Regions, sieges and settlements. Ideas

[Aurelius Silvanus Tacitus]

Hello everyone,
I just had some random ideas about regions and cities in TW games.

Firstly I thought of retaining the province system, but divide the cities in three not two categories.

Towns:

Remember the small towns from ETW, NTW and Shogun2? I think we should bring them back. They would function mostly like in Empire: be garrisonable (only once level I is built), be unlocked (able to construct for level I) once you reach a certain ammount of growth and give a penaly on Public Order if they are damaged. I think that most of them should represent specialised settlements just like in NTW: mining towns, important crossroads (trade)...
Each region containing a large or small city would get 2-3 possible towns max.

Now the towns would have four levels:

Level I:
You have a village. On the campign map it gives you a tiny ammount of gold (20-40) but no bonuses yet. It has no garrison and if damaged gives a tiny negative Public Order. On the battlefield it is basically a field battle with homes in between and maybe 1 or 2 civilians. When garrisoned it would provide no replenishment to the army (population is too small)

Level II:

The village grew and it gives you a larger ammount of gold (30-60) but also a small specific bonus. It now has a tiny garrison of one unit (if we go by the Attila version of level I settlement is 4 garrison units) and on the battlemap appears like a small completely unwalled settlement (around 25-33% of the Attila towns).

Once this level is built you unlock barricades, but in this case a maximum of 1-2 even after years of siege.

Level III:

The village becomes a small town giving you better bonuses and a bigger ammount of gold. Now it was 2-3 garrison units and looks just like the vanilla Attila town only 50% smaller. Towers are no longer manned by elite snipers equiped with a 50Cal sniper: they use normal arrows but shoot faster.
Once this level is built you unlock a second building slot that functions just like those of cities.

Level IV:

Now you have a town that gives you nice bonuses and an ammount of gold. The town has 3-4 garrison units and on the battlefieldis 25% smaller than the current town in Attila. Here's the interesting bit: remember the wooden platforms in Rome2 from Alesia? Well these are the walls here. They can be burned (but takes the ammunition of 2-3 units of archers) and are flanked by archer towers but no gates.

Minor cities:

These are your basic towns fron Attila.
This settlement building has no special bonuses but give a bit more gold than towns.
Level I:
Exactly the same as Level III town. Max of two building slots.

Level II: exactly the same as Level IV town. Max of three building slots.

Level III: Large town: The same as the current Attila walled minor settlements but 10% smaller on the battlefield. +1 garrison unit

Level IV: Small city: +1-2 garrison units. The walls are higher: now they are completly made of stone and no longer basically huge "earth damns" but small stone walls built on top of a hill (as in you need stairs to go on top of the walls and the towers are part of them not separated). Gates are reinforced with metal and are thus more tougher to destroy. Unlocks the fourth building slot. Each tower now also has ballistas together with the archers (if the faction can recruit them), but only one per tower and they have a slow rate of fire.

Majour cities:
Level I: Same as Level III small city. Maximum building slots: 4
Level II: Same as Level IV small city. Maximum building slots: 5
Level III: The walls are taller and stronger. The gate are now made completly of metal so artillery cannot set them on fire anymore. Adds an other ballista to the tower. +1-2 garrison units. In battle settlement is 20% larger than the previous level.
Level IV: High thick walls (like Constantinople or Ctesiphon). Unlocks the sixth building slot. In battle the settlement is 15% larger than the previous level. +1 garrison unit

Replenishment:

The larger a settlement the faster the replenishment. If someone occupies a settlement but does not control the region the replenishment is halved and happens only inside the settlement.

Region control:

I do not know if this can actualy be achieved but if someone controls all the towns in a region, he or she controls the region. Thus, whoever still holds control over the rest of the settlements has his or her income and replenishment reduced.
This has to be within reason though as occupying 3 level I towns will not mean that you contoll a region that has a level IV large city.


Two types of building:

I think there should be two types of building:

1. Normal building: A button is added next to the name of a settlement. When clicked a screen/pop/ledge/etc. appears. Here you can build all normal buildings like in M2TW. They would be unlocked only when you build a better settlement. These buildings would be different between towns (which would have few or weak buildings) and cities (which has more the bigger they get). Yes, you can build military buildings but they can recruit only , mediocre or at max basic units.
2. Rome2 buildings: You build like usual but these ones represent the enhanced version of what you build with the other system. For example: you can build a market with the other system but the market build here eventualy becomes huge sprawling bazaar. Most of the buildings built here need the regular version to be built.

Automanage:

Bring back this: the AI upgrades buildings for you and you can instruct it what to do. Any building upgraded by this is free but will have a temporary maintanence cost until it's built (if I build a workshop for 1000 gold which takes 2 turns, my income will take a hit of 500 until the building is ready). The AI will do this only if there is enough money and if buildings are being upgraded by it but you have a very low income then it just temporarily halts the contruction.

Barricades:
The bigger the city is the more barricades are available.
We should be able to freely position barricades. Also, if a city walled by stone walls is besieged for a very long time, they can build a very limited ammout of enhanced barricades (destructible by siege equipment and artilerry only but scalable by ladders). They would be much weaker than walls though.

Towers:
Towers are mostly manned by archers and when are captured by the attackers they stop firing. Limited range.
Ballistas in towers can kill most soldiers instantly (I say most because I am unsure about elephants). Despite the fact that they have a good range they have a slow rate of fire.

Edicts:
IMO they should be renamed to government styleor something like that and should both influence and be influenced a bit by the personality of the governor over time.

So what do you think?

Edit: I almost forgot. The size of settlements on campaign map shouldve reduced by at least 60%

[Bramborough]

At first glance, some good ideas here. I rather like the notion of unlocking building slots with city level.