Fosstodon

Megalithic Portal (Andy B)A defended enclosure, which probably dates to the Iron Age, on the south east facing slopes of a rounded hill towards the head of the Afon Glan-rhyd, Pembrokeshire. It consists of a circular enclosure with a concentric annexe. <a href="https://archaeo.social/tags/HillFortsWednesday" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#HillFortsWednesday</a> <a href="https://archaeo.social/tags/Hillfort" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Hillfort</a> <a href="https://archaeo.social/tags/Wales" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Wales</a> More... 1/2

Undiscovered ScotlandTraprain Law, a whaleback volcanic lump rising to 724ft in East Lothian. It was occupied from the Bronze Age and is said to have been home to King Loth of the Gododdin, who gave Lothian its name. More pics and info: <a href="https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/eastlinton/traprainlaw/index.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/eastlinton/traprainlaw/index.html</a><a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Scotland" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Scotland</a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/TraprainLaw" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#TraprainLaw</a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Hillfort" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Hillfort</a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/EastLothian" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#EastLothian</a>

Jerzy SikoraWas droning in Spycimierz today. <a class="hashtag" href="https://bsky.app/search?q=%23lidar" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#lidar</a> <a class="hashtag" href="https://bsky.app/search?q=%23hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a> <a class="hashtag" href="https://bsky.app/search?q=%23archaeology" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#archaeology</a>

TheriacToday in Valheim Today's stone excursion was to the south east of the hill-fort. I had heard a troll grumbling in the trees when I passed by here the other day scouting out troll locations. The knock-on effect of placing spawn protection in the troll pit has made most of my map notes on troll spots inaccurate to the point of being dangerous. See if you can spot where our friend is hiding. He seemed a bit stand-offish at first, but it turns out it was just pretending to blank me. As soon as I approached he turned around a dabbed like it was 2015. I cringed hard enough for the both of us. You know a trend is well passed its use-by-date if trolls have discovered it. When I started copying its body language and stamping about making gutteral noises, it became a bit sniffy, I think perhaps it thought I was taking the piss. As if I would. Anyway, we set about the surrounding landscape. I took some before and after shots from approximately the same vantage point to clearly illustrate the brutal efficiency of harnessing troll power. Much more impressive than an inventory shot, I think. Want to read more? Wondering what this is? Missed an installment? back issues <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/@Theriac/pages/1738866136039" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/valheim" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#valheim</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/troll-power" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#troll-power</a>

TheriacToday (not) in Valheim - the Hill Fort Saga. I made <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/@Theriac/pages/1738866136039" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">an index</a> of my hill-fort posts for convenience sake, and was surprised by how many installments I have already. It really is a saga. <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/valheim" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#valheim</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/troll-power" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#troll-power</a>

TheriacToday in Valheim This instalment starts as nearly every instalment does, going looking for volunteers to assist in processing building supplies. It was easier than I expected - clearing a stump near to the hill-fort piqued a troll’s interest and just like that, the contract was signed. I led the eager helper around the foot of the hill-fort to process the remainder of the stone in the northern meadow, as well as any large boulders we happened upon along the way. Boulders done, we set about dismantling another of the boat shaped grave markers and a dolmen. Some of you may have spotted the large rocks dotted about along the contours in the last post’s images. I have baulked in the past at bringing trolls too close to the base, but at this point I have no doubt in my skills in precision guiding troll energies. So the day ended by us looping around the terraces, liberating resources. By the time we reached the last unwanted boulder, twilight had come and gone. I’d just fired the helper when a large grey dwarf party of maybe 20 in all arrived, worryingly containing of 2 healers and 2 brutes, presumably having been attracted by the smell of roasting troll. Stagbreaker ftw. The cart was still full from hauling the wood from the trees I’d cut down previously in preparation to expand the hill footprint, so I took a few minutes out to make a second cart before heading off to gather drops from the day. I really have so much wood it’s getting to be a problem. The wood stacks have wood stacks and I’m running out of physical room to store them. So I left any wood to hopefully despawn. In total 765 units of stone. <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/troll-power" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#troll-power</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/valheim" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#valheim</a>

