(From Left to Right) Dwarf Hold [Altar of Kings], Dwarf Hold [Gryphon Aviary], Fortified Mine Entrance, Mine Entrance

Dwarf Holds are the only true settlements for the dwarves, right now theres 4 appearance types, the altar of kings, gryphon aviary, barracks and high elven barracks. Holds are strong, sturdy and have a high starting income cap, basically a castle-city, as well as the same growth speed as humans - whats special about these holds is that you can increase the income mana cap similar to the system in Krackles' Diplomacy, there will be some risks here, with chances of failure and even reducing your income as you expand your hold.

The two to the right are mine entrances which also give some income (200g max which is equal to an elven village), the fortified version is basically what it says on the label, its just an armored version.
Why the need for armor? Well this leads us to the unique system to the dwarves which is the tunnel connection system, essentially waygates. You can use the holds and these mine entrances to connect to each other for some income allowing you to move about on the map better than anyone else.

I mentioned last post that i'd make a dwarf town that works similarly to the existing human/elf towns, addons and all. Anyways I can't find a decent model to make a town with so i've put that on hold, I guess you can use a human town as some sort of 'trade partner' owned by you to make the addons instead.

Like the other old race, the Elves, Dwarves also have a greater reliance on prestige, but this time prestige is mostly needed for expansion and building new holds rather than basic maintenance and unit training like the elves.
A crumbling Dwarf Empire with little prestige would still be able to fight and survive but they need to gain more prestige from other players or by battle to actually create new holds.

(From Left to Right) Elven Town /w Obelisk (generates Prestige), Elven Spire (Castle), Elven Village, Human Keep from last post, Elven City, Occupied Human Town /w Pallisades + Elven Spire, Elven Hall (Keep)

If you noticed there I mentioned Prestige, I'm currently renovating the income system so its gold and prestige (instead of resources)
Prestige will be used to create more high tier units like knights. In the later periods (KaN 1869?) Prestige will mean less and is used in huge bulks rather than for every other unit.

Prestige also plays a crucial role for the elves, most of their units and structures require prestige and also generate prestige. This means an elf nation without much prestige will eventually crumble and fall.
Income-wise elven settlements have a higher income cap (especially the city!) than their human counterparts, but it grows very slowly.
Dwarf-wise they probably start with a lower income cap and regen the same-ish time as humans but you can spend gold to increase their mana/income cap.

Been toying around with buildable settlements recently, while I know that it'll be less 'custom' and pretty overall, it'll allow for a less-doodad-extensive aka less-laggy map.
After all, with the preset doodad settlements that means that when we delve into fantasy elements, you'll have eg preset elven places making fantasy players more limited overall instead of a fully free approach.

I'll probably finish up the rest of the terrain and make a buildable settlements only ver of the map, it'll be quicker to finish that than add the rest of the custom doodad settlements KaN will have

I ended up editing Wandering Soul's Village-Town-City model, adding more houses, along with a custom pathing map that allows you to build stuff in the center of the town (allowing the use of the current build spot system)

This will allow players to keep the customizable aspect of the settlements and even add new ones for would-be elven conquerors (a la elven noble towers to rule over human settlements and train units too!)

To make it more strategy-like (and provide less building spam lag too) the buildable settlements (and the build spot addons) will be able to train units just like your every other strategy map, war camps will probably be renewed into larger and expensive encampments to encourage less spam

Given the above, the towns/villages/cities will only train your basic units, knights and the like will be trained by your castles. Special units could be trained by the encampments or the settlement addons (eg the above factory making cannons)

So here's a overlook I forgot to put up, by the time you've seen this, a new ver (probably buggy) would have gone up with all the new remade terrain changes.

As you can see, much of the wooded center of the north is now a huge plains area, perfect for the steppe hordes.
There is little resources in this area, which is why most of the settlements are only in wooded areas and dot around the bay.

and the most important part... the bay - the big trade circle is the new mechanic 'flow of trade' which basically represents trade domination of one area.
Hopefully this bay region will be a good source of central'd roleplay and conflict.
There's two trade cities here:
The western city has a bigger port but is furthest away from the 'flow of trade cp', however, it is close to alot of villages with manpower, though those villages (which are barbarian) could be a problem if another player controls it.
The central city is closest to the 'flow of trade cp' but there are little settlement cps nearby, the owner of the central cp has the plains just south of him, which will mean he'll need to go beyond that and have spread out settlements. On the positive note, he can see all approaching enemies coming with ease.

There is a third contender, which is the castle to the right. Its the only castle in the north and it has a village with the same size port as the central city, there is a large forest to its right with a few settlements. Its proximity to the northern isle I showed you last time provides a problem but also a reward.

After a long break from finishing most of the western map, the only thing left is the north.

Heres the biggest border-town with the 'Transylvania' region, known ig as Midderisk, with the north being less hospitable for crops, expect more fence'd troughs for animals and hay - with those taller hay buildings being more prevalent depending on how north you are.

At the right there is the vanilla wc3 building size, pretty big, huh?

Decided that i'd remake things in the order I built them in the first place, this allows me to deal with the obvious addition of interior space (since the doodads are smaller) better as well - first stop is 'Transylvania' and the 'Dracula Castle'

Tried to take the screenshots at about the same height, as you can see the newer one takes a lot less space but still gets the job done. imo it doesn't look as good as I would have wanted, but i'll improve it in the 'KaN Renaissance-1869' version (where the story of Dracula actually happened)

Throne Room/Court after resized doodads - real messy

Throne Room/Court

Dungeons - with the free space i'll be adding dungeons to most if not all interiors, still have to fiddle with how the player will control the doors though

Dining room and tower interiors (fits with the exterior) - a dining room, library, study, and a bedroom fitting a damsel in distress

That's it for now guys, after I complete the rest of the 'Transylvania' area, it's down to the southern 'Greek' city states

Heres a look at the old and new version of the latest city in KaN.
I was inspired by Katanova's colony settlement so I got the same building doodads which seem to be more medieval/renaissance friendly than the default ones.

It might look roughly the same size but if you use the northern mountains as a comparison device, the after version is much narrower.
Keep in mind that along with the smaller walls, the city buildings are new and smaller along with the other doodads and circles of power.

I also added a bit of an experimental feature which was parts of the city that leaked out beyond the walls, obviously not all cities were surrounded by walls and not all cities had walls covering all of it - if you look at the medieval florence image before you'll see what I mean.

I'm unsure about this experimental feature, it looks kinda crude but fits at the same time, though it may act as a blocker for player-built developments along with the actual renaissance+ star fort additions which would be included in the 'KaN 1869 version'  - though perhaps the KaN 1869 version would have a bigger city where the leaking out-of-wall town would be more developed and there would be a new wall beyond it.

Tell me what you think guys, especially any suggestions to make the city better (perhaps using some 'special' building doodads like taverns etc?) and more importantly on the leaking settlements outside the city walls.