REGARDING THE EXTERNAL BUILD PLOTS AND THEIR IMPACT
Hello everyone. I wanted to provide some ideas regarding how the external build plots could be made important to have and contest for all throughout the game.
If we simplify the whole thing, it all comes down to a one statement: A player would never contest for the external build plots, unless there is a clear definitive reward in doing so that has no alternative.
Currently, there isn't much, except for secondary unit production buildings for some factions. So, if we take a very realistic take on things, rather than from lore-bound perspective, then there are a few general benefits to expanding one's border of influence beyond the base territory. I'm talking in a very generic sense now. They are:
1. More resources. (Currently implemented, but could be made more robust. More in the ROLES section below.)
2. More Vision and line of sight. (Currently implemented but could be made more robust in effect. More in the ROLES section below.)
3. Forward military operation (Currently implemented and this aspect is alright imo.)
4. Idea of "Friendly territory" created by the expanse of kingdom border. (This aspect hasn't been explored yet. The idea of a virtual territorial border, around the castle which expands as the player captures build plots. There are several ways the influence of these "territorial zones" could be implemented. For example, units gain speed boost in their "zone" as it's a "Safe zone", and conversely suffer the speed penalty in "enemy zones" as units have to traverse more carefully per say. Similarly, damage boosts, armor boosts could be given to different factions based on their faction design ideas.
5. Different "ROLES". This could be a very fun aspect to explore .Like assigning a particular role to a structure, via toggle-able abilities.
For example, SCOUT ROLE: Makes the structure produce less resources or slow unit production, but gets increased Line of Sight and vision and probably stealth detection. Maybe an active ability to reveal a wide radius around it. Enemy could never tell by looking at a structure, but only the player. That way, ambushes could be way interesting, as an enemy who thinks he's currently moving in the fog of war and undetected gets surprised by Shelob, or any such powers.
MILITARY ROLE: Fortifies the building, increasing its hitpoints and armor at the cost of resource production. An active ability like AMBUSH, which can summon a battalion of units around. Or something like, "WARTIME GARRISON" ability, which enables the players to garrison units within the structure for ambushes purposes. Or maybe a hero can garrison and boost the units stats around the structure, etc. That could serve as the forward retreat point for Heroes too. EDIT: The garrisoned units would slowly heal and reinforce fallen members over time too.
MAXIMUM RESOURCE PRODUCTION: Which sacrifices hitpoints and armor for additional resources.
All of these would be basically invisible to the enemy player, to them it would just be a regular building. That is the whole point of this.
I don't know if these ideas are even possible to implement in the game. But I think something needs to be done to make expansion a lucrative and fun idea as well.