TheriacToday in Valheim Up until this point the focus has been the hill top and making sure there is enough room to expand should I continue on with this play-through and it’s almost there. I’ve had a couple of “The Forest is Moving” events and the crowds of mobs were funnelled into one approach to reach the top by the topography on both occasions. The next stage is all about the sides of the hill. Simplifying a bit here (there was a lot more shoring up going on), but actual hill-fort construction started at the top, with the excess rock and soil from building or altering the profile being thrown down the sides. Work would then proceeded from the summit down, with each successive working level repeating the shaping then dumping on the next level down. In Valheim the hoe has the opposite workflow: start at the bottom, add material to build up, shape. There is an alternative terrain modifying tool - the cultivator will cut a profile into a slope while trying to preserve large terrain dips and rises, will also try to ensure constant width, deforming the terrain to add necessary geometry on all sides of the tool. This makes it an excellent choice for making sloping paths or to get more natural contours, a single pass can make a level area which follows the curves and dips in the landscape, a median pass to level’s gaussian blur. The two can be used together to create wide natural-ish looking contours, while also showing which of the existing, more tightly packed, contours can be merged. The east slope is a good example - it is much more sheer than the west, resulting in multiple confused contours which would benefit from being merged into one. But to do this and not just have a vertical wall I need to expand the footprint of the hill. <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/valheim" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#valheim</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a>

TheriacToday in Valheim As the hill-fort’s footprint expands, I need to keep creating new raised contours lower down the slope, otherwise I end up in a cycle where the game has nothing below the reach limit of the tool and it expects a bottom up approach, so nothing gets placed - you can see the effects of this in a couple of the pics - the contours seem very close together and the ground above them has a rounded sloping profile. The north west to southwest area is the worst for this because there were berry bushes growing on the slopes and also trees sitting on where I need to cut contours. As weird as this might seem, I tend to leave the map as original as I can, but it had finally come time to deal with the stumbling blocks. In 2 of the pictures you can see a large rock that I’ve used as a marker for how far the footprint has expanded.. Ideally I want the hilltop slightly larger than I actually need, as I can make the upper wall sheer by picking the base to narrow it. This should also set the definitive positioning of the access route. Despite the progress I was surprised how quickly I could go through a cartful of stone. I expected to get much more done than I actually did. After the recent couldn’t-move-for-trolls, there appears to be a second troll drought, but I’m putting it down to me looking in the wrong places. Still, not much stone gathering going on though. I hope it picks up soon. Oh for a trollstav. <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/valheim" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#valheim</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/troll-power" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#troll-power</a>

TheriacToday in Valheim I’ve been checking the troll pit regularly, and the spawn protection seems to be working. This might explain why two trolls had spawned so close to the same ore node, one of whom I ran into today whilst foraging for berries. The troll clearly wanted to swap workplace stories, dropping everything the minute he saw me and, as is the way of troll greeting etiquette, started shouting and trying to bond through playing catch. The social niceties over, we set to work processing stones into building materials. Given was a fairly early start, we covered quite a bit of ground, including one of those old boat shaped burial sites (I’d removed the buried treasure a while back). As night fell, I paid the troll for their work with the going rate of 6-7 fire arrows to the head and went back to Dun Musk to rest. Next morning I grabbed the cart and headed back to get resources, and almost succeeded in filling it. At just shy of 1700 of whatever Valheim uses for weight units, I was really feeling the need to have a gentler approach up to the hillfort. Totals collected: 698 stone 251 wood <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/valheim" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#valheim</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/troll-power" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#troll-power</a>

