I see no purpose in the watchtower

I still don't really understand how line of sight affects barbarian spawn rate...  but I think it does.  So at least there's that.

No defensive bonus I can see. It is SUPPOSED to give you 4 square visual, but your cities already have that so, like you, I am not sure what it does then. Maybe you can put it at the end of a long string of huts or something to extend your vision?

I think the cities have 3 square visual range, and the watchtower increases that by 1. At least when i tested it(start new game, do nothing but build watchtower with sov parked inside) there definitely was a (small) difference in how far the city could see after the tower was complete.

I just use them to make my city 1 tile bigger if I'm trying to reach a resource or whatever.

Otherwise, relatively useless.

Not useful for me.  The 1 square is rediculous you can put a much cheaper summoned unit 3 squares out and see even more!  I never garrison cities i spread out their garrisons to expand the visual range.

I'd like to see it extend your sight much farther like 4 or even 5 tiles, could be used as a means to get rid of the fog-of-war all together.

Watchtower visual range starts from point where it is built, not from city center.

By the way, same applies to influence increaseing buildings.

I agree with you.   Certain tile improvements (besides resources) should be allowed anywhere (maybe not mountains?) inside area of influence.  Watch towers seem a likely candidate.  BTW, improving a resource also lifts the fog of war around it....

WTB tiny little arrows that will launch from my watchtowers and pelt any uglies that venture too far into my area of influence...

Watchtowers would be great if they could be built anywhere in our territory and give an effective visual range of about 7-10 tiles around themselves.

They should be able to be built within the city's zone of control without needing to be directly attached to another building.  Then they become useful.

It looks cool. Maybe it's just a visual thing.

signed

before the advent of watch towers I have been buildign a super lookout unit that could see 8 squares. I have been putting a singleton in each of my mega-stacks and putting one near each of my border cities. Usually I forget to check them each round to see what they can see, I find out they are near an enemy when I see that part of the map go dark suddenly:) still acts as a nice alert that there is an enemy.

As you get no warning when enemy/neutral enters your city visial radius it actually serves for nothing. You have manually to check every city every turn anyway.

It may be usefull if a hero with organized trait and 4 movements per turn gets near your city... I still didn't have a luck with such "smart" AI.