The Mage Tower not in a City

I think it would need some drawbacks, like not being able to destroy it, only able to build one, and if an enemy captured it they could steal some of your essence.

EDIT- And perhaps do more if they held your tower for long. Destroying it would also cost the creator essence.

I like the idea! especially the concept of having buildings like mage towers, watch towers and other buildings built outside your cities.

+1

I don't think you'd need much more drawbacks than an appropriate upkeep cost.

Of course. There would have to be some kind of high cost or drawbacks. I left that part out on purpose actually for the Devs to decide "if" they chose to do something like this. I almost want to guarantee we'll have Mage Towers of some kind in game. I doubt they'll be placed outside of cities though which was the main goal I was going for with this post.

Perhaps to justify the bonuses a Mage Tower like this could grant the building its-self could be incredibly hard to build. Maybe you need magical type of stone that only comes from one kind of quarry for your particular faction. If only one Tower of this kind is allowed then strike out the "Teleport between Towers" part entirely. (which I'm fine with if that's what it takes to get these in game outside of your town). Maybe if you build one and your Sovereign doesn't take up residence there it would actually start Draining Essence from you. This would give you an incentive to build it last after the main part of your Empire is founded and to keep your Sovereign there to better apply his magics. He'd also have a greater casting range while at the Tower because of the properties of the Tower its-self. Just random ideas there.

Thanks. That "Karma" didn't register for some reason though. I had 6 before you gave me another one. meh, maybe Karma thinks I don't deserve it..lol.

I like the sound of the leader having a Magic Base of Operations outside of the standard city. I suggest though having it use a certain amount of "essence" to bring the land to life so the tower can be built, just like you have to do to build a city. That could also be used for building other things not attached to a city. A Mage Tower, a Watch Tower, a Trade Outpost, a Guard Shack, could all be built outside of towns but require essence to be spent to start the building just like a city. Having the essence cost can help prevent you from overbuilding/expanding at the risk of having a weak leader.

Excelent idea Raven X

I don't actually think that "mage towers" of any kind will even be in the game. Although it would be nice to not have to build cities on top of Shards.....

EEEEEEEEEKKKKKK!!!! NOT AGAIN!!! No please for months and months we had this teleport issue in the Age of Wonders forum before its release!!! Please NO NO NO !! This is a major issue! And the developers should be VERY careful with this, please check the AOWSM forum to see how crucial this matter is! Teleporting troops spoils the game form every point of view. In the end after endless arguments the AOW developers agreed and decided to make the tower teleport chamber optional for the first release of the game (and I am talking about AOWII, the release previous to AOWSM, one in which nothing was supposed to be "optional".) In the end lots of people agreed that such choice was a key to understand the success of AOW!

Please no teleport please please!!! Let's not even start this, please!

I believe the Dev's had mentioned that there will be various towers throughout the game (outside your cities) that you can obtain via quests/fighting monsters. I havent heard anything about being able to build towers that serve various purposes. Great concept though!

Once you have the tech, you can build a settlement that is just the outpost, and what ever, so you could have A Wizzards tower, with a small settlement around it. 

LOL @ Black-Knight

That was the first thing i thought about when i read Raven's post. I even joined the BTOOIC movement/clan back then (damn, thats over 7 years ago allready) to make sure the option to disable buildable teleporters would be in the game (AoW2).

But buildable teleporters might be not be such a bad thing, if they're implemented right. Building something like that should be a major construction project, certainly not something you could (or would want to) build near every city you own.

Imagine for instance a game on a HUGE map, with several continents, and you are going for a conquest victory. After you (and your vassals/allies) have conquered your own continent, you start looking for new lands to expand into. Normaly you build a fleet, load up your troops and set sail. Still, the seas are a dangerous place and you might loose some of your forces to enemy ships, spells and monsters. Also transporting your troops like this might be fine for a short campaign, but conqering another continent is a major opperation that would propably requiere you to keep sending new armies and reinforcements from your homelands. In a situation like this it might be cool if you could build a teleporter to send troops from your homeland to the frontlines faster, and be able to bypass the dangerous trip over the seas. Still, doing this should not be easy. You would still have to establish a sizable beachhead first and defend it for a while before you are able to build the teleporter. Your enemy might also get some information through espionage or scouting on the location of the teleportation site, maybe long before it is finished. This site would then obviously become of great strategic importance for everyone involved in the war. (Something like the Rift between Kelewan and Midkemia in the Riftwar saga.)

You could do the same with a teleport spell, but i hope doing that would cost you a lot more and therefore not be a viable strategy in the long run. Maybe such a spell could only be cast by your sovereign and could only draw troops to him, so he would have to be on the frontlines and you might not want to risk sending him there.

Also, it might be cool if the teleporter could be captured by your enemies, thus giving them the ability to strike back at you in your homelands.

So summing up, buildable teleporters could be nice, as long as they are very expensive and far up in the tech tree, and therefore rare enough that they wouldn't show up every game. Maybe they could even be a random tech..

I'm really not sure how this game can be released without teleporters.   Perhaps not buildable ones, but thats a really easy special high level tech for somebody that is now not included, and in theory the code should be able to handle a buildable one just as it handles a randomly placed one.  (not to mention the huge map issue brought up by satrhan just above here)   Obviously AoW fixed, so whats the problem?

How "small" are we talking? If you're allowed to go a little more in depth that would be much appreciated. If not we understand.