Thod's Guide to claiming a tower


Pathfinder Online

Grand Lodge Goblin Squad Member

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With politics and the war of towers in full swing I thought I give a quick primer on the subtleties of claiming a tower.
The basic idea is simple - you have to amass the highest ranking claim and convince your opponent that your claim is more valid then theirs. But alas there is no such mechanic or fixed rule as the 1000 point mechanic - therefore claims will be refuted and wars will be fought. It would be sad if this wouldn't be the case as then we wouldn't have such a facinating game.

But I thought I best explain what I think constitutes a claim to a tower:

Basic claim types
a) Proximity - the closer the tower is to you, the stronger the claim
b) Force - the larger your troops the more you can claim
c) Negotiation - trading of claims with other settlements
d) Time - the longer you own a tower the stronger your claim
e) Public opinion - what do people think not belonging to your own group or opposing group whom the tower belongs to

Now lets look at these claims in more detail:

Proximity is a very strong claim type. Being the closest settlement will give you an automated claim on a tower. The NAP further strengthens this claim for the core 6 towers. This will give you an automatic strong claim d) as well. This claim gets weaker the further you get away. A conflict will always arise when a tower is the same distance. By definition this tower can never be claimed solely on the grounds of distance.

Force is second strong claim type. This is PvP - being the stronger party will give you the upper hand. The danger with this claim type is that it will nearly always affect claim type e) - the public opinion. Declaring war or being the defender can strengthen this claim - taking a tower by deception or agression will weaken it.

Negotiation is in principl a trading of claims. There seldom is a tower which you can claim 100%. Especially towers at borders might fall 50:50 towards two settlements. Negotiation can help to exchange part claims by ceding claims to one tower and strengthening them on another one.

Time - the longer you own a tower the stronger your claim becomes. This is why it was so important to take towers quickly on the first day of War of Towers. This advantage is now gone - I doubt there is a single unclaimed tower outside the core 6 left. This also means you want to keep towers you currently own as each tower you lose will reset the timer.

Public opinion - in most cases there will be 2 parties who dispute a tower. But there are other players who will keenly watch, cheer you own or claim foul play. Public opinion will seldom be the overriding force and it is fickle and changes with time. Public opinion most likely will lead to a temporary ceding of claim but as you need to convince you opponent of the rightousness of your claim you build up problems for the future.

Now there are multiple ways to weaken the claim of an opponent or to strengthen your own. If I get time, I will go into more detail and might even give a few examples.

I will be AFK for a while now - great sunshine outside. But that won't prevent me from working on ways to solidify our hold on the towers we currently own. Or thinking about a follow up to this thread.

Please let me know if there is an important category that I missed out or where you agree and disagree.

Goblin Squad Member

Nice starting primer, Thod

Goblin Squad Member

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Looks like Calvinball to me, changing rules after the game is begun.

imo, based on the rules for the WoT, only b) Force matters. No one has any claim to a tower; they hold a tower only when all others choose not to take that tower, or cannot muster the force to take it.

The NAP is an agreement that basically say, settlements will choose, by mutual agreement, not to take another settlement's inner ring.

Grand Lodge Goblin Squad Member

@Yrme
a) This is a sandbox - we - the players make up the rules. GW provides the sandbox and the mechanics. Keeping an opponent out of your tower via diplomacy is as compatible with what GW programmed as keeping the opponent off your tower by force. The outcome in both cases is the same - they tower is still yours.
b) Only one rule 'the strongest takes it all' will end up as murder hobo and will drive away players
c) The strongest takes it all would mean Emerald Lodge is not viable as a settlement so close to Golgotha. I'm sure there are still people who think this is the case.

Don't get me wrong - there are different perceptions what claim trumps which other one. And there are also ways to make claims stronger or weaker.

By declaring war you up the claim value for force as it will ignore proximity (apart of supply lines), negotiation as well as time. But even then there is one left - public opinion. So no matter how strong you are - you have to watch out for this or others band together and will eventually fight you back.

So if you really want to build a large empire then in my view purely basing it on force alone will be inferior to someone else who uses all options he has.

Goblin Squad Member

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Thod wrote:
a) Proximity - the closer the tower is to you, the stronger the claim

I think you need to consider the possibility that your particular reading of this point may not be as pertinent to other Settlements that aren't in your situation - namely, Settlements that are in alliances where Tower assignments aren't based on proximity to a single Settlement.

Specifically, you've told me before that you won't recognize a claim by Phaeros of a Tower that's 2 hexes away from Hammerfall, if it's closer to Emerald Lodge than it is to Phaeros. Given that Hammerfall is a close ally of Phaeros, and given that Hammerfall and Phaeros (along with our other allies) made our internal Tower assignments based on what's best for the alliance as a whole rather than what's best for any single Settlement, I would ask you to publicly clarify your reading of "proximity".

Goblin Squad Member

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Just for clarification: I think the WoT is a stop-gap, to give some PvP elements to the game in the interim while we wait for feud and war mechanics, as well as settlement mechanics. POIs will establish claims, I think, and they will largely be placed by the criteria you outline. Hopefully, POIs placement takes a substantial amount of time (days) to get through all of its steps.

