One of the problems of focusing on base building and crafting… what I referred to as “playing house” previously… in a game like Conan Exiles is that you start to feel very much rooted in one location. That is where all your stuff is, where you can repair your stuff, cook longer lasting food, and where you respawn when you inevitably die because that is where you have planted your bed.
Conan Exiles
You can make progress just hanging out in the area where you have put down roots. Potshot picked a spot for us near the river, between a couple of camps, and close to some coal and iron deposits, so we initially built up some stores, equipped ourselves and our followers, and advanced up the crafting chain without having to go very far afield.
In fact, there is a spot near us that spawns a named fighter every day, so even our stock of followers is made up of some interesting individuals.
But the map of Conan Exiles goes well beyond our little neighborhood. In fact, it goes much further than I initially thought.
The Conan Exiles default map
In the game when you open the map it is zoomed in enough that you only see rows 1 through 9. It wasn’t until later when I was looking for something that I noticed it went all the way up to row 17. Granted, some of that stuff above row 9 is empty, but still, more space than I thought.
(There are better maps on the Wiki or online if you want to drill into it.)
Our base and immediate stomping ground is in columns H and I in rows 4 and 5. That represents things within an easy walk… and there have been enough resources in that vicinity to sustain us, including iron and brimstone, into steel weapons and tools. But there was a whole map still waiting to be discovered… also, we needed a regular supply of heavy hide which is required for heavy padding which is needed to craft heavy armor.
In furtherance of that, I built a secondary base up in the G6 box as a spot to cache some resources and as a safe spot to put down a bedroll while out exploring. Also, we clearly love making bases.
A small base… banners taken from the neighbors
Unlike Valheim, you can have two respawn points, your bed, which I keep back in our main base, and a bedroll, which you can drop where ever, though it is nice to have it someplace where you won’t get jumped immediately.
There were, of course, camps of other exiles around to fight with. But from that base Potshot and I went west to the big orange blot on the map which turned out to be the Unnamed City.
Can I give it a name if I discovered it?
We were a little wary going in there. Potshot had lost a follower… literally couldn’t find him… in the area after getting killed by the skeletons who are around the area. The follower later showed up back at our main base, there being some mechanic that sends them back home if you logoff. Things to look into.
This location was a good example of things you just don’t get with a game based on procedurally generated map.
Looking out over the city
We didn’t go into the city proper, being a bit intimidated, a follower short, and seeing groups of four or five skeletons loitering in the the distance at times. But it was a good example of the hand crafted map that makes up Conan Exiles.
Taking in the city vista… no wonder it is orange on the map…
We returned safely from that, though as I mentioned previously, we ran into an NPC who told us a tale of the place… and gave us an emote.
Gilzan is suspicious of this whole hidden city thing
That didn’t net us much, save for a bit more information about the lay of the land.
We also independently ranged out, Potshot heading southward, back into the desert where one starts off, finding some different species. Potshot also ran into what he called the glowing wall of death, which if you attempt to walk through you die… leading to a difficult corpse recovery.
I went a bit northward for out mini base and found a savanna-like area in G7 that had rhinos, elephants, and tigers in abundance.
It is also very hot here, bring plenty of water and don’t eat spicy food
Those are nice because they can be skinned for heavy hide as well as their own specific hide types, which can be used for different armor sets.
There is, also, at least one lion out there in a very obvious spot.
If you’ve seen Lion King, you know where that lion is…
More interesting though was on the far side of the area, where there is a big fortress with all sorts of guards who have, among other things, a giant pet snake.
Can you really order a snake to attack?
I left that for later.
Potshot and I also spent a bit of time going eastward up the big river, running into various creatures.
Always big artifacts on high places
It is a little more tropical and less arid that direction. It even rained on us, something I hadn’t see our way. We only get sandstorms in our neighborhood.
But one thing Potshot found that direction a while later were horses. There is a regular spawn spot to grab them and bring them back, so he built a stable and started on taming horses. We were going to have mounts.
The first horse in the queue
There is a taming process which, like the wheel of pain, requires time and sufficient food, after which you have a mount. Then there is saddle crafting, because of course there is, which is another crafting station in the base. But that is another tale. The hope has been that mounts would speed up exploration.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 