Lore wise actually the fungal population shouldnât be tied to the spire at all (or rather, having a spire should make it increase faster, but not having a spire shouldnât destroy it).
Ideally the end âfungal progressionâ (and how to stop it) should eventually look something like this based on the lore:
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A single small-medium patch (on the overmap) of Fungalized terrain is on the map at the start of the game (or a larger one if itâs a new overmap and you are just now generating it after a few seasons). Fungaloids now spread and duplicate much slower, but they do so all of the time, regardless of if you are there or not. Ideally fungaloid monster counts will be directly tied to the size of the fungal patch, the bigger the patch is the more fungal monsters are there.
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Over time the patch spreads, âFungalizingâ nearby terrain. This can be stopped by rivers, or slowed (or sped up) by certain types of terrain. Ideally it will also be possible for it to be slowed or completely stopped upon reaching areas influenced by other monster factions, such as heavy blob or triffid areas, or a cluster of NPC villages. Players can stop them at or before this point by simply burning away all the fungal terrain (which at that point should cause the fungaloids themselves to ideally burst into flames for the most part), and which would revert the overmap terrain to a normal old plains tile or something similar. Occasionally fungal blossoms or other âlesserâ fungal overmap locations will be created that are immune to fire and have to be manually destroyed through other means. (And such locations should eventually send out specialized âfire fighterâ horde groups that work to put out fires in more distant locations).
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Once the patch has grown large enough it begins to create a large fungal spire (a building) made of a near-stonelike material that is immune to fire and regenerates quickly (thus stopping you from just blasting it down with explosives). The height of the spire is dependent upon the size of the fungal patch and as it grows it greatly increases the speed at which the fungal patch can spread. It can be stopped, however, by climbing up the inside of the tower to reach the area near the top where the growth is still new. This area is still vulnerable to fire, and burns well enough that itâll take down the whole spire (and most of the nearby fungal terrain) with it.
As a result destroying a smaller fungaloid patch is just a matter of burning it to the ground. Larger patches might require you to first penetrate the patch and destroy any large fungaloid fire resistant manually first, then burn the whole thing to the ground. The largest areas will require you to penetrate the patch and wipe out the larger fungaloid fire resistant areas to stop the fire fighter groups, then take on the spire itself. Should you not take on the fire-resistant areas before the spire you will still deal a grievous blow to the fungaloids to buy yourself some time, but they should quickly stop the fire before it spreads to far and quickly erect a new spire once theyâve filled in the hole you made. Youâll need to fight your way up the spire through the ranks of fungaloids to the very top, where youâll finally be able to light a fire. At that point you have to race down and away from the spire, fire on your heels with the fungal army perishing around you (or if we ever get hang gliders, etc. you might be able to just jump and glide away). Lit from the center, with their army dying en-masse, and with no fire-fighting squads left alive to counter the blaze pretty much the whole patch should burn to the ground, eradicating that particular patch once and for all (of course doing so might let in more active groups like the triffids :P). At an absolute worst case you may need to stop by in a week or so and burn up any last remaining tiny fungal areas that miraculously survived the blaze, but for the most part at that point you should have defeated that particular patch.
(What? You were expecting something easier? Bah! This is a war, and if weâre going to give you a âpush this button to winâ option against them then itâs going to be behind a suitable number of barriers! Ahahahahahaha!
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Additionally once we have working portals and multiple worlds then very rarely you should be able to find a fungal portal hidden where the spire was after you burn it to the ground. This would then let you take the fight back to the one of the fungalized worlds, where you could spend the rest of your days crusading against the fungal menace to make an (unnoticeable) dent in their mighty empire. Or maybe youâll build a fortress around the portal, man it with a handful of NPCâs, and prevent the fungal menace from ever entering through that area again (which it will do if it can eventually) while you go off crusading against other menaces in the current world, destroying or locking them out one at a time! Just make sure not to employ any of those marlossified traitors in your fortress guard, lest they release the fungus once again from that location to encroach upon the world!