Moving/hiring city guards

Elphaba

Preface: It seems to me that it is becoming more and more common for in-city incursions to be dealt with by simply moving guards. There is no penalty for moving guards - it does not cost money, it does not even consume balance or equilibrium. All it takes is 30 seconds if you're moving guards, and 15 seconds if you're hiring new ones. I hate to point the finger at one particular city, because I'm fully aware that almost all (if not all) cities partake in this behaviour. Here is an example from Mhaldor over the last 6 days and how every in-city incursion was dealt with as far as I could tell:

Four days ago:

2015/01/20 19:19:05 - Chiam stationed an infernal wraith at Before the Spire of Hatred.
2015/01/20 19:20:15 - Alrena slew an infernal wraith.
2015/01/20 19:22:44 - Chiam stationed an infernal wraith at Before the gates of the Baelgrim Fortress.
2015/01/20 19:23:17 - Chiam stationed an infernal wraith at Before the gates of the Baelgrim Fortress.
2015/01/20 19:23:58 - Chiam stationed an infernal wraith at Before the gates of the Baelgrim Fortress.
2015/01/20 19:24:30 - Chiam stationed an infernal wraith at Before the gates of the Baelgrim Fortress.
2015/01/20 19:25:01 - Chiam stationed an infernal wraith at Before the gates of the Baelgrim Fortress.
2015/01/20 19:30:36 - Chiam has disarmed a hostile tank. Carmain, Kisharo, Krux, Melodie, and Milenka assisted in the defence.
2015/01/20 19:39:26 - Chiam stationed an infernal wraith at A massive gatehouse.
2015/01/20 19:39:57 - Chiam stationed an infernal wraith at A massive gatehouse.
2015/01/20 19:41:39 - Chiam stationed an infernal wraith at A guardhouse.
2015/01/20 19:42:12 - Chiam stationed an infernal wraith at A guardhouse.
2015/01/20 19:42:47 - Chiam stationed an infernal wraith at A guardhouse.
2015/01/20 19:44:07 - Chiam hired an infernal wraith.

One day ago:

2015/01/23 05:09:45 - Chiam stationed an infernal wraith at Base of a tower.
2015/01/23 05:10:17 - Chiam stationed an infernal wraith at Base of a tower.
2015/01/23 05:10:48 - Chiam stationed an infernal wraith at Base of a tower.
2015/01/23 05:11:22 - Chiam stationed an infernal wraith at Base of a tower.
2015/01/23 05:11:56 - Chiam stationed an infernal wraith at Base of a tower.
2015/01/23 05:19:21 - Xinna stationed an infernal wraith at A guardhouse.
2015/01/23 05:19:55 - Xinna stationed an infernal wraith at A guardhouse.
2015/01/23 05:20:29 - Xinna stationed an infernal wraith at A guardhouse.
2015/01/23 05:22:12 - Xinna stationed an infernal wraith at A massive gatehouse.
2015/01/23 05:22:44 - Xinna stationed an infernal wraith at A massive gatehouse.

My proposal is relatively simple. Make it so that cities have to be strategic about their guard placements. Ideally, this would mean that moving guards would be removed entirely. This would mean that hiring guards would also need to be tweaked to prevent dismissing guards and rehiring them. Alternatively, significantly increase the amount of time it takes to move guards and make it so you can no longer perform any actions while doing so.

Santar

Guards are trivial to deal with as is.

The guard system does need an overhaul, but in the scope of the current system, guard movement isn't a balance problem.

Amarillys

I think I made this comment elsewhere but just because this seems like a good place to make it too...

You mean cities are using city defenses to defend their city? Gasp!

Mishgul

Guards should really scale better with their targets, or have more interesting effects. A couple of artied people of the right class (such as myself) can tank guards for days while some dragon or monk or something does the heavier damage to get rid of them, and then some level 97 tsol'aa with no arties just gets one shot.

I have no ideas though, and i don't have a huge problem with how they function currently. City raids/defense still seems like a drag to me, compared to just random skirmishing on clouds or in the arena or whatever.

Jhui

I'd rather just deal with this IG.  If they move guards, come back when no one is around and kill as many of them that have killed you.

Alternatively, kill 1 each time for every attack they do on you.

If you're raiding when no one is around and this happens to you, don't do the above.  Pretty simple.

Achimrst

Jhui said:

I'd rather just deal with this IG.  If they move guards, come back when no one is around and kill as many of them that have killed you.

Alternatively, kill 1 each time for every attack they do on you.

If you're raiding when no one is around and this happens to you, don't do the above.  Pretty simple.

That will probably work until they start stacking all guards in one room.

Jhui

There's always a way if the city is empty enough

Amarillys

Jhui said:

There's always a way if the city is empty enough

Yep, because that's the way to make city raids more fun for everyone. Attack them when no one is around.

Chiam

hi

in my opinion, guards are there to balance out the odds. We rarely use them if the people around are good enough/can put up a fight against the raiders.
Take the example above, we have me, Carmain, Kisharo, Krux, Melodie, and Milenka. The raiders were Rangor Alrena Rom Iakimen Exelethril Deladan Amanu Seth/Sidd - if I didn't remember wrongly.

Jhui

Amarillys said:

Jhui said:

There's always a way if the city is empty enough

Yep, because that's the way to make city raids more fun for everyone. Attack them when no one is around.

Buttt they would have been the ones that made it not fun in the first place... 

Either way, if it upsets someone they could stop doing it or pretend it didn't happen... Or make a rants thread about it. It's amazing how this game has all of the solutions inside of it

Exelethril

Nevermind.