TheriacToday in Valheim Trolls, just when you think you know them … First things first - I have visual confirmation there is more than one troll living in the proximity of the hill-fort. But I’m getting ahead of myself. A comment by <a href="https://writing.exchange/@Firlefanz" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@Firlefanz@writing.exchange</a>, got me thinking. I really wasn’t sure if you could get a troll to entirely mine a copper node. I mean, yes, I’ve used trolls to get ores very early game before having a pick, but never paid much attention to the mechanics in play. I’m still wondering what would happen to an entirely exposed node, because my digging around a node to attempt to test things out, attracted 2 trolls in quick succession. From which point on, I was more taken with living than “for science”ing. This is also why I don’t have that many screen shots. I did however play close attention to who was breaking what. It turns out troll blows will only break ore nodes, this however includes buried nodes close to the surface, which have similar mechanics to a player using the Stagbreaker to look for buried treasure - once you’ve applied enough damage, the container breaks and the freed items will “float” to the surface. There is a caveat though, the radius of troll damage doesn’t seem to go deep enough to affect really deep ores. And related to the above - troll attacks don’t deform terrain, only players can. The mechanic includes those outer copper nodes that have thin copper ore shells wrapped around rock cores, the shell can be broken by trolls but not the core. These types of nodes crucially are what slow players when digging - they don't shatter when struck like pure ore as the game counts them as being part of the terrain mesh and therfore still “buried”. This is also why you can't dig lower than them - the game won't let you make tunnels, only raise or lower the height of the terrain with tools. Another thing to consider about trolls, is troll pathing. Trolls will avoid narrow trenches but will happily enter wider spaces. And, like all Vaheim mobs, if trolls find themselves in terrain that conflicts with their pathing they will go into tilt and just stand there looking lost. But the experience also left part of me wondering if exposing nodes is even necessary. There are enough Black Forest areas in a world to supply sufficient copper just by processing the surface level ores easily in reach of trolls. After the bronze age, only fairly small amounts of bronze and copper are needed.  For the actual resource yield: I left the stone res where it was to despawn as I couldn’t be sure which came from my efforts (I went through a couple of pick repairs attempting to dig around and under the deposit before the trolls arrived) and which were legitimate troll drops. The copper was a decent amount considering none of it was actually mined by me. <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/valheim" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#valheim</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/troll-power" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#troll-power</a>

TheriacToday in Valheim Due to the bulding site like conditions on the northern and eastern sides, the easiest route down is currently to one side of the troll memorial. Heading southish for a change I couldn't believe my eyes - there was a tall stone ruin with a troll standing right next to it, like it was waiting for me. Maybe it was - as I tried to sneak to a position on the top of the ruin to get a good screenshot, one of those bigger tower ruins loved by skeleton archers, the troll clocked me and the smashing began as I was halfway up the broken masonry. I only got one snap as the troll chased me around the ruin because there seemed to be seemingly endless amount of extraneous greylings, boars (wtf guys?) getting up in the mix, making the kiting and staying alive quite challenging. It wasn’t until very late at night I finally got enought space and stamina to put the troll down and headed back to the hill-fort. The next day was miserable and wet, not the kind of weather you want to be haulling a cart about to get resources. In anycase the haul was decent and after a good nights sleep I continued with contouring the north and east sides and building up to have more space around that side of the site. Contouring is essentially me sketching out the shape I want the finished hill to have and also looking at the interplay with the slopes proportions and the spiral access route while it's still easy to change. Of course the elephants in the room are ores and ore processing. Currently I have a kiln and an ore furnace at the site, I also built a dock when I went to gather chitin to make abyssal weapons linked by portal. So I have left myself some choices in the event I still want to continue this playthrough once the hill-fort is complete. It would all depend if I can find some more whacky ways to beat the grind. Which thinking of - I have spotted a mountain area so maybe harnessing a wolf farm into making a minion army to hit the swamps might be fun. Who knowns. <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/valheim" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#valheim</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/troll-power" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#troll-power</a>

