[SUGGESTION] Overland military buildings/constructions

You forgot one. The Mage Tower not in a City by Raven X Excellent idea btw.

Oh I've missed that one. Yes indeed, it's a similar suggestion sort of....except that I've mentioned "basic" military buildings.

The idea sounds nice, but I think the cost shouldn't include essence. If they go with your proposal, it would cost 9 essence to build 1 fully upgraded building. As building a city only costs the initial 5 essence (as far as we know), 9 essence for a stronghold seems much to high for what you proposes it offers...

Not sure it should cost essence to upgrade a building. If you have several major passes into your territory, and have a watch tower at all of them it can easily become prohibitively expensive magically to upgrade them. Perhaps have it naturally attract some poulation on its own, like a town but unable to build any civilian buildings(housing, inns, crystal shrines, farms, etc.) without a certain tech (frontline villages or something).

for example:

Level 1: Watchtower

- Costs 3 essence + materials.

- It's expanding the size of the controlled territory by 1 around the watchtower.

- It's eliminating 2x2 FoW area around the watchtower.

- It offers +1 DEF for the garrisoned units.

- Starts with p population.

- Provides 0 Construction space.

Level 2: Guard Tower [First upgrade]

- Costs 600 gold + materials + requires 3p population

- It's expanding the size of the controlled territory by 1 around the guard tower.

- It's eliminating 2x2 FoW area around the guard tower.

- It offers +2 DEF for the garrisoned units.

- Provides 0 Construction space.

Level 3: Outpost [Second upgrade]

- Costs 900 gold + materials + requires 7p population

- It's expanding the size of the controlled territory by 2 around the outpost.

- It's eliminating 3x3 FoW area around the outpost.

- It offers +3 DEF for the garrisoned units.

- Provides 1 Construction space.

Level 4: Fortress [Third upgrade]

- Costs 1200 gold + materials + 13p population

- It's expanding the size of the controlled territory by 2 around the fortress.

- It's eliminating 3x3 FoW area around the fortress.

- It offers +4 DEF for the garrisoned units.

- Provides 1 Construction space.

Level 5: Stronghold [Fourth upgrade]

- Costs 1500 gold + materials + 20p population

- It's expanding the size of the controlled territory by 3 around the stronghold.

- It's eliminating 4x4 FoW area around the stronghold.

- It offers +5 DEF for the garrisoned units.

- Provides 2 Construction space.

Something like this would allow for the potential to use an outpost or better as a training ground, while keeping magical costs down. Maybe add a bonus for being trained in a military town or something.

Well yes, it can be tweaked. Perhaps the buildings should offer more bonuses or as you've mentioned, building them shouldn't require essence, only mats.

*edit*

Good ideas doom!

I think I mentioned "Watchtowers" and "Outposts" in that thread as well.

I think this is a great idea; only being able to build within isolated cities has been seeming unrealistic to me.

My first impression was that this would be like Elemental's incarnation of GalCiv II's Starbases, so from that: I think it might be good if you could build more than just military outposts.  Maybe you could also build small trading posts that would add a small bonus to trade income along a given route, or in nearby cities.  They could even be like lesser versions of cities, with smaller population cap, smaller resource and tax income, and no or a lesser ability to build military units.

I could see such posts becoming key points in diplomacy, with the ownership of such and such trading post on such and such route subject to change, or defense in warfare.

I like the idea of militairy outposts.

But that they would really be usefull, will you need some strategic points in the landscape. Like passes over mountains, bridges over rivers (which only are crossable with boats or over bridges), paths through extremly tight forest or dangerous swamps or the only beach where you can land between miles of steep coast.

Then who cares about a the well defended soldiers in the stronghold when you can get into the enemy territory over a plain field a mile away from the stronghold.

So we need such maps. Where is the thread to vote for that?

For folks interested in ideas from the forum 'old days,' there was a bit of interesting talk along these lines from pizzapicante27 and Denryu. (Those are from long before we had beta builds in our hands, Dec '08-Jan '09.)

I've definitely wanted to see non-town outposts for a long while, and I like the idea of having some outpost types designed with an upgrade path. Re essence investment, I don't think it should be a direct requirement for any type of outpost, but it should be a requirement if the outpost will need a population (like a mining village) and the site is still cataclysm-blasted.

So, if you start a watchtower on a square adjacent to a Dragon Fountain, you won't need to spend essence, but if you're planting a garrison along a wall to block a mountain pass and the land is still dead, you'll need to make a reduced essence investment to restore just the single square you're building on. Whether and how quickly restoration might propagate seems like a balance question; if the essence investment for an outpost is just 1 or 2 points, restoration probably shouldn't spread, but if it's 3 vs. 5 maybe a slower rate of spread would make sense.

If Area of Influence could be separated from Area of Control, Keeps/Castles would be more important and interesting as they would be used to increase the area of control and could be independent of population centers, IMHO.

A separation like that sounds both interesting and not-too-complicated to me, but you don't mention the question of essence investment. To me, even though a fortified pass or a lonely watchtower might only need a handful of people to staff it, those people need at least a scrap of restored land to rest in regardless of how far caravans can come to bring supplies. Or maybe outposts could take a 'hostile terrain' penalty if the sovereign-channeler doesn't want to spend essence on even a mini-restoration of the local terrain...

I think that a watchtower alone in the wilderness needs a supply line to keep working or lose it permanently if not. But Such a building could be built anywhere, not just restored terrain. It should be just a matter of transporting materials and build it. The plan is to keep some soldiers stationed there, not to have them farming or something like that. It would be like the idea of building mines in resources that are not in your city limits. You build your mining centre there and the trick would be to keep them well supplied so they can keep working.

Penalty? The constant need of supplies is enough I think. They can have a buffer in which they can make it without them but after that buffer is finished, the supply lines have been restored or they are lost (although I wonder if roads could be destroyed or if it'd be just caravan destruction madness). If the barren lands' weather is actively hostile, maybe there could be a need to repair the buildings from time to time, maybe lose some population...

I'd suggest any improvements of this type cost food to build rather then essence.  Since food supply is a static amount rather then something gathered each turn, like essence but easier to raise.  That way you sacrifice potential city population so it still requires some thought on where and when to build.  It also makes sense, provisions for the fort/outpost etc. 

^ Yeah the OP was obsolete, because of the recent changes to the gameplay, so I've updated my post.

Heh, I'd rather the cost be in Stone (or Stone + Materials) ... or just Materials, rather than overly tied up in Gold.

Something like

1= 5 materials

2= 10 materials

3 = 50 materials, 10 gold

4 = 100 materials, 20 stone, 20 gold

5 = 100 materials, 100 stone, 50 gold

Honestly, if you have enough tech for step 5 I don't see the need to build *every* step. Same goes for any intermediate step as well, I don't see the need to stack ... simply to build what you can.

I think Each "building" should be at least 3 tiles away from the last.

Only one problem though ... if attacking a resource ends up being HARDER than attacking a  city, I think it will detract from the uniqueness of Elemental's economy.

Therefore perhaps fortresses should not protect resources, but only expand the influence (significantly?) ... but not give an overlap effect. So it'd be better to have less fortresses (like less cities) in order to max your influence investments.