Movement & Teleportation

TL;DR: Nerf Teleporting.

Yes, nerf teleports. I think you should only be allowed to teleport into your own land. However, I do want to offer the chance to teleport to someone else's lands, so here goes:

Player A can give player B the permission to teleport to his lands, but this permission takes a period of 2 turns to revoke. That is, if you give the permission, you're powerless to stop them from teleporting a huge army into your capital. Should make you think twice before letting anyone teleport to your lands.

Regarding what Lime said about teleporting - which is near and dear to my own heart - I came up with this:

So, what is teleportation? Well, after the revamped Rune Mysteries, we should know full-well what it is, how it works, and why it works the way it does. Basically: You don't just teleport wherever you want. Either A) You spend a ton of time developing an ultra-complex spell to teleport reliably to a specific location, or B) You use a catalytic element, such as our beloved Lodestones, to quicken the process.

Therefore, in GW5, why don't we limit teleportation to specific regions?

Right now, the only factor is distance, and that translates directly into cost. We can increase the cost however much we want; the core problem will still remain: That the strategic element of having to pick where to teleport is rendered obsolete, because you can teleport anywhere as long as you have permission and enough Runes.

So, we make specific regions more valuable by allowing the players to acquire Mass Teleport Lodestones in those regions. Note I didn't say build. Only the Wizards' Guild has the full knowledge of teleportation. Therefore, in order to acquire a MTL, a player has to pay the Guild to build it for them. The wizards will take care of the material resources, in exchange for a Gold fee (or, we could make the player provide Stone and Runes, but there'd be no Gold charge). Once the MTL is built, it can handle a certain number of troops each season (tentatively, 2,000), which means teleporting huge armies will take more than 1 turn.

I'm currently undecided on instilling a Rune cost as well, because people will complain that teleporting to Lodestones in-game costs no runes. I personally think there should still be a Rune cost, and we can come up with whatever reason we need to justify it - probably "These Lodestones are on a much, MUCH larger scale than the ones in-game".

Tentative ideas of reworked Rune cost:

Teleporting to a MTL 1-3 regions away: 5 Runes per soldier.
Teleporting 4-7 regions away: 7 Runes.
Teleporting 8+ regions: 10 Runes.
Siege Engines: 500 Runes.
Caravans: 5,000 Runes.

Alternatively, we could let players have the option of requesting that the Wizards' Guild develop a teleportation spell for a specific region, and design it with large-scale armies in mind. This could, perhaps, remove the MTL soldier/turn limit, but would cost A LOT more money and time.

Players would not have to negotiate (that means sending a Diplomatic Entourage) with the Wizards' Guild to be able to purchase these MTLs; we can say each Warlord already did that prior to starting his empire, or whatever. However, to allow teleportation to another player's MTL, negotiation would be required. It functions just like a trade agreement, basically. Alliances would automatically include teleportation and military access.

Prior to this entire discussion starting, I envisioned something like that, though it didn't involve the wizard's tower/guild. Players could build a teleport beacon that functions in their faction-specific teleportation matrix. They could then teleport there. The trouble with this would be that if an enemy manages to access this beacon, they could use it to infiltrate the beacon's previous owner's teleportation systems and teleport to another beacon they own (that is, within a certain time limit). This would also function with what I suggested earlier, which would be that players can give each other access to their teleport beacons, but it'd take time to revoke this access.

I like the above suggestion. However, the Wizards Tower should have some effect on teleporting, since they control the Teleport Anchor

Yes, absolutely. However, I DON'T want there to be a dependancy for them in construction of the beacons. It's just too damn great of an advantage.

The dependence on the Wizards' Guild was just a lore-based idea - I didn't think about what might happen if someone were to "conquer" the Guild. I don't mind the players being able to build MTLs themselves, then, but shouldn't they at least have to ask the Wizards' Guild how to do so?

Then again, if we're writing our own backstory here, we can say the secrets of teleportation were widely disseminated, so anyone can build MTLs/research Major Teleport Spells if they have the time/money.

I'm fine either way.

No. Imagine you're on the other side of the world from the Wizard's guild and then a guy like Toa comes and just conquers it from under your nose. What then? Too great an advantage. Also, if you've already done the business of learning how to construct a teleport beacon from the wizards by the time the game starts, then it doesn't really matter if you need to or not - just flavour.

I can agree with that. The Wizards' Guild can always offer other benefits.

Like starting up research for penetrating the teleportation matrices of other players...

Jk.

I'll add the idea to the first post. Please, can we call them Mass Teleport Lodestones? I like that term!

Do we think that teleportation via a MTL should still require a certain number of Runes per soldier, or do we want it to be free?

Also, if we allow MTLs to be used by an enemy to teleport to other MTLs, I think the time period should be pretty brief. If I invade a fringe region with an MTL, and I then have time to bring in reinforcements and replenish my armies while still being able to use the MTL to teleport deeper into my enemy's empire (let's say, a process that takes 3 turns), I think that removes a lot of movement strategy.

Yes, the window is supposed to be very brief; one, maybe two seasons. The time it takes to revoke a teleportation permission is the same. Also, thinking about it, a teleportation permission should be mutual. That is, if Player A links his MTL network to Player B's, giving him access, Player B must also consent to them being linked. It's not a one-way street, and once done, Player A can also teleport to Player B's MTL network.

Agreed. Great stuff! *tentatively adds Teleportation to the "Done For Now" list, alongside Research and Diplomacy*

We may have a slight problem with Movement if we want Agents and Caravans to move faster than armies. If we keep the current system, we'll have to let them move through 1 region unpaved, 2 regions paved each turn. Does that seem too fast?

Yes, actually. That is just fine. In case of ambushes, they can be on either of the two regions moved through in the season.