Faust's City Building Guide

This information on this page is fully or partially outdated, and may no longer apply to Shadowbane in its current state because it was written in 2003. See Patch History to stay up-to-date on changes.

This guide is written after much experience building cities through Version 3.x of the Shadowbane Beta. Be aware that information may be dated or tweaked after its preparation. I also build cities from a defensive perspective. There are lots of other building styles and people might go about it differently. Your mileage may vary.

Finding a spot

Based on your goals for political stuff, the location of decent exp zones, and other factors, you'll know where you want to go. I would advise finding somewhere near a high-level adventure zone so that your members can get to the gold quickly. When you get your spot figured out, buy your Tree of Life seed and Runemaster and put them in the bank. Then buy a Bank and a Banker. If possible, a Forge and a Helmsmith. Send a Summoner our to your desired location, have him summon you. First, if there is question, make sure you CAN place your ToL in the area by initiating the placing process but not going all the way. Your Tree of Life seed is in the bank if you're experienced at this stuff. Now place the BANK FIRST. (Note: if you accidentally place the Tree of Life first, its not that big of a deal) Why bank first? Personally, I don't like jogging around with a 3 million gold Tree of Life seed in my pocket, primarily.

Bank

Banks can be churches, cathedrals or siege tents. This may change in the future, but churches are useless. In the future they may be able to hold a guard once they are ranked up. This would make them more useful. Currently Rank 7 Cathedrals can hold as many as 3 NPC's ($$$). Thus, I would use a Cathedral and then plan to put your Prelate and Crusader trainers in there as well later on. Remember, your going to be pressed for space later, so be careful. Siege tents are very small and contain a banker and a siege engineer. This is a good solution if you want to save space, but the upkeep is very high. Banks are probably the most important building in your main city. If your ToL is only intended as an outpost, expected to bind your members to in a war, don't put a bank there… enemies can and will use it. At very least, KOS your enemies on the bank.

Tree of Life

Once your preferred bank is in place, NOW plant your ToL. Plant it as closely to your bank as possible. Zoom in on the placing map and get that sucker close. This little sapling will be very weak for the first 10 minutes or so… if anyone gets on it with a pet or something, you're out 3 mil. Make sure it is safe. Personally, I prefer late at night and by myself. A horde of people "protecting" something is just asking for trouble. Now put in your Runemaster and set the ToL protection on your bank. Higher ranked Runemasters can protect more buildings. Higher ranked ToL's are harder to kick down… but so what? If someone has enough firepower to kick down a 2,000,000 hit point ToL then they can probably kick down a 3,000,000 hit point ToL. And Frankly, it's cheaper to let a ToL De-Rank and Re-Rank at maintenance time than it is to pay the maintenance. However, it is important to get the Runemaster ranked up so you can protect more buildings. You can wait on ranking the ToL.

The Inn

I don't see a use for Innkeepers. You should place your Inn next and put a Builder in it. Rank the Inn so that it can later hold a Steward. Your Builder and your Steward are going to have to be ranked up before they start selling trainers, training facilities, guard shacks, and etc. The NPC's will have to be Rank 7 before they can sell you siege assets. You'll need the Inn at Rank 3 before you can add the second NPC. I would suggest ranking it to R4 just in case something screws up or one of your IC members goes bad on you. If the Inn de-ranks to R2 one of your NPC's is GONE and that means you cannot access siege assets. Further, I always keep Inn doors locked and the prices at outlandish levels. Nobody but you (and an occasional IC member) needs to go in there and you don't want enemies buying stuff there. If a member wants to buy a house or a forge or something… they have to talk to you about it. It's not that big of a hassle to let them in, it's just being smart. Again, KOS everyone (even members if need be) but your key people to this building so the NPC's won't sell to him or her.

Junking

Now that your guild has a place to live and an area to hunt they are going to start bringing in stuff. That stuff, unless they need it, should be given to your city. While in pursuit of Junk, your members are also going to die a lot and they need to fix their gear. People have 5 armor slots, 3 jewelry slots and one or two weapon slots on each character. This is why my first vendor is always a Helmsmith. In fact, I'd place a Helmsmith before the Steward. Helmsmiths repair almost any piece of armor or shield and they will junk all the armor pieces your guild brings in for full value. By this time your guildmates have a lot of this junk armor sitting in their bank. Set the Helm smith to buy things for nothing and tell your members to sell (donate) stuff to it. Later you can raise it so that your members get some training cash, but for now, you need everything you can get. Personally, I like to always keep the repair prices at 0% mark-up for guildmates because I want them out hunting with clothes on. I want all available cash to go to the city, and I want them leveling quickly. If people are running to Safeholds to sell junk armor, kick them out of the guild. You don't want them as far as I'm concerned. If your helmsmith is first you will make money much faster. They can pay for themselves in just a few minutes and keep your members happy.

After a Helmsmith, consider what the nearby MOBs are dropping for your next Junker. Lizardmen drop a lot of Swords, Giants drop a lot of Hammers, etc. If there is no specific type of item drop nearby, I would think strongly about a Bow Vendor. Crossbows and bows tend to drop a lot and there are not often needed by your members.

