Where do we want our Settlement?

[Drake]

With the release of what may potentially be the final map for early enrolment and the land rush with markings on where the land rush settlements may be, where do you think we should aim for.

Keep these things in mind:

Proximity to Resources
Proximity to secure routs (roads)
Probability of PvP conflicts to take our area when that is enabled and our ability to defend against such.


This is actually something we may wish to discuses with allies to work out trade and defense partnerships.


This thread is meant to be a discussion to get people thinking about what we want to do and is in no way a decision making thread.

[WxCougar]

Hey Drake!

We have some discussion going on in the General Discussion Boards under Restart of the Guild Landrush. Thinking back, I probably should have stuck that conversation in the Guild Discussion.

[Drake]

Personally, I like location H for it's access to resources and proximity to the road. The area around the settlement offers some natural defense in the from of two hill hexes and a pass hex.

For true defensibility I like W and AA as they are situated on a mountain with the biggest threat a permanent home for escalation cycles between them. Preferably if we got one of those two an ally would take the other.

If we have enough allies at the start, the area of the southernmost mountains (AC and AD) would be nice, but we would need to secure alliances with the other land rush settlement and two non-land rush settlements. The biggest problem there is lack of access to roads and the probability of larger alliances wanting the area.

[Nymerias]

I think it is more than fine to have the conversation going in two places. As long as all the members here know to reference them both. Having the original topic where our ally ambassadors can weigh in is perfect. Having a more detailed conversation here is a good idea as well.

Whatever place we do end up getting, we will make it work. I think our group in general has so many varied interests and so many plans of how to work to support each other's varied interests already in place that we will make any spot work for us. (Just to clarify that doesn't mean I think we should volunteer to give up places to other groups or anything like that ....)

The spreadsheet you linked in the other thread is interesting, though I don't think it could ever be universally weighted. I think we have to decide what we think will be best for us in the long term. Which granted is really hard to do because we have to predict an unknown future to do so.

I still really like AC and P. Though if we went for AC it would really help to be friends with AB. AC also puts us in a place where we will have to travel farther to get get farming going. In theory getting food might be the most important early on, but defensibility becomes more important once you have steady resources.

[WxCougar]

The spreadsheet is more for fun, but I forgot to mention that it also gives distances to various resources in meters. That would be helpful in order to get a spacial mental picture. For example, the H hex is considered to be 640 meters away from a plains hex.

I'm pulling information out of the message boards that seem to be at least vaguely helpful so we have them all in one spot. I hope they are helpful anyway : ).

I like you, Nymerias, think we can make anything work due to our diversity.

As to allies, there are talks in the works. I am keeping an eye out for meetings but missed the one that happened the other day due to work. Likely there will be more and we can get an idea what everyone else is thinking. That said, based off the boards, W, AD and AC are popular.

[Nymerias]

So lets list up some things and talk about how to ranks them in importance when choosing our list of spots.

1) Proximity to a variety of resources. How highly should we weight this in our choices? Which ones do we want to put the most importance on? Are there spots that are lacking in one type but if a nearby settlement was friendly we could easily trade for it?
2) Proximity to roads. How highly should we weight this? Do we see it as something that increases our safety or increases our chances of being targeted?
3) Proximity to high value resources i.e. meteor crater hexes. would the low travel time to them be worth the constant threat of nearby forces?
4) Distribution of large "Good" settlements. Do we want to all group together or have small clusters over larger areas?

I'm sure there are more so we should keep adding them while we discuss these as well.

[Nymerias]

Wxcougar, Huran, and I got to talk a little bit in an informal chat with TEO and T7V last night. I started out trying to take notes but did a pretty pitiful job. Here are kind of the major areas that they were looking at. Hopefully Wxcougar and Huran can help me fill in the details of merits and downsides to each section. Here are some of the general points they were concerned about:
1) Availability of nearby PvE content. Wanting to make sure there are plenty of things around for the more PvE minded people to enjoy.
2) Availability of nearby PvP content. Wanting to make sure that the folks who are looking for meaningful PvP action have more than just wall guard duty to look forward to. (Balance between the two play styles is what they were looking for)
3) Variety of resources available vs. perhaps having a monopoly on one type of resource. As well as proximity to skymetal hexes.
4) Possibility for expansion when more of the map opens up. A thing to note here is that expansion refers to the organizations already in alliance with one another getting more land to support their growth as well as meaning helping other organizations to get settlements near us when they are ready. So while expansion is important to them to keep in mind, it isn't in the sense of expansionist land conquering goals.
5) Time to travel between hexes being reasonable.
6) Though Riverwatch will not be in the game when we start, our Neutral Good settlements will most likely be doing most of our recruitment out of Riverwatch. So how far away we are from there is a concern. In the same vein of thought groups there are Evil might want to congregate near the Fort. Keeping that in mind may or may not influence choices.
7) Importance of roads and choke points to elevation changes.