TheriacToday in Valheim I started work on clearing the north slope, the first manual work I’ve done since gathering wood for the first hut. I could have used troll labour but wasn't comfortable in kiting unpredictable beasts that close to the fort, the gentle cart access slope up to the top being on that side of the hill, opting instead to use gravity and the steepness of the hillside to speed up the felling and processing of the trunks instead. Felling complete, I headed back to check on the troll pit and “freed” the latest trapped troll. Having considered it, I’d come to the conclusion not to use precious time and resources to landscape the pit just for trolls, I plopped down a crafting table in the centre as a spawn deterrent. Hopefully the 20m radius will be enough, time will tell. Next on the lists was to hire a pair of willing hands to help process the sizeable amounts of stone brazenly taunting me by just laying around the north meadow. It took even less time than expected - a troll was standing about in the tree-line obviously at a loss as what to do with himself as I headed away from the troll pit. Contract signed, I led him through the woods to the work site on the north meadow. For being such massive destructive forces of nature whose natrual habitats are forests, trolls are remarkably on the skittish side when traversing spaces shared with trees: “Ugh! - not going that way, those leaves might brush against me…” This one was a lobber, and after dealing with clubbers for so long, refreshingly easy to direct its energies. We kept at it until early evening, then I fired the troll (literally) and headed off to bed. Got up bright and early the next morning to gather the processed stone resources littering the meadow. A decent haul all told: 354 stone resource <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/valheim" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#valheim</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/troll-power" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#troll-power</a>

TheriacToday in Valheim Before getting down to using the stone resources from the last run, I took the time to build a monument to the patrons who have so generously contributed to the construction of Dun Musk. Monument done, I set about laying down the contours that will be the eventual gradient footprint of the hill on the south and east sides. When I’ve finished I hope to have it seamlessly blending with its surrounds. I greened an area for the bee hives and began to assess what needs doing on the north side of the site. Currently this has the only cart-friendly access route to the top, and given I don’t particularly think employing a troll this close to the main and only building of the fort is wise, I may just have to do some actual manual labour clearing of the slope. Valheim has an underlaying grid that becomes very apparent when using landscaping tools. Great for buildings wanting straight walls or foundations. But it's not exactly what I'm after, I want more organic rounded shapes. The Cultivator tool is very good at making terraces in hill sides which only cost stamina to cut, like the Hoe’s levelling function but also subtly different. I’ll mess around with both on the north side to define the gradients. The slope has a fairly steep angle naturally, the opposite to the southern side, which needed bulking up to limit access. <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/valheim" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#valheim</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/troll-power" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#troll-power</a>

TheriacToday in Valheim. On my way to hire a day worker to get stone resources, I passed by a stone building close to Dun Musk (named to reflect the contributions by trolls) the existence of which had slipped my mind. The unexpected troll from yesterday was also visible from the site. My hubris reasoned I should just de aggro once the resources were processed to avoid another Troll Drought. Anyway, trolls can be a bit wary of stubbing their toes on debris, so it took a couple of days to get both the stone and the felled trees processed into usable resources. All went well and I now had a large amount of resources to collect. Now, Valheim, like all games, has quirks. When a tree is felled, the game crates a trunk instance and a stump instance. Not clearing either, means the game will keep track of associated data, and like any other tracked instance, like say, tame animals, the more there are the more the game starts to lag. Not a major deal, just secondary attack with an axe and in a few hits they’re gone. And this is when I realised how how badly Mr Hubris had fucked me. The noise of axing stumps attracted the troll. And as his spawn point was where I had first seen him, a whole axe-noise, troll aggroed, kite away endless cycle would ensue. As night started to roll in I was also dealing with occasional greylings and grey dwarves behaving like annoying kids hanging around a school bully. Desperate not to kite anything to Dun Musk - I headed to the pit with the troll ramp not knowing what the troll would do when confronted with the ramp. But at the very least it would serve as a distraction to lose aggro and get back to Dun Musk to sleep. The ramp did its job, the greylings and grey dwarves followed me down immediately, letting me deal with one problem. The troll milled about at the top, before committing and a quick dodge later and I’m back at the top of the ramp. As I turned around to check what the troll was doing, there it was, right there, behind me, winding up for an attack. So finally I decide to give up my pacifist ways and off him and headed home. The next morning I went back to the pit to see assess the damage the troll had made to the ramp. Imagine my surprise to find it still in the pit and on spotting me gleefully setting about destroying its only way out. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. I’m still trying to make sense of what happened, but a few things are clear: - trolls will use ramps - ramps being player structures will be targeted by trolls - the Troll drought maybe wasn’t caused by one spawning in the pit - there are multiple trolls near my base, the one that appeared to teleport out of the pit after I ran up the ramp was in the area and drawn by the noise of me kiting the other into the pit. Long story short, as always, my own hubris is my biggest existential threat. But on the bright side, the resource haul was certainly worth the hassle. <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/valheim" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#valheim</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/troll-power" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#troll-power</a>

TheriacToday in Valheim So it seems perhaps my understanding of troll spawning was slightly flawed. A topic I come back to in a bit. I went back to the quarry with the trapped troll to assess the situation. I wanted to liberate him, of course, not because I feel sympathy but because I want more stone and he is the troll closest to where I need it, requiring less effort from me. I have fairly high sneak boosted by my gear set, enough to be able to simply break sight by ducking into foliage to lose a troll pursuit. Despite this, even approaching the edge of the quarry in sneak mode aggroed the troll, meaning any build item I attempted to put down would just get smashed as I placed it. So I put him out his misery, and then built a roof tile ramp. I’ve used these before in lox breeding - a 45º angle tile is a ramp which you can easily ride a lox up and out of a breeding pit, but which the lox themselves won’t use to escape. So I went with a 22º tile for a gentler longer ramp. I didn’t spend too much time on it as being a player structure it may just get smashed up by mobs and/or the troll it’s intended to help and it may not work. I may have to use landscaping instead. Then after having slept I then went back to check on the Dark Forest troll from the other day, when I suddenly ran into a troll just inside the edges of the trees. I say suddenly because he wasn’t there the day before - you can see on the minimap where I've marked troll sightings with the hammer icon. Which brings me back to my partial understanding of troll spawning mechanics. What I knew of troll behaviour was: they spawn near copper nodes or troll caves. I’ve been over the area and mapped where the troll caves are (further away) and there are quite a few copper deposits just inside the Dark Forest - hence our trapped troll had spawned in the area of what the game thought was a copper node and got stuck because it was by that time a massive pit. Thinking about this and my suprise encounter, the realisation hit me - it was after I’d dug out the node that all the trolls I’d been running into close to the hillfort suddenly disappeared. And I hadn’t actually been back to the quarry since I dug it. So it would appear what I thought were 5 - 6 trolls at convenient distances from my project requiring a lot of stone, were, in fact, the same troll respawning at different resource nodes all within walking distance of the hillfort. So long story short - <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/notes/a38f0oqw30" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the troll drought is over</a> - back to smashing up the meadows near the hillfort. <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/valheim" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#valheim</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/troll-power" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#troll-power</a>

TheriacToday in Valheim I’ve widened the south-west to south-east area of the hilltop, the furnace and charcoal kiln used to be perched on the southern most edge, while the workbench upgrades were squeezed in on a narrow north/south ledge. I’ve left the northern side relatively untouched, primarily because of the beehives which I'll move once I have the southern side finished. I also went on a scouting excursion. I discovered the nearest troll has managed to get himself stuck in the massive hole left after I dug out a copper node to get mats to make bronze. Roofing tiles make decent ramps and can bear considerable weight with reinforcement, a technique I’ve used in the past in lox farms. However our friend is a lobber, I’m thinking killing him first then building a ramp out of the hole is probably the less frustrating course to take. The Troll from the last update is still thriving. He’s in kiting distance of 2 stone towers, one of which is fairly large for a world generated building. The downside being 2 grey dwarf nests within earshot, meaning whatever the troll does around the stone buildings will attract attention from both nests. Killing nests isn’t hard, but for this play through, I’m all about trimming out things that aren’t stricly necessary. I’ll try cutting wood near the towers to see what reaction it gets and go from there. <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/valheim" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#valheim</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/troll-power" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#troll-power</a>

