow tunnel. Choose lighting and orient your trade route accordingly. A good guideline is you should be able to see only the trade vehicles plunging into the cliff face as if burrowing in. Additionally, the cleft may accommodate units only a very short way, because they are at risk for getting trapped inside the narrower cleft. This is where placing a building straddling the cleft at either end, works in your favor. The building's "footprint" will block the path of units trying to use it as a passageway.
The other advantage to using a small cleft is that you can put many trade posts close to each other, and also meander the trade route back on itself, to milk more XP from a given area map than is normally possible using tunneling techniques. As with any other tunnel, the cliff or cleft height should be at least 14 so that locomotive steam does not clear the tops of your covering props.
Building the Cave
For this exercise, you need to have View>View Terrain Grid and Terrain Grid Minor Tickings on.
Place your Trade Route first, such that the part you want to go through a Cave runs obliquely (a 45-degree angle to due "north") to LIMIT visibility into the tunnel, but rather show the trade route emerging from "solid" cliff. You can meander it quite a bit, so your trade route length is LONG and adds to the illusion of solid ground overhead.
Raise a cliff pillar of height 14.00, and then use that height to Copy Elevation and paste a large massif over your Trade Route, at the same elevation as the Cliff.
Now that you have a nice broad roundish plateau, begin excavating your tunnel. Use the smallest brush. Use Copy Elevation to copy the ground elevation, and lower the entire trade route to ground level.
When you are done lowering the entire trade route track (and ONLY the trade route track), use the Smooth tool to smooth the outer edges of the plateau so it's more like a sloping hill on its flanks. Do not let the smooth tool ANYWHERE near your recently excavated trade route track.
Texturing and Cliffwork
Now pick a cliff type that blends well with Prop Underbrush Jungle. Amazon, Bayou, and Caribbean can all work well with this texture scheme. Apply the cliff tool paintbrush at the same height as your plateau. Use it close to, but not actually on, the edges of the cleft you made. It will convert the sharp margins of the cleft to actual cliff edges. If you make a mistake and "close the gap", ctrl-Z to restore the gap, pull the paintbrush a little farther away from the cleft, and try again.
Use the Cliff Tool at various heights near your trade route tunnel entrance, to build up a natural-looking and interesting cliff face.
Use the Terrain tool to paint one or more matching terrains in and around the cliff areas. This will also help the cover props blend into your map. Here I am using Amazon cliff type and Amazon grass terrain types.
Roofing the Tunnel
Select Objects>Place Object>Embellishment>PROP Underbrush Jungle. Right-click to cycle through the different underbrush objects until you find the larger patch of moss. This is the one we will be using to cover our trade tunnel. As you can see, you can't put them directly over the Trade Route, but you can put them elsewhere on the map and then move them into position. You can also see how they retain their flat shape even when positioned over a deep gap. This is how they will cover the gap and make it look like solid ground.
Lay out several copies of the large moss mat by using Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V to copy and paste that exact prop.
Use Objects>Position Object to drag them into place over the cleft. Position the "center of gravity" of the moss mats so that as much mat as possible hangs over the cleft, but the mat doesn't descend into the cleft. The cliff edges should be hidden.
When the cleft is completely covered, you should not be able to see the trade travois peeking out from between mats. In this example, 41 mats were used to cover the cleft under the plateau. This prop is very economical and a few dozen extra Gaia units do not present much in the way of lag.
Blending and Building Around the Route
The trade route is covered, but the mats line up in a telltale track. To blend the mats in with the surrounding terrain, it's helpful to place forests and additional mats scattered about. Use the Forest Tool and a small brush to paint in some Amazon Rainforest. Set "Underbrush Density" bar to fairly high, so you have plenty of extra mats in your forests. If a forest placed too close to the cleft erases some of your cover-mats, just Ctrl-Z until the original mats return to place, back away from the cleft, and begin again.
Place trade sockets on the plateau, close to the trade route.
Test your tunneling Trade Route in the Editor. Make sure you can:
- reach all sockets with your explorer(s)
- build on each socket
- accumulate XP from each socket
- research upgrades
- that the socket appearance and Trade Route vehicles are appropriate to the map type, e.g. Asian maps vs. New World maps.
If they're not, go back into the Editor and set the Map Type (World>Map Type) to the one most appropriate for your scenario.
Bringing It All Together
Buildings: Pick a building type that reflects the flavor or setting of your scenario. For instance, Southeast Asia, Amazon Basin, Hawaii, or the Congo all share a lush rainforest and mountainous cliff theme. Use minor native props, Gaia buildings, campaign buildings, and other props that can't be attacked.
Lighting: Check your lighting to make sure it highlights the structures on top of the route, while preserving the illusion that it disappears into the mountainside.
Make sure that the canopy of your Cave is high enough to avoid telltale steam plumes from the Locomotive to peek through the canopy.
Practical Considerations: Test the scenario in the editor on Sandbox to look for buildings and units that attack each other. Often functional errors won't be apparent until you actually test it in a test-game. Testing at each step, and looking for potential problems before placing extensive terrain props, will help you fine-tune your tunneling Trade Route so it's realistic, attractive, and functional.
For more unique ideas about underground tunnels and caves, see Underground Railroad, How to Make a Covered Cave, and Underground Pools and Streams.
