Stronghold(s) Suggestion

[Atheist]

I would like to see there be some place on the map (possibly multiple places) that have a special thing where you fight your way through a stronghold type place and you can take it over, and post some mercs there to defend it. Maybe the enemies try and attack it from time to time, forcing your garrisoned mercs to fight, or maybe you could hire guards to defend your stronghold from towns, with some little daily cost so it does not drain all of your money. This would be a place to store all of your stuff, and post some mercs, and maybe even make gear.

An example would be like this: you hear about an old tower near the lower left corner of the map, supposedly inhabited by orcs, and used as a base, you task would be to take it over, and protect it from the orcs that come and try and take it back. I think this would be a little extra thing to make the game much better.

To expand on this idea, (and potentially make more work for the devs :) you could customise the “strongholds” lets use a different example this time.
So you take a quest from this nobleman to recapture his rightful land, you do the thing, kill the bandit inhabitants of this old fort, and when the nobleman comes and sees what it has become, he is appalled. He does not want this land, and he does not have the money to rebuild it back up to what he remembers growing up in. So he decides that the mercs can have it, and they can use it however they want. There would be upgrades that could be added on to it including the following simple buildings that could be built in the walled part of the fort, all of these could be NPM positions (non player mercs :D)

(little extra thing) Add an option to fall back to places deeper in the fort, like falling back to the tower when defending the courtyard)
Also add a max # of buildings to be build, the base would be 3, tower adds 1, barracks must be built. (so real base is 2 additional buildings)

Barracks: Where guards and mercs can sleep, allows guards to be hired (500 gold, must be built 100 gold per guard, 2 come with it for free (6/day) max of 8
Infirmary: A place for healing the mercs quicker (if they heal automatically, my bad, i have not played the game) (500 gold)
Smithy: A place to forge gear (1000 gold)
Stables: A place to keep horses (750 gold) (if cavalry is ever implimented into the game, read one suggestion about it)
Keep: An additional place to fall back to if needed, a place for the balista (1000 gold to build) Adds to the max # of buildings by 1 (does not count as one)
Scout’s Tower: adds a small tower, with 1 scout, that alerts you of approaching enemies. (250 gold)

The following does not count as a building, and thus, does not count towards the maximum of 3:

Balista: adds a balista on top of a tower in the fort (500 gold) this would require 2 ppl to work it, it would deal lots of damage, (1 shot every 3 rounds)
Gatehouse: adds an extra line of defense for the guards and mercs to defend. (1000 gold)

This is another idea to add to the “stronghold” Make some things that are profitable, you could make a tavern, making money. Thus creating something like the one found in baldur’s gate, Candlekeep Inn. List of money making additions:

Tavern/inn: 60 gold a day, a place for people to come and drink, then sleep it off. (1000 gold)
Training School, a merc must be posted here to train, 40 gold a day, place to train people, they dont become mercs or guards, (500 gold)

So lets create a stronghold as an example, we will use our angry nobleman example this time:

A barracks is built, as part of the main quest, to defend it.
The mercs decide they want to make some money, and build a training school, leaving Arnold the Useless there to train.
They then make enough money to build themselves a tavern/inn in their stronghold.
They are now making 100 gold a day, counteracting the costs of the mercs every day.
The cost to do this would be 2000 gold, and, since they are employing 2 guards for every building they make, their end of the day profits come to 68 gold/day

Here is another example using the angry nobleman again:

The mercs capture it, and build the barracks
The mercs decide it is in their best interests to build a keep within the fort, increasing the defenses.
The mercs install a balista on top of the keep, posting 2 guards in the keep
They then proceed to build a Scouts Tower, Infirmiry, and Smithy, costing them 1750 gold.
When the enemy attacks them, they are well prepared to defend it, as they hire the maximum of 8 guards to defend it, posting 2 archers to help the defense.

This is the most expensive way to do it, but it makes a safe place for the mercs to rest up, and if need be, retreat to.

The maximum number of mercs posted to a stronghold is 4, thus making the 12 limit reachable, if 4 are posted and 8 guards are hired. In the profitable example, it is harder to defend, as they only have to places, the front gate, and the middle of the fort, unless they build the gatehouse, seeing as it does not count as a room, making another place to defend.

The mercs can only have one fort at a time, their current one may be abandoned, leaving it there, looted (1/4 of the money given back) or sold off (1/2 of the money given back, but this takes a week) Each building may be demolished for an additional 1/4 of the original cost.

Ask me about your God

[Atheist]

Each of these strongholds would be hard to take, the examples mentioned in the above text are no longer valid. Strongholds are as hard to get as they are hard to come by. There are a couple in every world, all of them home to powerful leaders of deadly factions, wielding a legendary item, and guarded by many strong men.

This would make getting a stronghold more important, rarer, and more like a real accomplishment.

Ask me about your God

[frank_will]

I think something similar has been discussed before in the forums, but I do not remember the answer from the Devs and cannot find it now. I think it would be a great addition indeed, to give some more goals to reach in game.

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