I wrote in my last Conan Exiles post how I’d been working on a gigantic concept build on my single-player Exiled Lands map when the Age of Heroes came along with its living settlements feature and destroyed the whole thing.

OK, that’s dramatic. Funcom has already patched Living Settlements (I haven’t tried the feature since the patch, so nothing to report here), and much of the problem with my build was caused by a long-standing issue in Conan Exiles: thralls – and the occasional player – suddenly falling through solid objects like floors, foundation block, and even occasionally the map.

I’d never animated my thralls before, outside of the animations included with the base game (and the DLCs). The worst that ever happened was that I would have to keep picking the same thralls out of the same bits of flooring every day for a few days in a row.

I developed very lazy building tendencies.

Aresburg: Part 1

I’m playing as Ares, God of War, because go big or just stay on the couch, right? When I decided to buckle down and concentrate on a single long-term build for my personal use, I thought about how I love to keep working on projects, occasionally tear stuff down and start over, and also how much fun it was to fill up empty spaces with the various souvenirs one collects wandering a hostile countryside and murdering the villagers. Like you do.

I thought it would be fun to build five or six different cities. Each would have its own basic style, but be a little eclectic. They’d be spread out so there would be room to grow. And I’d grow them towards each other, eventually forming a giant metropolis of gentrified horde.

The biggest problem was that I got so overwhelmed by the scope of my own project that I started to really half-ass it. Entire city walls made out of nothing but stacked foundation blocks. Stacked foundations everywhere. My entire build was a cold stony grave for any NPC unlucky enough to traverse that one spot over there where suddenly the rules of physics no longer applied and it became embedded to the waist in foundation. Or worse. It would sink down two or three levels, and I’d have to rip buildings apart to get it out again.

Now, imagine this happening (more or less) to every single thrall on the entire server. In all six of my cities (only one of which was really all that far along, but still…). All at once.

PANIC!

I’d built my city on top of a tunnel system just big enough to hide crafting stations beneath their respective store fronts, and the rest? Solid foundation now packed with eternally dying carpenters, smelters, barkeeps, and dancers. Those not stuck forever standing on tables or co-locating in time and space with a chair.

This was not going to work. I’d never taken path-aware NPCs into consideration when building. Once a thrall fell through something, it was just a stroke of luck it would be in one of the few spots in which they’d be accessible.

Also, the entire build had become an unorganized clusterhoosit of epic proportions.

I’d forgotten to organize.

Aresburg: Part 2

I didn’t start from scratch, but it might have been quicker if I had. The truth is, tearing apart the city and building it – leaving only what I could get away with, which wasn’t much – was great for the build over all. The original concept for my first and central city was that it be built on the ruins of an old fortress that had fallen into serious disrepair over the ages. Couldn’t have asked for a better concept than that if you’re going to be tearing apart walls and patching things up. Change building materials, and voila! Instant new construction very apparent amidst the old.

I also decided I needed to organize this monster build, and perhaps hold off on the thriving metropolis concept until I got things back under control. Also, I never EVER want to traverse the entire map picking wayward thralls out of mid-air again. By the time I finish the core of my build (and leave creative build mode behind), either the Living Settlements feature will be fixed enough that I’ll be able to use it, or it won’t be something that will ever work for this particular build and I’ll keep using the Immersive Routines mod.

There was no way I wanted to repeat the mistake of the first build. Ares was getting lost in those tunnels every time he went below decks. I couldn’t ever remember where I’d placed guards, or where the nearest smelting furnace was in relation to this relatively nondescript section of tunnel all made from the Arena building set. I’d wind up with ten guards at the gates, and then on one minding the store to make sure the minions didn’t make a run for it.

So… planning. I actually like planning things. I’m not OCD, but I do have monotropism. When I get into something I really get into it.

This is all very me-centric, but it’s a single-player mode of Conan Exiles. I’m the only person who matters because I’m the only person there. I started to think about what I wanted in a build. No matter how large or small, I wanted it to be convenient to get around. Easy to find things, and pretty much everything close by no mater where I was. Also, it should be a little fun and corny while still retaining the air of adventure. Probably more of a Xena than Conan feel, really.

The redesign of Aresburg necessitated thinking in terms of districts and neighbors, with a relatively equal distribution of interactives like crafting stations, so that no matter where I was on the build it wouldn’t be a hassle to find something. The underground crafting still worked for me as a concept. Even more so now that I had to think in terms of keeping the build stable (enough) while stacking buildings on top of each other.

The Golden Mile was born.

Rather than rebuild a stuffy set of Arena tunnels, I kept the basic structure (old fortress) and then rebuilt the tunnel system as home to a sprawling shopping district. Well, sprawling in terms of a subsurface build in a video game. There are plenty of stairs to get from one level to the next, and almost every single bit of it is designed so that an NPC following a scripted routine (or some sort of path-finding logic) can get itself out if it falls through a floor.

Which they do on rare occasion… and it works!

Also, Aresburg 2 is much more navigable. Now, I know I can turn left at “Maurice’s” fine subterranean cuisine to reach the nearest armorer or inventory drop point. Living Settlements has to be fixed at some point, so I’ve created dedicated housing for each NPC. Some, like basic grunts, living in barracks, but many have their own homes. It’s a great excuse to keep building without everything becoming yet another clusterhoosit.

With my NPCs now capable of wandering around following a set path, I decided to distribute my city watch the same way I had the NPCs. Aside from them all having housing in the same general area they were responsible for patrolling, I implemented a basic command structure with very few ranks, decided how many of each I would need for each part of the city, then started planning the continuation of my build to suit those needs.

The Results

So far, I’m really pleased with the results. Everything is working great. When I do take time out from building to go exploring with Liu Fei, the city is in full swing when I return. Guards are still walking the streets. Archers are still spotting from the walls. And now there are community kitchens, baths, toilets, and crafting shops worth patrolling.

I’m not done yet, and it’s probably much more than anyone ever wants to know about someone’s Conan Exiles build, but I’m pretty pleased with the results. Especially the toilet franchise. Do you have any idea how rich the owner of that business is, in a city with no plumbing or waste removal? Think about it, but not too hard because ick.

There’s a reason they call him “Mister”.