Castle Building

[Tomas]

The idea of designing your own castles has been around on Strat ever since it started but it has always been a pipe dream that is impossible to implement.  However, not all of it is impossible and here's a way of getting at least some of it into the game.

4 easy steps
- Replace all castles with a single generic castle map that consists simply of a Keep (that you can enter and get on top of) plus a surrounding wall with towers on the corners and a shallow moat.
- Change the siege spawn times to allow defenders 15 minutes of preparation time before the attackers spawn
- Give every Castle 8 construction Sites and 200 Materials free whenever they are attacked
- Add lots more things that can be built with construction sites

This way, defenders have 15 mins to customize their castle to optimize its defense.  The improvements are all destroyable though so won't be OP, they don't need saving between battles and the more you make the more it will cost you.  So no worries about balance or having to store lots of maps.

Here's a few ideas for new construction objects (materials required may vary)
- Small Stakes (10 materials) = a 4m wide set of Stakes
- Large Stakes (20 materials) = a 8m wide set of Stakes
- Healing Hut (60 materials) = a much stronger version of the healing tent
- Wooden Pallisade (30 materials) = a 10m stretch of Pallisade wall
- Wooden Tower (50 materials) = a simple Wooden Tower to go with the pallisade
- Improved Siege Shields (5 materials) = a better version of the siege shield
- Archer Nest (20 materials) = a small box like room with windows that can be placed on top of existing stone walls to give more cover for archers
- Barricade (5 materials) = turns the construction site into a stronger barricade to block doorways and gaps
- ? lots more stuff

[RibaldRon]

(click to show/hide)

Somebody's been playing Asinus!! 

Awesome idea, really!

I think that you should get a bunch of these items for free when your castle is attacked, but maybe the ones that are destroyed are removed from the free pool until you replace them.  You could also stock up on more.

[CrazyCracka420]

Would be nice if they implemented stakes in general for people to use in crpg.  My lance would probably still hit you before my horse ran into the stakes, but at least it would still fuck my horse up and stop it from letting me ride on to kill more of your buddies.

Historically even the most crude stakes were used by archers or any static defense positions.  How hard is it to cut down a branch and sharpen it to a point?

[Tanken]

This is really cool. Good idea man!


Would be so much more fun to see a large variety of castles and different types of siege equipment. Maybe in the last 5 minutes of the 15, allow for attackers to have a 5 minute neutral zone where they can also build siege equipment with equipment they've brought?

Then we would see actual castle-warfare! Though tbh, NA hasn't seen any Castle Warfare scenes, at least, one clan attacking another clan's castle :/

[FRANK_THE_TANK]

You had your chance!

Yeah this could be fun. But would the defender be able to increase the base amount of crap they can use? You kind of alluded to it a bit, but I'm not sure.

[Tomas]

You had your chance!

Yeah this could be fun. But would the defender be able to increase the base amount of crap they can use? You kind of alluded to it a bit, but I'm not sure.

In the proposed system you get the free stuff no matter what.  Any construction sites and materials you buy on top of that will also be available to use but will obviously cost you gold.  So basic defences are free, but huge elaborate defenses are still expensive.

[KaMiKaZe_JoE]

sounds minorly awesome. there is always the danger of abuse, however, when players are allowed to build shit everywhere. that they're killable counteracts this, though.

Must make it so that you can't make towers ontop of towers, or other retarded things.

[Mamba]

15 minutes wasted time of things you have to do over and over again? In the old times you couldnt change a castle or keep from 1 hour to the other.

How about the faction has to buy keepupgrades in startegus via website. And have different castlelayouts for that. Those tiers of keeps have to be properly priced though.

That way you can still improve the defenses but it would avoid the timeloss builing prior to a battle and the possbile exploiting or messing up the build.

My idea may sound less fun and involves less participation but gameplay wise it is the wiser choice in my opinion.

[Oberyn]

I like the idea of faction made castles but theyd have to be permanent, or very expensive to build or change. Wouldn't be too fun to have 2 fights at the same castle 1 day appart and the castle magically getting a new layout.

[FRANK_THE_TANK]

The idea that I keep spouting about is having 4 upgradeable castle that are region specific. And they upgrade Shogun 2 TW style.

Perhaps castle could come with free construction gear and at the start be able to deploy different defenses like, catapults, Batista and pile of spikes to stop those pesky cav hauling arse through the ruined gates.

I'm trying to make a battering ram model, I'm failing at the moment but if I ever finish it. It should be added.

[Tomas]

Upgradeable Castles to set designs are not the same as tactically designing your own defences.  They would be good as an alternative idea and I would be happy with them but there is the danger that they could make Castles overpowered as the upgrades will not be destroyable.

