Castle Nodes In Relation To Other Node Types

Hey all, I just had some questions about how guild nodes will relate to the other node types. Originally, I never thought about castles having their own nodes or ZOIs themselves, I always just pictured them being guild-ownable buildings within their given parent node's ZOI.

After looking on the wiki, it sounds in some parts like they exist entirely separate from the regular node system, with their own dedicated surrounding nodes, but then it later mentions that castles could theoretically exist right next to a castle, with these separate nodes and ZOIs overlapping. Castles and their surrounding nodes are said to have their own caravans designed to be defended in order to continuously strengthen the defenses and development of the castle and its surrounding nodes.

Overall, it sounds like there's a lot of interconnectivity here, and that sounds awesome, but I'm also left a bit confused as to how these nodes overlap.

So the castle has these three surrounding nodes over which it has its own "region" (separate form of ZOI) and which it must develop in order to maximize its defensive capabilities. Furthermore, it states that only guild members from the occupied castle can become citizens of these three surrounding nodes.

The wiki also states that these nodes can overlap. So one of these surrounding castle nodes could also be within the ZOI of a larger metropolis a couple nodes away. Does this mean the castle node benefits and metropolis node benefits stack on top of one another? Does this make it less beneficial for non-castle-residents to develop a node nearby a castle since one or more of their vassal nodes would end up being these special castle nodes that only the castle's guild members can occupy? Does the addition of a castle and it's castle nodes improve the quality of life for non-castle residents of the parent node family in a way that would make it beneficial for non-castle residents to develop a node nearby a castle?

Perhaps not all of this is ironed out yet, and if that's the case, how would you like to see these intersections handled?

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Ludullu

Don't think we have any concrete info on all of those questions. And considering the newly revealed "buffer" nodes, I'd probably want castle nodes to be surrounded by that buffer and be separate from everything else. Though I'd need to see how the system works as a whole to really have an opinion one way or the other.

Strevi

I think members of those castle nodes will not lose their citizenship in the other nodes where they have an apartment and freehold.
The purpose of castle nodes is to act as a catalyst for war activities.
The warrior guilds will focus their fight to own these small military castles rather than to destroy nodes for fun. Rebuilding them will be much cheaper than leveling up a normal node.
Therefore nodes will be sieged more for economic reasons and most citizens will have their homes relatively safe for longer time.

Warth

@Strevi castles nodes dont offer housing.
They work nothing like regular nodes, they exist completely outside the node system based on what we know

Strevi

Warth wrote: »

@Strevi castles nodes dont offer housing.
They work nothing like regular nodes, they exist completely outside the node system based on what we know

Yes. I've seen in wiki a statement

Only members of the occupying guild are citizens of these nodes.[30]

Related to that I was saying that they do not loose their regular citizenship. Maybe they shouldn't have used the word "citizen" at all for this kind of node.

Sengarden

@Strevi That’s a great point about the castle nodes being something for the aggro guilds to fight over rather than bulldozing regular nodes for fun. Should be a pretty good distraction with regular PvP events and consistent land enrichment content.

BaSkA_9x2

Correct me if I'm wrong, but we still don't have a lot of information regarding Guild Castles and even less regarding Castle Nodes.

My understanding is that Castle Nodes will simply be small villages used only by the Castle owners and its allies to further improve their Castle's capabilities, most likely only related to combat. I imagine you won't have many, if any, services/buildings/NPCs available inside Castles. However most, if not all, of the services/buildings/NPCs/caravanserai/etc. will be available in the Castle Nodes. In a nutshell, Castle Nodes will be the or one of the ways to improve/upgrade their adjacent Castle. I imagine Castles will be more or less useless outside of Castle Sieges, so all of the work will be done in the Castle Nodes.

One concern I have is regarding the number of Castle Nodes: why three? If there's only one Castle Node per Castle, wouldn't it make it easier for enemies to disrupt that Castle but also easier for the Castle Owners to upgrade their Castle? I feel like three Castle Nodes might be too much, maybe there's a reason for that, but I wonder if having only 1 or 2 wouldn't be better.

Ludullu

BaSkA13 wrote: »

One concern I have is regarding the number of Castle Nodes: why three? If there's only one Castle Node per Castle, wouldn't it make it easier for enemies to disrupt that Castle but also easier for the Castle Owners to upgrade their Castle? I feel like three Castle Nodes might be too much, maybe there's a reason for that, but I wonder if having only 1 or 2 wouldn't be better.

One a week. The sieging guilds will have weekly content to participate in.

Balanz

Based on my reading, I see the Castle itself as standing in the middle of a triad of three "Castle Nodes" of normal size.

Further, if I were Intrepid, I would place these triads in central locations, preventing a single Metropolis from dominating half a "Continent," and forcing larger Vassal Networks to be "stringier" and less compact.

