[5.3.4] The First Dwarves generates underground as part of the overworld about wyrmsun

[Andrettin]

This was a change in version 4.0.0; from its changelog:

"The Nidavellir scenarios now take place in a single map layer. The underground portions of the map are now in the same layer as the surface portions, but retain their peculiar characteristics, e.g. cave walls being non-passable by air units and missiles."

I felt that having to handle multiple map layers was bothersome for the player, so I sought to put everything on a single layer (the engine still supports multiple map layers though). IMO this works well as long as the underground areas border surface ones mostly via cave walls (which unfortunately is not always the case; sometimes we have large open underground areas bordering surface areas due to how the map generation algorithm works).

About a quest to defeat a rival dwarf tribe, there is the Andvari's Gold side-quest, but it depends on an event creating that dwarven faction.

[SenhorFlibble]

I felt that having to handle multiple map layers was bothersome for the player

I don't know, I liked it the way it was. It was logical and the transition between layers was clear and unambiguous. It also felt pretty oldschool, like HoMM3 or Master of Magic (Armies of Exigo also comes to mind). The hybrid overworld/underground map on the other hand looks very odd to me.

As you can clearly see in the screenshot, that air units can fly into the "cave" area without trouble -- making the quest too easy (because the kobolds have no air defences) as it was the case in the early versions, where the kobold/wyrm tribe was located on the same map as the dwarf settlement, without the underground part. I actually assumed that the latter was added exactly to prevent the player from abusing gryphon riders.

Speaking of which, obtaining gryphons could be made into a side-quest of its own, IIRC there's a neutral gryphon nest building. There's a mission in Warcraft III where the orcs tame the wyverns to be later used as air units, which could be more or less replicated here as well (reach gryphon nest(s) in the mountains to tame them). Same for yale riders, currently you have the yale hunting lodge side-quest (or rather, mission objective), but its completion is disconnected from the player's ability to train yale riders.

BTW, what's with the goblin hero that appears on the map sometimes and shares vision with the player? I found no explanation of that character's purpose.

[Andrettin]

I don't know, I liked it the way it was. It was logical and the transition between layers was clear and unambiguous. It also felt pretty oldschool, like HoMM3 or Master of Magic (Armies of Exigo also comes to mind). The hybrid overworld/underground map on the other hand looks very odd to me.

Hmm, personally I felt it was fine for delving into the underground to adventure there, but was bothersome to wage war across layers. But there are downsides to putting everything on the same layer as well, as you mentioned. I agree that the underground layer was great in HoMM3, but since that was a TBS players could take their time to manage multiple layers. In an RTS, if a unit of yours is attacked in a different layer, it can be bothersome to switch back and forth.

Maybe the underground layer functionality could be better used in a smaller map built around that purpose, rather than the big Nidavellir map.

Gryphon Riders were never restricted from entering the underground, their only restriction in this regard is that they can't fly over cave walls like they can with rocks.

Speaking of which, obtaining gryphons could be made into a side-quest of its own, IIRC there's a neutral gryphon nest building. There's a mission in Warcraft III where the orcs tame the wyverns to be later used as air units, which could be more or less replicated here as well (reach gryphon nest(s) in the mountains to tame them). Same for yale riders, currently you have the yale hunting lodge side-quest (or rather, mission objective), but its completion is disconnected from the player's ability to train yale riders.

A quest like that would be fun, but restrictions like that would have to be handled with care. It would probably have to be a map-specific condition for being able to train yale/gryphon riders, since we would likely want that restriction to not be in place for skirmish maps. Another point is that dwarves might live in areas where we would expect them to have domestic yales, even if there are no wild yales there. For instance, if the dwarves live in caves they possibly would still have domestic animals with them.

BTW, what's with the goblin hero that appears on the map sometimes and shares vision with the player? I found no explanation of that character's purpose.

That sounds like a bug. I haven't seen that myself, which hero was that? Or if it is not a bug, it could be that a goblin player recruited the hero and sent them scouting, and then the goblin town hall was destroyed, leading the goblin player's remaining units (i.e. the hero) to be revealed.