Defense Radius

[Elindor]

So, everyone has closed borders and tries to defend their S&D....but if no one is around, you can't see or stop someone coming in and trading at your fief/castle/town, even if you have an army of heavily armed troops stationed there...

I WOULD PROPOSE THAT EACH HOLDING HAVE A DEFENSE RADIUS...
Basically this is a circle around a holding in which the owner can see anyone that passes into that circle, and can use the ARMY (not population) stationed at his/her holding to march out and intercept that person as long as they are within their Defense Radius.

This Defense Radius could be very small for fiefs, a bit bigger for castles, and a bit bigger still for towns. 

This could be done while the owner of the holding is there, or NOT there. 

Thoughts?

[Sandersson Jankins]

I would personally enjoy every army over a certain size (maybe 250 or some shit) would have a "zone of control", so to speak. This would either a)prevent any non-allied faction from entering the area
b)simply reduce the movement speed quite heavily of any armies moving through the zone of control. You could post up guards and shit without having them to be at their PC/Smartphone 24/7.

Of course, for the first option to be viable there would need to be a UI for alliances on strategus, so allies coming in for trading runs wouldn't be barred accidentally, etc.

[Butan]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

You want to be able to intercept from farther than normally possible when you use the fief's army ? Like in a 5km radius around a town, you dont have to move out to attack someone ?

[Bjord]

Kinda like in Total War: Empire?

Very sound idea, I like it.

[buba]

That is why you leave a friend behind to defend you're stuff, its part of the game as far as I am concerned.
You might say its unnecessary micro managing, I think its part of the fun playing strat thinking these things out and contacting/communicating with other players how to go around these things.

Also, defenders already have the advantage in strat, this idea would even unbalance the favour more to the defender in my opinion.

So, my opinion is that even though protecting you're border can be a shore at times.
Its still better then having a magic ring around a fief that will favour the defender even more, and takes away player activity.

[Elindor]

Well, the owner of the fief would still have to manually SEE the incoming trader/attacker, and send his army out (within the small defense radius)....it wouldn't be automated or anything.

He could just do this without being there himself...

[CrazyCracka420]

I don't think you should be able to initiate an attack with your army garrison if someone gets within "X" meters of your fief.  I still think you should have to manually sally out an army and attack them.  You should manage your fiefs better if the fief lord is not around to take care of the day to day operations.  Either appoint someone who can manage the fief to be the lord, or leave behind someone with an army that can enforce your borders.

Or stay in/near your fiefs.

Or the dev's could implement a "steward" function where you can appoint a steward of your fief, who can do everything the fief owner can except they can't transfer the fief to someone else.

[dodnet]

As this would bring neutral traders sneaking into unguarded fiefs to an total hold, I vote NO. This can also be heavily abused for stopping incoming attacks. At worst no one will be able to attack a fief anymore, because they get stopped by an army controlled from anywhere over the map.

[buba]

What dodnet said, and what i meant with favouring the defender to much.

[Falka]

I vote NO

[Sandersson Jankins]

Making a defensive perimeter around the fief/castle/town or whatever would certainly eliminate poaching/smuggling. I find that to be a great negative, as it's best to support independents, neutrals or smaller factions being able to do stuff. However, I believe having a system similar to that of recently total war games, in which armies have zones of control in which another army cannot pass. Of course, the troop limit to impose a large zone of control would have to be quite large. You could prevent S and D smuggling if you sit a nice 800 man army near the place, sure. But that's a large use of resources that is likely more useful elsewhere. There would surely be unguarded fiefs to smuggle/poach from. Of course, for this to work, I believe there would have to be an integrated diplomacy UI in strategus. That'd be a bitch to code and create, I'm sure.

[Elindor]

Hmm...good points, I realize that this would be bad overall for independents....I will lock.
** Nevermind, I'll leave it open to discussion....but I do realize there are flaws in this idea in its current state.

I don't think you should be able to initiate an attack with your army garrison if someone gets within "X" meters of your fief.  I still think you should have to manually sally out an army and attack them.

Stated that it wouldn't be automated.  Fief owner would have to be in strat map to SEE it and to send out his garrison.