What does this mean?

[Falonious]

Most of my village watchtowers have an icon of an image of the tower with a red Z. My patrols and watchmen are fully staffed and the towers are on roads? The area to patrol is marked, it is not a large area, but houses show they lack coverage. Don't understand what's wrong.

[Shaabhekh]

I believe this means that the towers arent being manned. Does the watchpost state that there is more or less fortified structures?
If im not mistaken, you want equal to or less fortified structures (not counting walls or monument towers) as there are watchmen - and even then, ive found you''llyou want your watchmen to be be Commoners as to be 'qualified' to man the fortifications etc
So if youve got 2 Serf watchmen and 1 village watch tower, you should be ok, but add a 2nd watchtower and the Serf variants of watchmen will struggle, but 2 commoners would be fine - same with patrolmen, Serfs have a smaller radius around them when patrolling so would beenfit from being Commoners for extended coverage :)

Also note, the 'guard posts' arrow also count as a fortification and thus will eat up you man power - a shame, cos its nice to see guards posted around the place for aesthetics.

[Ninjafroggie]

ALSO note that watchposts, like pretty much everything else, have a 150m range. If your watchtowers are too far away from a watchpost with sufficient watchmen, they wont be manned.

[Ninjafroggie]

Originally posted by Shaabhekh:

Serfs have a smaller radius around them when patrolling so would beenfit from being Commoners for extended coverage :)

They get a bigger circle, but it doesnt actually do anything because they still fill patrol need the same amount, still only 1 house at a time, and they dont move any faster. What does happen is they spend a lot more time filling needs, because they have more bars to keep full, which is turn means you actually get LESS patrolling from upgrading patrolling serfs to commoners. Unless you have a mega surplus of tier 2 and 3 goods AND desperately need the tax money, its not worth it. Leave the patrollers as serfs.

[Shaabhekh]

Originally posted by Ninjafroggie:

Originally posted by Shaabhekh:

Serfs have a smaller radius around them when patrolling so would beenfit from being Commoners for extended coverage :)

They get a bigger circle, but it doesnt actually do anything because they still fill patrol need the same amount, still only 1 house at a time, and they dont move any faster. What does happen is they spend a lot more time filling needs, because they have more bars to keep full, which is turn means you actually get LESS patrolling from upgrading patrolling serfs to commoners. Unless you have a mega surplus of tier 2 and 3 goods AND desperately need the tax money, its not worth it. Leave the patrollers as serfs.

I dunno; i mean if youre not in a rush then sure, dont promote them, but i do reckon they are better at patrolling. When they get to the house they are going to, they fill the patrol counter up more than they would if they were a Serf. As for the bigger radius around the individual, the benefit will be based on how packed-in your homes are i guess; in my set up i have a handful of full paint circles for housing and a Serf patrolman will walk to one house and if im lucky will clip a 2nd house along with the one he's 'patrolling' - pop a Commoner in that position and i will definitely get the 2nd house, maybe even a 3rd/4th because the more patrolmen in the patrol the bigger their radius is too, so not only is a commoner patrolman covering more surface area, he's also filling the patrol counter more too, which i suppose would counter any extra time he spends filling his needs bars.

[Pico 22]

- I have a village with a watchpost, fully manned, (wooden) walls and a watchtower. Patrols are patrolling, with obvious positive results, but when a watchman climbs up his tower, nothing happens. Watchmen and watchtowers seem to be superfluous in such a scenario.
- A nearby village has no walls. I built a watchtower, watchmen came and watched, nothing happened.
What is the exact function of watchmen and watchtowers?

[Heinz234]

Watchtowers that are manned regulary provide light fortification within their range and angle..
Watchtowers that don't get manned don't do anything.

[Pico 22]

Originally posted by Heinz234:

Watchtowers that are manned regulary provide light fortification within their range and angle..

Yes, but what consequences does "light fortification" have? AFAIK they never upgrade their houses; only walls + patrols can make them do that.

[Heinz234]

Originally posted by Pico 22:

Originally posted by Heinz234:

Watchtowers that are manned regulary provide light fortification within their range and angle..

Yes, but what consequences does "light fortification" have? AFAIK they never upgrade their houses; only walls + patrols can make them do that.

Inorder to upgrade a house also needs to be patrolled. So a manned watchtower and a patrol should force the house to upgrade its density.