Goblin Squad Member

Nihimon has a point as even the Highroad Covenant agreed to tower distribution in the area before War of Towers.

I think that could be included as an exception to the distance clause, as it's nearest to the Alliance, rather than a specific settlement

Goblin Squad Member

Yrme wrote:
Just for clarification: I think the WoT is a stop-gap, to give some PvP elements to the game in the interim while we wait for feud and war mechanics, as well as settlement mechanics. POIs will establish claims, I think, and they will largely be placed by the criteria you outline. Hopefully, POIs placement takes a substantial amount of time (days) to get through all of its steps.

That is exactly what WoT is. It is a potentially artificial "meaningfulness" for PVP, and a hope that PVP will be directed to WoT.

Unaffiliated Companies, presently using NPC settlements, have no purpose to engage in WoT and will immediately move to player looting as soon as Player Husks are introduced next week.


Your point b)force is not only relevant for the direct fight for a tower. More generally, this also encompasses settlement/alliance size. Generally, settlements with smallish populations have a much smaller claim to a tower outside their immediate vicinity than larger settlements and alliances who can both project more force directly, but who also indirectly, via specialized crafters, gatherers, etc. become more powerful faster. This increased power of course leads naturally to a much greater sphere of influence and thus claimed territory.

Towers at the half-way point between a small and a much larger group naturally fall into the sphere of influence of the bigger power, barring other contenders.

Grand Lodge Goblin Squad Member

Nihimon wrote:
Thod wrote:
a) Proximity - the closer the tower is to you, the stronger the claim

I think you need to consider the possibility that your particular reading of this point may not be as pertinent to other Settlements that aren't in your situation - namely, Settlements that are in alliances where Tower assignments aren't based on proximity to a single Settlement.

Specifically, you've told me before that you won't recognize a claim by Phaeros of a Tower that's 2 hexes away from Hammerfall, if it's closer to Emerald Lodge than it is to Phaeros. Given that Hammerfall is a close ally of Phaeros, and given that Hammerfall and Phaeros (along with our other allies) made our internal Tower assignments based on what's best for the alliance as a whole rather than what's best for any single Settlement, I would ask you to publicly clarify your reading of "proximity".

People should read everything and not pick out what they like or dislike depending on who posts it.

The claim in this case would be covered under c). So this is a great example that you actually already follow what I have written.

Grand Lodge Goblin Squad Member

Kero wrote:

Your point b)force is not only relevant for the direct fight for a tower. More generally, this also encompasses settlement/alliance size. Generally, settlements with smallish populations have a much smaller claim to a tower outside their immediate vicinity than larger settlements and alliances who can both project more force directly, but who also indirectly, via specialized crafters, gatherers, etc. become more powerful faster. This increased power of course leads naturally to a much greater sphere of influence and thus claimed territory.

Towers at the half-way point between a small and a much larger group naturally fall into the sphere of influence of the bigger power, barring other contenders.

Absolutely - if you count towers half way between Emerald Lodge and Golgotha then you will find that Golgotha gained in total tower count. They don't have all half way - but they have more then 50%.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

0: You have what you hold.

Goblin Squad Member

Thod wrote:
Nihimon wrote:
Thod wrote:
a) Proximity - the closer the tower is to you, the stronger the claim

I think you need to consider the possibility that your particular reading of this point may not be as pertinent to other Settlements that aren't in your situation - namely, Settlements that are in alliances where Tower assignments aren't based on proximity to a single Settlement.

Specifically, you've told me before that you won't recognize a claim by Phaeros of a Tower that's 2 hexes away from Hammerfall, if it's closer to Emerald Lodge than it is to Phaeros. Given that Hammerfall is a close ally of Phaeros, and given that Hammerfall and Phaeros (along with our other allies) made our internal Tower assignments based on what's best for the alliance as a whole rather than what's best for any single Settlement, I would ask you to publicly clarify your reading of "proximity".

People should read everything and not pick out what they like or dislike depending on who posts it.

The claim in this case would be covered under c). So this is a great example that you actually already follow what I have written.

I think he was specifically asking if you accept the transfer of Hammerfall's claims to those towers to Phaeros, as described by method c).

I don't think there was any malicious discrimination there, just a practical clarification and a question whether you agree, given a past statement =)

It's possible that when you made that post you didn't know that Hammerfall had done that (I can't find your post to reference).

Goblin Squad Member

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DeciusBrutus wrote:
0: You have what you hold.

That quote gets thrown around a lot, but holding something through negotiation is just as valid as holding something through force and does not violate that axiom. Food for thought.

Goblin Squad Member

DeciusBrutus wrote:
0: You have what you hold.

This is really what I think it will come down to. Neighbors will naturally try to avoid conflict at home by making agreements, but I don't see why anybody else would respect those agreements.

The only River Kingdoms-wide agreement I know of is the NAP which covers the core 6 towers around a settlement. Those towers allow a PC settlement to offer more training than an NPC settlement. That is the point that most can get behind e). After that point, I think e) will dwindle to the dedicated few pacifists and those that in reality have an interest in one or the other party. I don't know everybody, and definitely not more people than Thod, so I could be wrong; we will see =)

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