Variable City Size

[piranha]

For next beta the plan is to add towers that you can build when/where you want (not on another building). The tower (1x1) will still stand there if you move away and it can be caputured/razed.
A tower will cost upkeep and can be upgraded just like a city with more powerful citywalls.

There will also be something like sites that you talk about. Our intention is to make it an additional gold income resource than can be captured by moving on it. They will have the same terrain bonus as where it located. If its located in hills, its hill bonus that apply there and so on. (To get away from city bonus being so much more important than the other bonuses)

Most of them look like mines but on grassland it will be a tiny village. (all of them are 1x1).

[Pillager]

Piranha,

Sounds good to me. Are you planning to allow vectoring to towers?

[SnotlinG]

We have discussed about allowing vectoring of 1 city to a tower, but it is still not decided.
What do the community think?

[KGB]

I would definitely not allow vectoring to towers. It would be too easy to abuse by having a hero plop down a tower in enemy lands, build up the walls and start vectoring in men to bypass all the enemy strong points. By the time you spotted the tower in FOW or even moved men there to take it a whole horde might have vectored in.

Also I was thinking that rather than have a set view radius of 6 compared to a cities 4 it might be cooler to have the tower give a +3 view radius to any unit in the tower. So if it was empty it would just have a range of 3. But if a unit with 4 view entered the tower the view would be 7. Makes it more useful for units with big view radius's.

The other thing I'd suggest you do is make sure that a tower can only be built if none ofl the squares around it contain buildings/mountains/water. Otherwise towers will be abused to block 1 wide passage ways or two wide passageways (2 towers next to each other). That's not really the intent of having them in the game. So the 1 space around the tower makes sure you can't wall in a city that's partially covered in mountains/water with towers or block passageways entirely.

I'd suggest a build cost of 200 gold and comes with L3 walls (+1 defense). Not sure it needs upkeep to be honest since cities/ports etc don't cost upkeep. If it does, you HAVE to allow self razing of towers to get rid of unwanted gold loss.

KGB

[Pillager]

If you allow 1 city to vector to a tower, it would take quite a while to build up any sort of 'horde'. 3 turns +8 turns (for a full stack of 1 turn units)=11 turns for a stack of fodder. Still, I suspect that building towers in the middle of enemy lands (and vectoring to them) would become a standard tactic...and does seem a bit cheesy.

However, I think towers should be able to be built next to mountains and seas. These are the obvious places one would and should build them. And being able to cut off an enemy city with towers isn't a bad thing, it is actually a good model of medieval siege warfare. Surrounding a besieged city with fortifications was standard practice back in the day.

I don't think towers need to have upkeep, but 200 gold might be a little too cheap, and could cause compulsive tower building behavior.

[KGB]

Pillager,

If you are going to allow tower building to function as wall building (multiple towers next to each other, blocking ports, bridges, temples, cities etc) then yeah, they are going to need to cost more like 500 gold a tower. But then I suspect they will rarely get made because 500 is a lot of gold in a game where gold is still quite scarce even in Beta3 (esp if you want to buy production/heroes).

If they aren't allowed to be used as walls then 200 is fine for their cost because they will still have value due to their view range and fortification bonus allowing you to place stacks in positions to control areas (ie move out of tower, attack, move back in) or force enemies to move on hard terrain (ie build a tower on a road passing through hills/swamp/forest so that enemies must move through the hills/swamp/forest to bypass attacking the tower).

The other advantage to not allowing them to be used as walls is that when you design a map you don't have to worry that towers will wall it up in some manner. Because that tactic gets repeated over and over again once it's known.

KGB

[Pillager]

One way you could work it, would be to have a base cost for building a tower, and then charging extra for each piece of impassable terrain adjacent to it. This would be an added complexity though, and I'm not really sure that its necessary.

Maybe just test run being able to build towers anywhere in beta for for say..250/tower and see if tower abuse is really something to be concerned about.

Actually, I'm more concerned with that fact that an important stack that expected attack could whip up a tower at the end of its movement for the wall bonus, and to deny a threatening group of elephants/giants their terrain bonus.

[KGB]

Pillager,

Actually, I'm more concerned with that fact that an important stack that expected attack could whip up a tower at the end of its movement for the wall bonus, and to deny a threatening group of elephants/giants their terrain bonus.

I've suggested that Cities/Ruins/Towers placed on terrain provide that terrain bonus for units (as it did in DLR). So a tower placed on hills would provide in addition to the wall bonus, a hill terrain bonus. Thus attacking Giants/Elephants wouldn't be denied their bonus just because a tower was built.

I also think Towers/Ruins/Temples shouldn't be considered as Cities in terms of bonus's. The City bonus is already plenty good enough without coming into play in these areas. I'd suggest that Ruins are considered as their own terrain and Ghosts get a bonus there (as well as any other future Undead unit). Archons/Devils/Demons could get a bonus on Temples for being Celestial creatures (because Temples could be devoted to good or evil, there is no distinction hence why all 3 get a bonus there). Towers I wouldn't consider for any special bonus at all other than the walls and the underlying terrain.

KGB

P.S. I still think erecting towers anywhere will be badly abused. I'd definitely have to edit Bullrun to make all those mountain passes 2 wide instead of 1 wide to prevent them being clogged with tower followed by another tower. Other maps have this same problem where 1 tower can block a whole section off quite easily thanks to mountains/water nearby.

[Pillager]

Another way to limit the 'instant tower' issue would be to have it take some time to construct it. If a tower is built on turn X, maybe it shouldn't be fully operational until the start of your next turn (X+1). A picture of a partially completed tower could alert your opponents that tower construction was under way. The partially completed tower would (of course)offer no bonuses.

I like the bonuses for celestial/infernal creatures at temples, and a ruin bonus for the ghost makes sense...although I doubt it would be hugely useful. Treating a tower as a distinct terrain type might be wise (to limit the power of griffins/spiders). Still it is a double edged sword, if no unit is good at defending towers, then no units excels at attacking them either. Maybe the wizard could get a bonus in towers?

If someone devotes a large amount of gold to blocking up a 1 wide pass, then let them. A battering ram or catapult is an effective key for an expensive door. They might be better off buying dragons/elephants and stacking them up with some fodder...just as effective, harder to negate, and much more versatile.

[KGB]

Pillager,

I don't think multi turn tower construction is going to work well. Warlords is a game based on instantaneous effects. As in upgrading cities, rebuilding cities, buying production all happens instantly. The only thing that takes time is unit production. So I'd hate to get away from that model.

The temple/ruin bonus's aren't meant to come into play often. Just once in a while and be something extra for those units and as you noted, to help reduce the power of spiders/minotaurs/gryffons.

The other problem besides blocking passes with towers is the idea of tower stepping. That is I want to attack a city that is 20 squares away. Rather than spend time in the open I'd move fully, build a tower. Then next turn, move fully from the tower and build another one. Then put more men in the first tower I made. So that I am literally using towers as stepping stones so my armies are always in a tower getting a bonus. Building 3 towers for 750 gold is feasible.

So to prevent tower stepping maybe further rules will be needed. As in your units building the tower must have at least 4 moves to construct (all units in the stack must have 4). Or maybe limit the number of towers that can ever be built by a side to say 5. So you have to use them sparingly. That might be the best approach.

KGB