TheriacToday in Valheim. Today's resource run was particularly fun. Before lingering on the highlights, I'd like to take a moment to discuss the topic of "Surely there are easier ways to get large amounts of stone resources?" Yes. Yes there are. Easiest of all would be to camp a Grey Dwarf spawner. The gear I currently have means I'm at that point where there are no major exitential threats and that includes Grey Dwarf gangs and Grey Dwarf Brutes. Camping a nest gives a steady stream of wood, stone, resin and dwarf eyes. But it’s a safe, slow burn rather than an intense blaze with rogue sparks. Then there are the cheese methods - digging a hole under a nest and linining it with spikes and afking nearby, digging under stone structures until they collapse. For me having to keep repairing the pick, keep my rested bonus and stamina/nutrition up over the day or days the digging would take makes the process a little too grindy for my tastes. I much prefer to use the enemy as my tool. To be clear I’m not looking to shame anyone who uses these methods, just stating they are not for me. So anyway back to today's run. I came on our work force deeper into the Black Forest than I would like. I think it's fair to say the biggest failing of the tree trunk or baby elephant sized missile as a weapon is the collateral damage they create. The Black Forest is full of densly clumped trees, any one of which would be lethal were it to fall directly on me, or have enough rolling momentum. Add into the mix Valheim lets trees domino each other. So to say Black Forest troll encounters tend to be adrenaline fuelled, would just about cover things. I kited the troll to a nearby 3 story stone tower which was almost intact, and proceeded to encourage our friend to manufacture stone. After about 10 minutes or so I de-aggroed the situation as safely navigating the fallen tree trunks was making it much harder to evade the troll’s attacks (note the health potion timer top right). It took me longer to cart the resources back to the hillfort, than it did to generate them. <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/valheim" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#valheim</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/troll-power" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#troll-power</a>

TheriacToday in Valheim. I kind of regretted not taking screenshots of the site prior to begining the landscaping, so I started a new game with the same seed with the express purpose of grabbing screenies of the early site and rebuilt the original shack to boot, where I lived in while building the bigger house on the west hillock, then switched back to the actual save to continue the hillfort. The 280 odd units of stone from the last zero hour contract with the troll has helped backfill the site. I now have a level strip running across the middle of the site which I can use to create the top contour. The runestone visible on the edge of the site when looking west was buried by the time the second last image was taken. <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/valheim" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#valheim</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/troll-power" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#troll-power</a>

TheriacToday in Valheim Finally came across a troll skulking in a clump of pines not too far from a meadow with large rocks dotted around. The <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/notes/a35mrkq015" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Iron Age hillfort project</a> is back on! After getting his attention with a polite tap on the head with a fire arrow, the chase was on. Trolls come in 2 basic varieties - lobbers who throw baby elephant sized rocks at targets, and clubbers who wield a tree trunk. Of the two I prefer the lobbers, as they have shorter reach and the timings for dodging are slightly more predictable due to the missiles having a slow trajectory. And infact, if you look closely at the images you can see by the skull icon where I mistimed a dodge and met the buiness end of the tree trunk about halfway through the run. Not a big deal as the hillfort, and therefor my spawn point, is at the southern end of the meadow. As the sun began to set, I quickly finished off the troll as night sees large ganking gangs of Grey Dwarves and their healers roving about who would be drawn by all the noise and side with the troll. <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/valheim" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#valheim</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/troll-power" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#troll-power</a>

TheriacToday in Valheim. This is a bit of a side project, light relief from whatever is currently going on in the main save. A newish start and I've begun building on the border between Meadows and Black Forest. As a result there are roughly 5 troll spawns within walking distance. The site originally was a hill with two humps on the crown one of which is buried under the current house situated on the western side, the other in the east is still visible. All the wood used to build the house along with the stone used to fill and flatten the hill top has come from me kiting trolls around to get them to "supply" the raw materials. My aim is to build an Iron Age style hillfort with a spiral access route, currently I'm working on infilling the top, and from there I'll start making a palisade on top of the raised dykes. <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/valheim" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#valheim</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/hillfort" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hillfort</a> <a href="https://plasmatrap.com/tags/troll-power" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#troll-power</a>

Recent searches

Search options

Administered by:

Server stats:

#hillfort