The point of this idea is that you are placing non-permanent obstacles to try and gain a tactical advantage using your own ideas and strategies.  Rebuilding the obstacles between rounds is a bit annoying if you have to do it a few days running but at least you can refine your obstacles.

[Farrix]

everyone keeps speaking as if we need to increase the defensive capabilities of the castles. Lets take a moment and look at the history of strat 3.0. How many castle battles have their been? Seems as if only the largest clans try to take 1. In DRZ's case they've got enough equip and the boredom to attack several. That is not typical.

I believe, instead of discussing how we can make castles more defensible, we should be discussing how to make them easier/more valuable targets for medium size clans to actually have a reason to take them.  Most of the castles are neutral and 3.0 has been going on for months. This is a problem. We have dozens of castle maps and millions worth of experience that is not being used because it is far too difficult and not valuable enough to merit a medium sized clan's conquering of a neutral castle.

Currently, the clans that can take castle's do (DRZ) and exponentially increase their ability to make war and conquer everything. We need to focus on leveling the playing field so that more clans have a realistic capability of conquering castles. Otherwise, 4.0 will end like 3.0 and 2.0. The largest clan will have a cakewalk to victory.

[Mamba]

But Farrix, the use and need of taking a castle is another story. That belongs into the content area, goods to craft certain bonuses ect.
But when they become valuable, you want to see them defended not just by a default layout.

@ Tomas

Maybe a combination of both and even mix could be a good solution.

-Upgradeable layout where each layout already has improvements where barricades and such are destroyable (pretty sure that a serverside script can spawn props before round begins) via website

-user interaction where the owner can preset props before any battle as a quick change via website 1 option out of 3 or something like that, for example siegeshield walls on keepwalls, double gate, ladderdefenses (spikes) on outer side of roofs.
those props can be destroyed or are not reusable so you would have to buy them before each battle, just like your proposol but premade. (buyable on website different prices only 1 to chose)

-additional props for players to use, not with uberamounts of hitpoints but destroyable in time NOT stackable and the props have to use more space then they take in the real space in game so you cant line them up to make walls and walls

Like -----------   but - - - - - -   that way if the props aren't destroyed it still slows the enemies rush by 50%

Sieges I've watched and been to were long enough to build stuff without preparation and people became quite skillfull with it. I doubt that 15 minutes preparation is very kind to the players. YOu have to imagine that attackers would have to wait the whole time. Even though they are the aggressors its lost time. For not building defenders too.

Extending preparation from 2 to 5 minutes should be sufficient.

Tell me what you think

[Tomas]

(click to show/hide)

@ Tomas

Maybe a combination of both and even mix could be a good solution.

-Upgradeable layout where each layout already has improvements where barricades and such are destroyable (pretty sure that a serverside script can spawn props before round begins) via website

-user interaction where the owner can preset props before any battle as a quick change via website 1 option out of 3 or something like that, for example siegeshield walls on keepwalls, double gate, ladderdefenses (spikes) on outer side of roofs.
those props can be destroyed or are not reusable so you would have to buy them before each battle, just like your proposol but premade. (buyable on website different prices only 1 to chose)

-additional props for players to use, not with uberamounts of hitpoints but destroyable in time NOT stackable and the props have to use more space then they take in the real space in game so you cant line them up to make walls and walls

Like -----------   but - - - - - -   that way if the props aren't destroyed it still slows the enemies rush by 50%

Sieges I've watched and been to were long enough to build stuff without preparation and people became quite skillfull with it. I doubt that 15 minutes preparation is very kind to the players. YOu have to imagine that attackers would have to wait the whole time. Even though they are the aggressors its lost time. For not building defenders too.

Extending preparation from 2 to 5 minutes should be sufficient.

Tell me what you think

I actually really like all that Doing the defenses via the website before hand is a great idea and much better than my suggestion and so long as the props are still destroyable then the outcome is the same as my proposal.  It comes down to how easy it is to code though.  I deliberately tried to stick with changes I thought were easily manageable but if your plans are as easy to implement then I will swing my vote and support your idea instead

@Farrix - I and many others put up ideas on the forum virtually every week (if not more) and have definitely covered making Castles more valuable in the past along with balance issues and ideas to promote a fairer playing field.  It is up to the Devs now whether they want or have the time to implement any of them.  Right now in this topic I just want to concentrate on an idea that I hope will actually add content to Strat and provide some depth.

[Farrix]

I was just thinking in general people seem more focused on good ideas that would definitely make the game more fun, but would also require alot of time/work to implement. I think we should be focusing on using the tools we have in a more efficient way so that we can get as much as possible out of the game that is already here without requiring unpaid developers to make up a bunch of coding.

For the record, I like your ideas for castle building.