[Shaabhekh]

Also keep in mind that the Patrol icon on the house in question needs to fill up at least once for the house to 'count' as being patrolled.

[Pico 22]

I understand the principle, but it does not work for me, or at least not as intended. My very first village has two parts. The first part is walled and patrolled; everything is fine. The second part is patrolled only; I built a watchtower there and focused it on four houses. They never got upgraded but I noticed that after a while, another house (that was supposedly patrolled only) was.

It seems to me that watchtowers are a bit of a mess ATM.

[ExavierMacbeth]

So there are TWO types of city guard.
Patroller - Wanders around the painted patrol zones to fill the meter for house upgrades. These Will enter watchtowers that are in their patrol area but don't actually provide any bonuses. Its like adding a "Guard" point to a Castle which just adds another way-point in their path randomization.

Watchman - These are workers that activate the towers for the fortification. When they do their work shift they pick a tower at random that is unoccupied and head to it. If you have too few watchman than the towers can end up going unmanned which generates the alert above the watchtower.

Both of these jobs are provided by the same watchpost building (you get slots for each type). Make sure there is a watchman stations somewhere near your tower.

Note: Also I have had to move towers occasionally because of pathing issues. If the path to the tower zig/zags enough (like through some of the larger housing areas) the trip time for the watchman can be too long to have it manned reliably even if the watchman's garrison is seemingly nearby.

[Ninjafroggie]

Originally posted by Pico 22:

I understand the principle, but it does not work for me, or at least not as intended. My very first village has two parts. The first part is walled and patrolled; everything is fine. The second part is patrolled only; I built a watchtower there and focused it on four houses. They never got upgraded but I noticed that after a while, another house (that was supposedly patrolled only) was.

It seems to me that watchtowers are a bit of a mess ATM.

ok, i see where you went wrong. WatchPOSTS are not watchTOWERS. POSTS are where you assign patrollers and watchmen. TOWERS provide an area of fortification, and are worked by the watchmen assigned to nearby POSTS. Note the 'nearby', that's important. It is likely that your watchtower is too far away from any watchposts that have watchmen assigned to them. Did the one house that got upgraded have a building with a tower room piece next door? Tower room pieces passively provide a small area of light fortification around them

[jhughes]

Originally posted by Heinz234:

Originally posted by Pico 22:

Yes, but what consequences does "light fortification" have? AFAIK they never upgrade their houses; only walls + patrols can make them do that.

Inorder to upgrade a house also needs to be patrolled. So a manned watchtower and a patrol should force the house to upgrade its density.

If you want to know what it takes to increase the Density (Low, Medium, High) or the Quality (Level) (Low, Medium, High).

You can see the requirements of both Density and Quality in this picture:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3424943918

That is a low, low house. You can see it is NOT in a desirable neighborhood (because, it is too close to a Saw Mill). You can add decorations and probably change that for the Medium Quality. So get both Beautification and Desirable Neighborhood can be gotten by adding some decorations. Then if I upgrade 2 surfs to commoners, they can live in that house.

Meet the density requirement (which is completely separate from the Quality) and you can go from 2 (Low, current) to 6 (medium) to 10 (high). To get medium density, you need patrol AND light fortification (manned village watchtower). To get high, you need Heavy Fortification (manned town watchtower).

Close to some towers can also provide light or heavy fortification.

[Pico 22]

Originally posted by Ninjafroggie:

ok, i see where you went wrong. WatchPOSTS are not watchTOWERS. POSTS are where you assign patrollers and watchmen. TOWERS provide an area of fortification, and are worked by the watchmen assigned to nearby POSTS. Note the 'nearby', that's important. It is likely that your watchtower is too far away from any watchposts that have watchmen assigned to them. Did the one house that got upgraded have a building with a tower room piece next door? Tower room pieces passively provide a small area of light fortification around them

I agree that "posts" and "towers" are much clearer terms, at least in this context. - The village in question has a manor house roughly in the middle; I keep enlarging it with treasuries so it's quite possible that one of them got close enough to the house that got upgraded. It also has a post; the tower is not too far away from it and watchmen visit it regularly; houses also have the light fortification bonus.

Maybe it just takes longer than with walls; we'll see.

[Ninjafroggie]

do you have watchmen assigned to work at a watchpost thats near enough to your watchtower? If so, then the houses will have a green mark on the fortification need. If that's filled, then they must not be getting enough patrol. You have to have enough patrols to completely fill the ring at least once for it to count