Warth

Balanz wrote: »

Based on my reading, I see the Castle itself as standing in the middle of a triad of three "Castle Nodes" of normal size.

Further, if I were Intrepid, I would place these triads in central locations, preventing a single Metropolis from dominating half a "Continent," and forcing larger Vassal Networks to be "stringier" and less compact.

You know that castles are above Nodes in Hierarchy, right?
The nodes dont control shit in regards to castles.

Strevi

Warth wrote: »

Balanz wrote: »

Based on my reading, I see the Castle itself as standing in the middle of a triad of three "Castle Nodes" of normal size.

Further, if I were Intrepid, I would place these triads in central locations, preventing a single Metropolis from dominating half a "Continent," and forcing larger Vassal Networks to be "stringier" and less compact.

You know that castles are above Nodes in Hierarchy, right?
The nodes dont control shit in regards to castles.

There is some kind of dependency.
The castles give benefits to the nodes, important enough to motivate the normal citizens to defend the caravans which go from the normal nodes to the castle nodes.
The "Kings and Queens" of the castles must be nice and use the taxes to create those benefits.

Castles have the ability to allocate taxes collected from nodes under them toward certain benefits that go back to the node. Or they can be more selfishly governed that treasury more towards the guild that owns it and that obviously is going to have some political implications, because it could- if you're not using it for the benefit of the people in the region they might rise up and help take you out from that that position of owning that castle.[18] – Steven Sharif

I think the castles can fall easily if they are not supported.

Balanz

As I read it, the three "Castle Nodes" are actual Nodes, capped at Level 3, which cannot be part of any Vassal Network.

Unfortunately, Intrepid has a bad habit of using language poorly, often reusing the same word for different entities, and conflating terms.

For example, conflating Characters and Players.

Strevi

If castles have influence over 1/5 of the map and if citizens of this 1/5 map side are supposed to defend the caravans to castle nodes each weekend, who will attack the castle?

Warth

Strevi wrote: »

If castles have influence over 1/5 of the map and if citizens of this 1/5 map side are supposed to defend the caravans to castle nodes each weekend, who will attack the castle?

Why would citizens be supposed to defend those? If they aren't in an Alliance with the castle owning guild, then they might very well attack the tax caravan and pock the money themselves. @Strevi

Strevi

If they aren't in an Alliance with the castle owning guild they are still registered as defenders

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Castle_nodes

Citizens of nodes that fall under the purview of the castle are automatically registered as defenders of these caravans and may not participate in attacks against them.[9]

@Warth

Warth

@Strevi

Interesting, i didn't know that and i think its an horrible mechanic tbh.
This was one of the ways Citizens were able to revolt against oppressive/bad castle owners. Why Intrepid would decide to artificially take away player agency is a mystery to me. After all, the entire game is designed around player agency as a key design principle. I think this goes right along with the (in my opinion horrible) decision to make vassals unable to participate in Node Sieges against their parent, when in fact they might be the ones most inclined to siege it in the first place to propel their own advancement.

I guess, then the tax caravan will merely not be defended by guilds within the empire as long as they are unhappy with the monarch. The time of the guilds there is much better spent stealing the tax money of other kingdoms anyway as those benefit them personally.

Strevi

@Warth I didnt thought on this vassal parent relationship. Seems uncomfortable indeed to be in a smaller node. Who will want to live in a lvl 3 node?

Regarding the topic above, wiki mentions also

The enemies of the guild have incentive to attack these caravans to reap the rewards from the caravan and to sabotage the tax collection, which will reduce the defensive capability of the castle nodes and hence the castle itself.[9][3]

Maybe nearby guilds have to explicitly declare war? To become better rulers for their region?
Those further away, who are not part of this 1/5 map, do they have reason to own the castle of another region? Maybe for taxes? I doubt they can hold the castle long time.
This dynamic is not clear to me, who will want to do what.

Asgerr

As far as I understand it, castles are actual castles that exist within the world and are limited in number.

Said castles are initially held by NPCs and players must fight to take them over.

Those castles have essentially "royal" powers over the surrounding nodes, setting taxes and other options of the sort.

They may be close to an actual node, or within a node's ZOI. However the castles don't offer housing options. It's merely a prestige thing for PvP, granting the leader of the occupying guild access to a royal mount (flying one) and more money from taxes.

Other than that it's really just there for PvP purposes and doesn't otherwise impact the PvE aspect.

Strevi

@Asgerr
It impacts pve too. Castles give benefits to nodes, like unlocking buildings or boosting crop growth or activating quests... All these if that guild who occupied the castle has a nice leader and uses the tax money for citizens rather than taking it for the guild.

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