"Town Wall" is a building!

[joo]

I know this has been brought up recently, but I've had some new ideas on the topic - people are always looking at it from the point of view of the town wall being something that is built around the entire area of a location, and dealt with like a road upgrade, but in reality, a town wall would only encapsulate the actual town and all its buildings and machines. The "wild" area outside the town where hunting, farming and other resource gathering occurs would not be protected by a town wall.

This is my proposal: the protection for a town would take the form of some type of fortification, which would appear as a building when a traveller enters the location. It could start out as a wooden "fort", which is hard to break into, but not as hard as a "stronghold", which is made from stone (much more stone would be required and it would take longer to build). Finally, a "castle" would be made from both wood and stone, and be the hardest to lay siege to. Now, all the events that occur both inside and outside of the fort would be visible to both areas (like in a vehicle) and buildings and machines can only be built inside the fortification. Hunting and gathering activities would require the people to go outside, but most other projects could occur inside the fort.

The town gate could be opened or closed by anyone inside, but would require a minimum of four people on a battering ram to try to break open from the outside. People outside the town could be attacked from within by ranged weapons. Also, newspawns would spawn inside the gates (obviously).

Now, for people who make a living from farming or gathering resources, they could still be protected, but they would need to build a "farm" inside the city walls which would similarly have "transparent" walls like a vehicle, within which all manner of vegetable gathering operations could be performed.

For towns that are already established, the fort could still be built around all the existing buildings, and existing forts could be upgraded with the right materials.

Now I know all this sounds like it would all take a lot of effort to implement, but it doesn't all have to be done right away. The first step would be to make a fortification that could be built in a town around the buildings. Also, my idea is far from perfect and it will require a bit of work to be implementable.

[Doug R.]

I like the idea.

[Rossato]

I only dislike the farm idea, I think gatherers should be in more risk, anyway.

[Chris]

Too complicated, and it gives too much power to the person(s) with the key.

[tiddy ogg]

Surely it's just a building with lots of rooms. If it's a new settlement, then the founders can make the laws that no building is allowed outside the original one. For existing towns, do likewise regarding all new building.

[joo]

I only dislike the farm idea, I think gatherers should be in more risk, anyway.

Perhaps then the farms would be built externally, but a farm "gate" could provide minimal protection, or at least a brief warning if it was being broken into.

Too complicated, and it gives too much power to the person(s) with the key.

There would be no key - the gate could be either opened or shut by anyone inside, it would be bit like dragging - it's opened or shut faster if more people participate. I'd assume most towns would leave it open by default unless there was a strange boat approaching or news of an invasion.

Surely it's just a building with lots of rooms. If it's a new settlement, then the founders can make the laws that no building is allowed outside the original one. For existing towns, do likewise regarding all new building.

The differences between this and a building with lots of rooms would be that "only outside" machinery could be contructed, it would take more effort to break into, and outside events, such as people arriving or speaking, would be visible.

[Rossato]

Well, I still think that building all the city's buildings inside another one (a hall is great) is the better way to protect it. But there are 2 great matters to make it ideal:

- Make possible to build a "surrounding" building, so established cities can build a protection

- Create a more powerful lock.


The powerful lock could be a gate, costs something like 10kg wood, 3kg iron and 1kg steel, be built only inside halls (stone, brick and marble) and have a much lower breaking chance. So, maybe a battering ram can be made, that is only a more efficient crowbar. I think this should be not hard to implement.

[Gran]

I like the original idea.I see no problem with it, and it seems quite fair.

[formerly known as hf]

Surely you knew this was coming like the inevitable emotion-sapping knowledge that tomorrow will bring yet another day filled with dull aches of a life spent mindlessly meandering through a painful middle class existence of dead-end middle management jobs, a loveless marriage, a pitiful pension and the sound knolwedge of oncoming years of unfullfillment, mediocrity and vague alcoholic depression:

Toll Boothes and or Gates,2005 - truly there is nothing new in our postmodern existence

And:
great walls (ok, fine, so you didn't mean walls around a location - but it's near as damnit)

And:
Road gates (Duplicate Suggestion Rejected)

[joo]

I said at the beginning of my post that I knew this had been brought up before, but I feel that while those were half-baked, impulsive suggestions (no offence to anyone who started a city wall topic) that had no real thought put into them, my idea has the potential to work with the game.

[formerly known as hf]

We've been through this before - as far as I remember, the genral consensus is that it's much preferred if similar suggestions are kept in the same thread (though different suggestions kept seperate)

Though you may have a much better thought-out idea for coneption, it's essentially the same as the discussion on the gates thread - just more thought put into implementation / workings.

Having seperate threads for essentially the same suggestion makes it difficult for and ProgD/RD people who might actually read them and be looking for ideas throughout the thread. it also means any new players don't ever see the discussion which has gone on before (which might be informative)