Southern Hive (City)Report
English：Southern Hive · Locations
The Southern Hive's capital, at the southern end of the Royal Valley. One throne and five commune huts — no shops, no beds, nobody who will talk to you. It holds the Queen of the South, a dozen-odd Elite Droneguards, and the ancient machine the whole faction feeds people to.
Southern Hive is the capital of the Southern Hive faction, at the southern end of the Royal Valley.
Six buildings, none of them open for business
The entire city is six structures: one Hive Throne and five Hive Commune Huts.
There is no shop, no bar, no bed, no medic, nobody to recruit. The Southern Hive is one of the very few factions in the game that is hostile to the player unconditionally — you are an intruder from the moment you set foot in the valley. They call everything outside their territory "the Faraway", and they sort anything that comes out of it into two categories: eat it, or sacrifice it to the King.
One detail that is easy to miss on the world map: Southern Hive uses the major-town icon, while the Western Hive's equivalent capital, the island, only gets a minor-outpost icon. In raw game data the two hive polities are comparable in size, but the map gives the Southern Hive noticeably more weight.
The Queen on the throne
The Queen of the South sits on the throne in the middle of the city, holding a Meitou-grade polearm made by Cross. Meitou is the highest weapon grade in the game, and that single weapon is one of the main reasons anyone makes this trip.
Her own numbers are unremarkable: Strength 80, combat stats 40, unarmed 35. What stands between you and her is her guard.
She carries Diplomatic Status, which normally means harming or imprisoning a character wrecks your standing with their faction. Since the Southern Hive already hates you unconditionally, that penalty is close to meaningless here.
Two pieces of trivia:
- She is a Hive Queen — a machine — yet she has a hunger rate of 3. Put her in one of your own cages and she will starve to death. Hovering over her hunger bar claims she does not need to eat; that text is a display bug.
- Every other Southern Hiver has pink skin with white line patterns. The Queen alone is exactly the same colour as the Queen of the Western Hive. This is used to argue that both hive queens were made the same way, and that the pink of the Southern Hive comes from the biomass the King produces out of living creatures.
Elite Droneguards: the ring around the throne
The Queen is permanently surrounded by 10 to 13 Elite Droneguards, and they attack for trespassing alone.
| Unit | Stats | Gear |
|---|---|---|
| Elite Droneguard | Str 40, combat 70, stealth 40 | Skeleton Smiths Naginata, Leather Hive Vest, coloured armoured rags |
| Droneguard | Str 25, combat 40, stealth 40 | Ancient-made Polearm, Leather Hive Vest, coloured armoured rags |
| War Gorillo | All combat stats 80 (±15) | — |
Elite armour rolls Standard 89% of the time and High 11%; ordinary Droneguards roll Shoddy 89% and Standard 11%. The gap is not only in the numbers — Skeleton Smiths Naginatas are the single most reliable loot this city produces, and you can walk out with a dozen of them.
The War Gorillo is a Gorillo "domesticated" by the Southern Hive; they stay near the Queen's primary nest. Their combat stats sit at 80 across the board — higher than the Elite Droneguards themselves.
The King, and the prison poles to the northeast
What the Southern Hive actually worships is not the Queen but the King — the only Crimper in the game, a species of ancient maintenance machine. He does not stay in the city; he wanders the Royal Valley with a retinue of Droneguards.
How tough is he? When he spawns on Southern Hive ground, his age multiplier is 2.40x to 2.50x, pushing his effective skills well past 100, with Strength 120, 875 oil, and 1,200 HP on the head alone. Beating him solo in a straight fight is effectively impossible; the wiki explicitly says you need crossbows, micromanagement, or unusually strong recruits.
His death items are 4x Armour Plating, 4x CPU Unit and 4x Robotics Components. He is supposed to carry an AI Core as well, but his inventory is too small for it to actually spawn.
Is it worth the trip?
As a resupply stop this place scores zero: nothing to buy, nothing to sell, nowhere to sleep, no treatment, not even a neutral bystander. People come here for one of four reasons:
- The Queen's Meitou polearm
- A dozen Skeleton Smiths Naginatas in one raid — the Elite Droneguards are equipped far above ordinary village garrisons
- Fighting the King, one of the toughest wild units in the game
- Deleting the entire Southern Hive from the map
Note that there is no tourist option here. The Western Hive island at least lets you walk into the hut, look at the Queen and leave again. The Southern Hive gives you no such grace period.
What happens if you touch the Queen
The survival of the entire Southern Hive polity is tied to one individual, and the game states it explicitly.
| What you do | Result |
|---|---|
| Kill or imprison the Queen | Southern Hive itself becomes a Deadhive Overrun, occupied by Fogmen |
| Same | Both Southern Hive Villages become Deadhive Overruns too |
| Same | Every Southern Hive patrol spawn on the continent stops |
| Same | The Southern Hive Visit and Hive Eviction events stop happening permanently |
| Kidnap her (not kill) | Triggers Hive Attack — wave after wave against your base |
Building a base nearby
If your outpost sits too close to any Southern Hive location, three events fire in sequence.
Southern Hive Visit triggers with a base within 1,500 metres. Inside 1,300 metres the daily chance is 40%, scaling down with distance to zero at 1,500 metres, with a 7-day repeat limit. Two squads arrive, each a Prince leading 8 (or 8–14) Droneguards. The war leader shouts at you to get out of the King's valley, then the squads attack gates and characters and free any captives you are holding. If they win, they occupy your base until you drive them out.
Hive Eviction has a 70% chance of following 24–48 hours after you beat the Visit. This time it is three squads, each 8 Droneguards plus a War Gorillo, again led by a Prince.
Hive Attack only triggers if you kidnap the Queen — killing her does not cause it. The event ignores no-go zones and has a range that covers the whole map, so there is nowhere to hide from it. The first wave is 7 squads of 8 Droneguards, 1 War Gorillo and 1 Prince each; later waves are 6 squads, one of them accompanied by the King in person — though thanks to a bug this version of him spawns at only 0.90x–1.00x age, far weaker than the one in the valley. Beat the first wave and the next comes in 20–32 hours; after that the gap shortens to 12–24 hours.
Getting there: the Royal Valley
The Royal Valley is rated danger 5 / 5, the highest tier in the game. The valley itself is startlingly green — the game data gives it vegetation 100, fertility 50, water 50, a rare patch of green in the far south.
Three things to know before you set out:
- It rains acid here. The weather table lists both heavy and light acid rain.
- 90% of wilderness spawns are Southern Hive: scout squads of 4 Droneguards, or patrols of a Prince plus 8 Droneguards. The other 10% is goats.
- The valley also holds a Southern Hive Village and the Hiver-Claimed Armoury, both belonging to the same faction.