Suggestion: Add War Bases

[Goosius1]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

• Attacking players have invented a tactic of setting up temporary towns near the siege, as a base of operations.
• I just learned that some of them are calling these 'Siege Bases'. 'Siege Camps' would probably work too ... although maybe that would confuse with TownyCamps, I'm not sure.
• Anyway, this ticket is to suggest adding explicit code support:
  • `/sw base BASENAME would set up the base
  • Just like a regular town except:
    • The name would always start with 'siegebase_"
    • Setup cost would be cheaper
    • Lasts only 3 days
    • Locked to one nation. Can leave and rejoin it but cannot join another.

Describe alternatives you've considered

• Letting players do what they do today works well
• But new servers sometimes aren't aware of this essential tactic.
• FAQ job maybe?

Additional context
N/a

[Firav]

Im guessing this is to alleviate the issue of towny residents of a nation not being able to use each others town outposts?

[Goosius1]

• In a way this is more like a way to automatically teach servers about the tactic
• Because servers who install the plugin new might not know about it ... and many might not learn about it for some time, even if was placed somewhere in the FAQ or user guide.

[Goosius1]

In addition to that though, I've been thinking of a really nice perk with this feature too:

• If a soldier died in a siegezone.......they could be automatically respawned into the nearest town belonging to their side .
• For the attackers, this would typically be the siege base!
• For the defender, this would typically be the besieged town.
• Thus players could get back into the action sooner, much more like pro successful shooter games (rather than having to tediously walk for 10 minutes+).

[Firav]

• In a way this is more like a way to automatically teach servers about the tactic

  • Because servers who install the plugin new might not know about it ... and many might not learn about it for some time, even if was placed somewhere in the FAQ or user guide.

Some servers (such as myself) disallow such actions as these siege bases. If this were to be implemented, what type of balancing factors would be considered? Would there be a monetary requirement? Would army sizes have to be of a certain size to implement such bases?

In discussion of the Siege Bases themselves, would they be considered an entirely different town? Will they become a separate entity? Or would they be an extension of a current town?

In addition to that though, I've been thinking of a really nice perk with this feature too:

* If a soldier died in a siegezone.......they could be automatically respawned into the nearest town belonging to their side .

* For the attackers, this would typically be the siege base!

* For the defender, this would typically be the besieged town.

* Thus players could get back into the action sooner, much more like pro successful shooter games (rather than having to tediously walk for 10 minutes+).

If Siege Bases were an implemented item, this would be a neat feature to see. This would however change the current core mechanics of the SiegeWar system. Currently, only defenders that are residents of the town under siege have the ability to use the towns teleportation system. Would this suggestion overwrite that mechanic?

[Goosius1]

By suggesting "balancing factors" might be needed, this implies that the feature somehow gives an advantage to attackers.

But I don't accept that. Rather I believe that the vanilla mechanics give an overly harsh disadvantage to players, by forcing them to walk like 10 minutes to a siege. This feature is for the purpose of helping to alleviate that disadvantage.

Why do you disallow siege base towns?

To answer your last question, teleportation won't be affected, only respawning. Actually not even respawning needs to be affected, because servers who disagree with Siege Bases altogether, can just disable the feature no problem.

[Firav]

By suggesting "balancing factors" might be needed, this implies that the feature somehow gives an advantage to attackers.

But I don't accept that. Rather I believe that the vanilla mechanics give an overly harsh disadvantage to players, by forcing them to walk like 10 minutes to a siege. This feature is for the purpose of helping to alleviate that disadvantage.

I guess this is from my current view of the SiegeWar system. A town under siege, thats within a nation, cannot teleport back to the town under siege. Rather, I've seen the use of multiple outposts within the same nation for the towns of said nation to teleport back just outside of the siege zone to get back into the fight relatively quickly. Attackers having a town just outside of the siege zone allows the advantage of the entire nation being able to teleport to that same town, along with their allies.

Why do you disallow siege base towns?

They're disallowed for the above reasoning, as its perceived to give the attackers the advantage over the defenders, on a nation and alliance scale. Its expected that towns are to use their outposts to create forward bases rather than entire towns.

