Ancient towers

[blueparrot1966]

Are there plans to do anything with this feature? They're pretty cool when exploring, and I like them- as I like all of the FFH features that give the map some personality. But it's a bummer when they're located within a city's area, and there's NUTH'IN you can do with them. Ever. The tile yields what it yields, and that's that. I'd suggest changing that.

It'd be fun if there were some improvement that you could only build if you happened to have a tower, for example. Or maybe a "sentry" promotion for units built in that city or something. (after an appropriately costly city improvement, of course).

 

[Ekolite]

It would be cool if you could build a certain range of special improvements on towers inside a citiy's fat cross that have a different effect on the city.

E.g.

Tower of Eyes - Gives sentry promotion to all recon units and gives hawks 1 extra range.

Mages Tower - Extra Free promotion for magic types?

Lighthouse? - (only on coastal towers) add 1 movement to all new ships in that city.

 

[Sureshot]

personally id like them to atleast act like forts, and only ever be spawned on top of hills

 

[kumquatelvis]

An ancient tower within a city radius could reduce the hammer cost of building any of the tower wonders (Tower of Necromancy, Tower of Eyes, Twisted Spire, etc...). Of course, doing so would "destroy" the tower (in reality, convert into whatever wonder).

 

[GoodGame]

I'd second letting them be free forts if they fall within your culture sphere.

Making them like Industrious trait though is unbalanced.

 

[Apepis]

Or maybe make them like cottages. After some turns their tile is worked they change to something usefull, eg. start acting like forts AND give more yealds (commerce for increased protection and thus safer travel?)

 

[Calavente]

maybe after being worked for some time they can become a hamlet ??? thus going on the cottage path...

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

id say Tower -> fort -> castle upgrade path, where the fort adds the sentry benefits of the tower, and the castle increases the defense % of the fort. requires the tile to be worked.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Is Psychic Llamas Loki in disguise?

 

[Kael]

Is Psychic Llamas Loki in disguise?

Thats the same thing I thought.

 

[zxcvbnm]

What? Are you going to do that as he said?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Assuming no cool improvements to the Sentry Towers, I'll prebably just continue to make the pilageable with each new version.

Having them upgrade to forts then castles may be a good idea, but are you implying that forts should get the same line of sight bonus as towers? I don't think they should, because that would start to infringe on my idea of Civ Specific forts (the Malakim one, Citadel of Light, which would have the defenses/abilities of a fort, a larger line of sight than a sentry tower, and still summon fireballs when enemies approach like their current implementaion as a unique building does).

I'll probably see about actually implementing unique forts soon (probably waiting for Shadow), unless I can convince Kael that the AI's treatment of normal forts is good enough to handle unique ones well enough for him to add them to the main game, so I don't have to

(Hmm, I was just wondering if it might be appropriate/possible for each civ's unique fort to also change raw mana on its tile to the civs representative sphere type, thus making the worker's habit of building forts an all raw mana actually have some uses. Of course, then it might be hard to get other types of mana, and, more importantly, the current implementation would replace any resource, not just mana, with said mana type. Plus, the Sidar wouldn't want death mana. Maybe I'll make the mana be changed in the same python call that replaces normal forts with the special ones, to leave more control over the resource placement)

 

[Caradoc]

How about having the Sentry Tower's view radius expand as the City grows?

 

[xienwolf]

Always thought it'd be nice if having a tower in your culture radius would expand your cultural LoS by 1 tile. But it doesn't completely fit for a reasonable explanation of how/why.

 

[Keilden]

How about having random events that only trigger if you havee one of the towers? Like:
An ancient wizard emerges from the tower and gives you some old scrolls with a random tech.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Thats the same thing I thought.

does that mean this is what your doing? lol i love these guessing games

 

[xienwolf]

Actually I translated that comment to mean that Loki is/was pushing for a similar idea. Which could mean the debate was settled a year ago and Loki lost just as easily as it could mean that the debate was settled 2 days ago and Loki won.

 

[Caradoc]

Always thought it'd be nice if having a tower in your culture radius would expand your cultural LoS by 1 tile. But it doesn't completely fit for a reasonable explanation of how/why.

My thought was that the LOS of the tower would be the same as the city's. That is to say, when the city's cultural boundaries are the 'fat cross,' a similar area would be revealed centered on the tower. It would not be necessary to work the tower tile or to station an army there.