Structures
There are several structures that can be built by players to give them a stategic advantage. Structures are built on land, using the production points of the city whose region the land is part of. The player must own the city and the land.
When a structure is placed on a tile, the underlying tile kind is changed to Foundation.
Structures can be bulldozed to reclaim part of their value. After bulldozing, the underlying tile kind is changed to Destroyed Land.
Structures are destructable. They take 1 damage from adjacent explosions and 2 damage from direct explosions (on the same tile).
Strike can be peformed on structures, causing direct damage. Adjacent damage can be caused by nearby mine explosions or strikes.
Built structures are visible to other players behind fog of war.
Roads
HP: 3.
Roads serve to connect cities. An active road connection brings numerous benefits.
Roads do not have a direction, they are simply a kind of grid tile; each tile either has road built on it, or not. The "path" / pathfinding algorithm simply follows grid tiles. That is, a road tile is considered connected to any adjacent road tiles. (think Civ-like road behavior)
Two cities are considered to have an active road connection iff:
- there is an uninterrupted path of roads between them (the pathfinding algo must be able to reach one city from the other by following road tiles)
- both cities are owned by the same player
- all tiles along the path must be owned by the player
- the path may not cross other regions / all tiles along the path must be part of either city's region
Roads allow gameplay to still occur on the tile. The tile is playable like a land tile. The tile can be captured like land, Items can be placed, Digits are displayed, etc.
Therefore, it is possible for a mine to explode directly on a road. This is another possible way to damage roads, as well as a Strike.
Note that this means an enemy can interrupt a road connection between two cities simply by capturing or destroying a single road tile along it. Roads are very vulnerable. This encourages players to invest in redundant road networks with backup paths.
Mountain Barricades
HP: 8.
Mountain Barricades block mobility by closing gaps/chokepoints between mountains.
The player must own the land tile to build on, the city of the tile's region, and also the adjacent mountains.
The barricade effectively prevents the opponent from capturing ownership of either mountain cluster, unless they surround everything and capture both mountain clusters + the barricade all at once, or destroy the barricade.
A barricade longer than one tile is counted as a single structure. It is constructed all at once and destroyed all at once. Cost adds up, but HP does not. Therefore, longer barricades become prohibitive to build and vulnerable / easier to destroy.
Watch Towers
HP: 6.
Watch towers give visibility of the surrounding area (radius of 5 tiles).
They can be built on any player-owned land tile, as long as the player owns the city of the region. If adjacent to a mountain or forest, the player must also own the mountain or forest.
They can be captured in a way similar to cities: the opponent must surround them by capturing the adjacent tiles.
If built adjacent to mountains/forest, they need to be captured with the mountain cluster.
Note: towers can effecively be used in place of barricades. A tower, if built between two mountain clusters, will effectively behave like a barricade that also gives visibility.
Hence, balance must be kept to keep both structures viable. Towers should be more expensive to build and easier to destroy (in that scenario, not too easy to destroy on open land either).
Bridges
HP: 4.
Bridges can be built on Water tiles, as long as there is Land on two opposing adjacent tiles. Effectively, this limits them to straight sections of single-tile-thick rivers.
Bridges allow land to be captured and roads to be built across the water, thus reducing the impact of the rivers as a geographical feature to segment the map and impede movement.