AMUN: Vigilance Towers

[Adrian]

Hello everyone,

Finally we are able to present you an initial version of the Vigilance Towers so you can test them and let us know what you think and also give us suggestions. For this to happen, first we must clarify some important points, to which we beg you pay a lot of attention:

- This is a Beta version, meaning that there will be a lot of details to polish (such as errors with textures, 3D models, map edition, collisions, etc.) and mechanics to adjust (timings, damages, defences, distances, etc.)
- We haven't tested with a large amount of players, so it will take some time to adjust the variables in order to provide a more pleasant gaming experience.
- The towers will not replace the forts and castles and they will not represent an objective that gives direct rewards or a time consuming gameplay.

With these points cleared up, we can continue to explain our vision of the Vigilance Towers:

The goal of the towers is to make it more difficult to access the war zones but in a strategic way. By no means they are designed to act like a complete roadblock for bridges (or in other zones in the future) but to pose a dilemma to those that want to cross them.

Currently, fort and castle capturing takes place through a non-warned attack of an army that will have to wait, with their arms crossed, to the owner of that building to come and recover it, if they are willing to. This, without any strategic cost to the attacker. Also, when a single player or a small group of them wants to spread terror upon those that are training, they just cross a bridge and enter a conflict zone that is not defended in any way. This makes no sense, doesn't it?

So, what can the towers achieve to compensate these issues?

- That an army must silently capture a vigilance tower avoiding the guards letting nearby enemies or a whole realm know they're coming.
- That a hunter must be camouflaged to avoid being detected.
- That a group depends on a hunter and their importance and role in war gets to be determinant.
- That those that want to cross the bridge without defeating the guards can do it, but at the cost of the accessed realm to know about it so they can go and find them.

To achieve all of these, adjustments will be needed.

We need you to understand that this addition can be easily neutralised by those that are adequately organised and this is one of its most important features: articulate organised groups.

The gameplay, as it is now, is pretty easy. Depending on how it is used in the tests we will think about expanding it and big changes are not discarded, but always following this main idea that we have explained.

Some ideas that are still to be thought about:
- Allowing one warning that can't be avoided, but just to nearby enemies.
- One guard that can go mounting a horse to go and alert allies, that can be neutralised if caught.
- Changing the shape of the front of the tower to change from open battle to platform/ranged battle.
- Through a calculation of the average population of a realm, the influence of each player depending on the realm can be balanced.

Known bugs:
- Ignis tower lack of collision in backdoor, can jump inside easily.
- Ignis tower inner illumination is not working properly.
- Alsius tower top torch is not properly located.
- Some points of the barricades are not easy to attack.

Below, a quick guide with some details of how the towers function: