The role of caves

Hi !

First time posting a topic on these forums, please indulge me if I broke any rules.

I’m currently visiting south west of France, and I’ve just been to the caves of Sara.

There, you’ll find history of mankind living in those caves since the megalithic era.

The tour was quite nice and our guide particularly explained how during winter tribes would live by the sea and in summer would live in caves.

They are - caves - merely 20km from the sea, but it shows how important migration of an entire tribe could be, when facing climate and need of ressources.
Indeed, I’ve learned that during summer, the caves provided the tribe with fresh water, cool air and natural shelter. It was also beneficial for the hunters which found more animals in mainland.

They had flint tools which could only come from another quite far spot where it was mined.

Eventually,
Will caves exist at all in the base game ?
Would it come with a DLC ?
Or can it be added by modding ?

For short, caves have an interesting gameplay which fits with the neolithic history.

Cheers and keep up the good work guys !

(Been writing this post on my phone, with little to no internet connection, forgive me.)

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Hi !
Congrats for your first topic !

The devs talk a bit about cave in an old topic:

The subject was on the table at that time but not tackle yet. So we will see

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Caves would be a neat addition to the game, but would effecrt dynamics. Caves might retard development of structures and the layout of a settlement will have to follow the dynamics of the cave system.

This might be hard to code cave interiors. However areas with caves normally have a fair few, so if each cave is given a purpose one need not include anything more than the cave entrance locations and number of caves, which may or may not link. Linked caves do not matter as it will be easier in nearly all cases to link the caves by external paths.

Handled this way caves become just another type of building, just with different structural dynamics and random placement.

Not necessarly, caves could be either an early game shelter that allows you to focus on hunting during summer, but it would also be useful later in the game if you have to hide survivors of a raid.

Gameplay wise, we don’t need to see the interior of the caves, the devs could make the cave as a habitat structure. Life would thrive outside the cave and we’d see our tribe move in and out of it.

Moreover, caves could become dangerous in winter because of animals, particularly bears.

Caves could also be used for spiritual, cultural gatherings of your tribe.

I believe devs will tackle caves with great care and if it is included in AC vanilla, it’d be happy !

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I agree that caves can be considered as a house, but it should be a “special” house. As it has been said, caves could be used for rituals, ceremonies, etc. Maybe it would be a good idea to represent this showing citizens outside of the cave when rituals, or paintings, or whatever are being carried out (dancing, singing, whatever), just to show the player that something “special” is happening within the cave.