So the four general areas being discussed are (in no particular order of preference yet):
1) the K-C-G-H area. A variety of variations were discussed. But that general K focused area. Or an option was discussed to abandon K and go for a more C-G-H area.
2) A-B-E. An idea of taking a line rather than a triangle. Was not discussed in as great of detail.
3) AA-W-V. Discussed as a balanced area for PvP and PvE. Interesting suggestions about V maybe being a huge source of trade once the Spire opens from adventures who need healing, consumables, gear repairs etc.
4) AC-AB-Y-Z with the potential to try and expand to AD as well. A lot of discussion around this one. Merits and disadvantages to holding a chokepoint area. Lots of room for expansion. Balance between PvP and PvE.

I'm not really going into detail with what the other groups said about the areas. I kind of want to hear our groups thoughts unbiased first because your opinions matter more to me than their opinions. So what are some of your thoughts on those specific zones?

[Huran]

That sounds about right Nymerius. I would also add that after you went to bed there were discussions about a political treaty between the allied groups. The aim was to have something to the effect of how the real life United Nations or the US house if reps set up. Each group would keep their own autonomy and continue to be separate, the treaty would just handle how we deal with inner alliance conflicts (like if TEO and T7V have a disagreement for an example).

Nothing was decided it was just discussed as something that would be nice to have in place. Everyone was also interested in what our guilds thoughts were, while we were able to give them our thoughts we held off in having an official stance until our leadership comes out of hibernation.

[Drake]

Apr 25, 2014 13:47:26 GMT -6 Huran said:

until our leadership comes out of hibernation.

Speaking of... has anyone heard from any of the other Guardians and higher? I'm mostly seeing Wardens and Keepers.

On a side note I personally view everyone who is actually active right now to be equal regardless of listed rank.

[Lorhayden]

I like the treaty idea, it will just give us a way to handle conflicts so they don't escalate into our groups fighting against one another. Though CCs fighting for training I think will be fun.

Of the four that were discussed.

1)The K focused area will put us all right near the Good aligned starting city so as the game grows we would control a region around the starting city. The main draw back to that would be the general lack of terrain variation. Unless of course we took H or I in which case I'm totally down.
2)No, not a fan of the line, poor defense as well.
3)This is probably my second favorite setting after 4, but I like the idea of it becoming a major trading hub and the more I think about it the more I think this would probably be the best spot for us to setup with our allies.
4)this is my second favorite spot do to our ability to grow here

[Lorhayden]

Haven't seen them as we get closer to EE everyone will be back however I'm not certain how that will affect us for the LR

[Huran]

The more I look at the map and discuss with others, I am really liking H more and more. Though I also still think AB is a very good fit as well. If we form an alliance and end up going in the middle, I would say AA.

Z is a good alternative to AB and I is a good alternative to H. I am least fond of the middle but if we end up there I like Q as an alternative to AA.

[WxCougar]

I have seen some movement of the founders of the guild in the Facebook group. I am posting over there to draw attention over here in hopes we can wake all our sleepers.

For me personally I, like Huran, am really liking "H" the more I look at it (with "I" as being a secondary for that area). I still like "AB" and "Z" as well as my first picks even despite being far away from Fort Riverwatch (the good starting settlement which is not going to be in EE). I am not as much of a fan of the middle area, but if we did go that route, AA isn't terrible.

[Drake]

Well... I still like H

There are Huge plusses for H

Access to Resources
Hex Type(Distance): Resource
Mountains(1-5* hexes away): Best Bulk Iron
Woodlands(0 hexes away): Best Bulk Wood
Croplands(2 hexes away): Best Bulk Food
Highlands(2 hexes away): Best Bulk Stone

From what I was understanding, some of the mountain hexes are actually Forested Mountains so they most likely have a mix of Wood and Iron and probably less of each. The distance to the Mountains depends on the actual location of the Pass and if you count the Forested Mountains.

Access to Brokenlands is 6 hexes away, about as far as you can be (Even A and B have one just off the map north of B). Brokenlands resources are NOT critical for settlement development, we can always trade our excess bulk goods to others who need it in exchange for those resources for our crafters.

I would love to see us get H while I, J, K and X all go to Allies which would allow us to keep the road between the Crossroad all the way to Thornkeep very safe.


I do like K, but it would require a lot of work to defend it. There are no mountains to protect any sides and the Passes are non-claimable hexes. There is also a lack of resource variety to deal with. It would make for a great Trade Center though.

Don't forget, they said we can have claimed hexes that are not directly connected via claimed hexes to our settlement hex. This means we can make outposts by the river when the time comes.

[lifedragn]

Apologies if any of those attending the meeting actually posted this, but wanting to share this map for you that one of the T7V folks put together. Essentially color-coded territorial control assumptions.

khaiognos.org/images/territory.png