To answer your last question, teleportation won't be affected, only respawning. Actually not even respawning needs to be affected, because servers who disagree with Siege Bases altogether, can just disable the feature no problem.

So with this feature enabled, players would only respawn in the nearest town instead of their home towns? But are still unable to utilize teleportation into the siege zone? This is assuming that they've died within the siege zone yes? Wouldnt this give the defenders an advantage over the attackers, due to them spawning into the town under siege which is in most cases much closer than any other town/outpost that can be established outside of a siege zone?

[Goosius1]

A town under siege, thats within a nation, cannot teleport back to the town under siege. Rather, I've seen the use of multiple > outposts within the same nation for the towns of said nation to teleport back just outside of the siege zone to get back into > the fight relatively quickly. Attackers having a town just outside of the siege zone allows the advantage of the entire nation
being able to teleport to that same town, along with their allies.

I didn't really understand this:

• So, attackers spend money on a new town just outside the siegezone, and give themselves fast access to the siege. Ok.
• Is there a reason why defenders cannot do exactly the same thing?

If both sides can do exactly the same thing, for exactly the same costs and benefits.... well then there's no natural attacker advantage to the tactic. Am I missing something here?

---

On the nearest-town-spawn, as long as defenders spawn to the besieged town, and attackers spawn to the SiegeBase, that is maybe a minute of extra travel time for the attacker. That isn't op right?. If so it can be justified as a natural defender advantage.

[Goosius1]

Transferred to TownyCombat, as I think this can easily become a good generic solution which would be useful across war types

[Goosius1]

• This ticket just became a lot more important, because with TownyProvinces, it can now become impossible to place war bases near to target towns.
• I suggest the feature is called "War Bases", and works like this
  • "War Bases" are just like normal towns, except
    • Create with /t new-war-base FortKillalot (add a hook-in command)
    • 5x5 plots (configurable)
    • Cannot claim or unclaim (cancel these events)
    • Ideally different cost than regular towns (although this may be impossible without a towny change...(
    • No upkeep (i.e. cancel the upkeep event)
    • Temporary 5 days? (configurable)
    • They UN-cancel the TownyProvinces new town event
• Question: How do we stop the town in the province claiming all around the war base to wall it off????
  • Answer: This is not a problem in SiegeWar at least. Even If the base is placed just outside the siegezone, then since there's a default gap of 5 wilderness outside every time, then nobody can build between the town and the banner. Other plugins could presumably be equipped with similar build blocking radiuses.

[LlmDl]

Another answer to your question:

I would look at how TownyCamps and Towny handle min-distance settings in Towny's config.

Your initial placing of this idea in TownyCamps wasn't far off, but I would just do something similar to what TownyCamps does: make up a series of WorldCoords wherein Towny's claiming and wilderness settings are bypassed, which provide for a temporary "semi-claimed" state.

[Goosius1]

• A war base would require more than that though, that's the problem with using a towny-camps-like pattern. Specifically, to support how people use war towns today, such a base would need to have a list of multiple residents, and an ability to manage the list. Plus it would need build permissions and an ability to manage the build permissions, to ensure that only trusted players could build and maintain the fort walls.
• But in any case none of that might be relevant any more!, because I've been thinking about how this idea might solve the issue presented by TownyProvinces, and I don't think it will work.
• The reason is, by allowing an enemy to claim in wilderness inside a province, it highly motivates the residing town to try to claim the entire province with townblocks, thus negating one of the primary benefits of the plugin (solves overclaiming). It also negates the doughnut claiming solution, since such towns would absolutely if allowed try to claim a ring around the province and wall it off, to avoid letting enemies inside at all.
• So, now I'm now thinking about an alternative solution -> similar to what the Battlefield games do, a player rankedGeneral would become a "mobile spawn point". And anyone on their team who gets killed could/would, spawn on the whichever general of their team was nearest and in the SiegeZone. This seems like the next best thing to having a safe base nearby.
  • PLUS, a safe base can still be found nearby, via the attacking nation going to the trouble of finding at least one nearby ally. The only situation where such a base wouldn't be available is if the attacker is attacking deep into enemy territory without any nearby allies. And for this I say they deserve to have a less secure spawning solution.