All Along the ... Hideout?


Pathfinder Online

Goblin Squad Member

Watchtowers and Hideouts
Inspired by the A Wizards Tower thread and some conversations on the PFOfan TS chat I would like to start a discussion about the Watchtower and the Hideout. I think that the watchtower and the hideout may be the only structures availably to us to build at the start of EE. It also seems that both of these have a large number of things in common. These similarities have been stated in Player-Created Buildings and Structures (if the thinking has not changed) and I have grouped these similarities below:

1) Perception and Detection
Hideouts have a "threat radius" that determines how they interact with their surroundings: when a character using fast travel enters the threat radius of a hideout, the characters in the hideout can trigger an ambush—the targets drop out of fast travel in the vicinity of the hideout, and the bandits may be able to overtake them and engage them in melee combat before they can exit the area and re-enter fast travel.
Watchtowers have a "detection radius" that determines when and if the occupants are alerted to the presence of potentially hostile forces in the hex. When a character enters the detection radius of the watchtower, there's a chance that the character's location will be revealed to the watchtower's occupants, who can in turn pass that information on to others. Avoiding such detection requires specialized character abilities.

2) Storage and Safe Log-out
Hideouts have limited storage, and they allow characters to be logged out of the game safely.
Watchtowers have storage and they allow characters to be logged out of the game safely.

3) Advancement
Advancing a hideout can make it harder to locate, increase its local storage, increase its threat radius, and allow the hideout's occupants to determine the nature of passing characters and their gear before triggering an ambush.
Advancing a watchtower can improve its structural integrity, increase its local storage, and increase its detection radius.

4) Vulnerability
Hideouts can be destroyed by individuals.
Watchtowers can be destroyed by individuals.

That being said I propose the following topics for discussion and invite all comment (especially devs if they are able):

1) From Over the Hill and Far Away "watchtowers allow members of the settlement to see further into neighboring hexes and boosts settlement security." (In the sense that the watchtower controls the hex next to the settlement.) However, would not a settlement gain the same advantage if, instead of a watchtower, they had a hideout?

2) Would the increased detection radius of an advanced watchtower allow those that control the watchtower to see into an adjacent hex?
2a) Would the increased detection radius of an advanced hideout allow those that control the hideout to see into an adjacent hex?

3) I can see the necessity of the restriction of one free standing structure per Point of Interest in a Wilderness Hex. However, I do think that it would be interesting if a venture company actually built a watchtower in a hex that already had a hideout. After all, if you tried to build in a wilderness hex and couldn't, wouldn't that be a dead giveaway that there was a hideout in the area? This would generate a very interesting conflict (if the bandits didn't attack the construction site enough to prevent the construction of the watchtower).

4) If there was a hex between a watchtower and a hideout, and then both were advanced to increase their detection radius, we might have an interesting scenario where potential enemies can spy on one another from a distance. Would the increased detection radius of each allow spying into a separating hex, in a sense interfering with either group's ability to control the separating hex?

5) If there were an advanced watchtower and an advanced hideout in adjacent hexes, and the detection radius of each overlapped, would these controlling the watchtower have an enhanced advantage over those controlling the hideout? I can see a case where the watchtower could position patrols in the hideout hex and when the bandits came out to attack, direct the patrol to intervene. This would greatly increase the risk to the bandits to complete their attack and escape by shortening the window between the attack and arrival of reinforcements.

As always I invite your comment and discussion.

Goblin Squad Member

Overall I like this Idea, and it is interesting how you view them as being counter parts with equal abilities.

Perhaps the highest tier Watchtower or Hideout could provide training for new recruits?

Goblin Squad Member

I was thinking that all the planning around banditry was completely ignoring an equal and opposite force that adds a much higher level of complexity to the issue. If watchtowers and hideouts can't get NPC guards because they are not contiguous with an NPC settlement, that would mean that there is a 24/7 PvP window for them both.

From They Flew the Colors, They Began to Fight:
"Points of Interest such as Inns or Watchtowers in wilderness hexes controlled by a settlement can also have NPC guards defending them, but these are much smaller forces than the NPC garrison defending a settlement. Like a settlement, a Point of Interest has a PvP window, and outside this time its NPC defenses are massively increased. Any Points of Interest controlled by a settlement must have the same PvP window as the controlling settlement."
The bolded text I think is the key. The hex containing a hideout or watchtower in the wilderness away from a settlement will not be controlled by the settlement, and hence not have NPC guards.

Goblin Squad Member

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Storage security should not be high in any storage place other than a bank. Anything stored in hideouts should be lootable by those who can find the hideout, after they've defeated any guards hired and placed inside of said hideout of course.

Goblin Squad Member

Blaeringr wrote:
Storage security should not be high in any storage place other than a bank. Anything stored in hideouts should be lootable by those who can find the hideout, after they've defeated any guards hired and placed inside of said hideout of course.

Clearly

Goblin Squad Member

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Created Settlement Defense Example where watchtowers guarding settlement could be supplemented by the placement of hideouts. If the detection range of either watchtowers or hideouts could be increased beyond the hex containing them, this becomes an even better situation for settlement defense.

EDIT: If farms were replaced by hideouts (assuming that you don't place hideouts in second hex ring), this also makes a more secure defense.

Goblin Squad Member

Pretty cool. :)

Goblin Squad Member

interesting thoughts. Hideouts should clearly have a function as observation posts.

I still think there is a key difference here (unless devs say otherwise), which I think of as "state vs Bluddwolf".
A watchtower as I see it is a formal public claim to the hex by a formal public organization (settlement or proto-settlement group). There can only be one in a hex at any time.
Hideouts as I see them are built and owned by indivduals for private purposes not (directly) connected to the politics/land control game. There could potentially be any number of hideouts in a hex.

my bottom line: Watchtowers with npc guards makes sense. Hideouts with npc guards less so, unless they are the "personal henchmen" of the owner.

Goblin Squad Member

I like the "personal henchmen" idea. I agree to a point with what your saying random. Again, depending on exactly how hideouts work, they might be smallish settlements, in which case 1 per hex tops, though maybe not requiring a settlement hex to build? It would be used for 2 things, the way I see it. Rally point for the bandits who own it, and storage for their loot. The guards would be much less than that of a watch tower or other structure, however, I still think it should have guards.

Goblin Squad Member

I was thinking more of the function of a hideout to drop people out of fast travel as a roadblock to moving troops up to a settlement. I was not thinking of the hideout or watchtower as an NPC location. With regard to bandit activity, a watchtower is (I believe) an ideal location to monitor bandit activity when constructed close to a bandit hideout. My hope is that advanced watchtowers/hideouts would have an extended radius of detection beyond their hex. In reality advancement may mean more detailed information on targets detected in the structures hex rather than extended range. One possible alternate example could be advancing a watchtower/hideout detection radius into one adjacent hex selected at advancement. I think that would make for a more challenging bandit/enforcer scenario. I wouldn't expect to get the enhanced detail with the extended radius, just the basic detection in that hex. Terrain may also play a part in extending range.

Bottom line: In my opinion 1) a company that is active in anti-bandit activity will want a watchtower close to bandit activity, 2) a hideout maned by settlement PCs could be a valuable defense component for a settlement.

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