This should get you started in your fledgling city. I'd say this concludes the "beginners guide to city building"… but wait, there's much more!

Which Way the Wind Blows

I'm not really sure how to explain this any other way, so this may be confusing to people who don't go outside much. In Shadowbane, the wind blows to the southeast. How do I know this? Well, if you look at Figure 2 you'll see a close-up of a Tree of Life in the building placement HUD. Notice that the branches are heavier on the east, and to some extent, on the south side. Visualize a tree near a beach where the wind blows somewhat constantly. The trees on a beach lean to one side a bit, away from the wind. So what? Well, when you're building your city you will notice that placing buildings on the East and South side of the tree is slightly different than building on the North and West sides. This is most obviously exhibited by the fact that you can build protected assets OUTSIDE of the ToL Healing radius (blue dot grid) on the South and East side of your city.

Subtler are the proximity issues you will encounter when placing buildings on the North and East edges of your ToL placement boundary. I don't really know why this phenomenon exists… but it does. I also cannot explain all the ramifications and behaviors found as a result because even my 16 cities did not allow me ample testing. Frankly, I had to build a city and didn't have the money to build them in every shape and size. What I can tell you is, it's extremely likely that your well-made plans may go out the window when you get to drop buildings all over the place due to this anomaly. Your city is going to be a bit lop-sided. Here is the situation where an experienced architect with many cities under his belt will become an invaluable tool. At very least, build some flexibility into your design, and expect some required wiggle-room. This is why I always place my bank first, and to the West of the ToL… to shelter the sapling ToL from the wind, of course!

OK, so maybe it's a bug or something completely unrelated (Malorn lives in the SouthEast? ToL's lean away from The Dragon who lives in the North West? Sloppy code? Who knows?). But the explanation helps explain an oddity of city design and you should keep it in mind. Cities do not always go together as you'd expect and this is one of the big reasons!

Side note - Geography buffs will note that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west in Shadowbane, just like on earth. Thus we can surmise that the Shadowbane world is round and, due to the wind direction, it is a good bet that all available landmasses in Shadowbane are in the Northern Hemisphere. Perhaps some guild of Geomancers will research further and explain our odd world.

Order of Build

In general, and given no political or siege issues, I would build a new city in the following order. I'll discuss the merits of each asset type later. This is obviously a matter of preference or circumstance, but it may come in handy:

1. Bank & Bursar
2. ToL & Runemaster (begin ranking runemaster aggressively)
3. Inn & Builder (start ranking to 3)
4. Forge & Helmsmith (start ranking to 3)
5. Forge & Bowyer (optional - see above)
6. Put Steward in the Inn & start ranking them
7. oL Guard Shack
8. Sage & Sage (rank aggressively)
9. Wall Corners & Wall Archers (discussed later)
10. Amazon Temple & Fury Trainer
11. Additional Forges
12. Thieves Den & Assassin Trainer
13. Seamstress
14. Walls & Doors
15. Additional Trainers
16. Guard Shacks
17. Outbuildings

Why the Fury and Assassin trainers first? Furies need a Ranked trainer to get their AE. Assassins need a Ranked trainer to get Steal Breathe. These are two of the basic spells required for PvE with these highly effective classes. The sooner you get these classes their trademark skills, the faster they can get money.

On the other hand, some classes don't need a trainer right away. Scouts, for example, can get by with freehold trainers and/or their skills can be trained on other class trainers. Further, Scouts can get high level training for Bow and Archery from the Archery Discipline Trainer provided in the game. Similarly Warriors, and other basic classes can wait for a bit.

Trainers

Although everyone in your guild needs a trainer and will surely tell you they need theirs first; some trainers are more important than others. Simply put, you will have a hard time keeping every trainer, and although 3 per building will help, Rank 7 trainer buildings are extremely expensive to build and maintain. This is an area where you'll either have to keep track of what your guild members are doing for classes or find out the hard way when people don't spend money on your trainers.

Asset - Trainer (in order) Thieves Den - Assassin, Bard, Thief, Temple - Confessor, Templar Great Hall - Barbarian, Warrior Forest Sanctuary - Druid, Ranger, Scout Amazon Temple - Fury, Huntress Cathedral - (Bursar?), Prelate, Priest, Crusader Wizard Tower - Channeler, Warlock, Wizard

Important Notes:

• Getting a building to Rank 7 is expensive and the maintenance is huge each week.
• Practically speaking: You are not going to be able to fit all the Trainer buildings/Forges into one city.
• If you did have all the trainers, chances are good that not all of them will pay for themselves.
• Rank 7 trainer buildings are extremely expensive to create and maintain. (see b)

Result - Some members of your potentially ARAC guild are NOT going to get training, possibly EVER.

Question: What is a Rank 5 Warlock with no Warlock Trainer? Answer: Looking for another guild.

In other words: Let your members know the order and priority of your trainer placement BEFORE they create their characters! Consider limiting the types of classes available to your guild as a financial reality if not a Lore based stratagem.

Forges and Tradesmen

First off, here's a list of things that tradesmen make: http://users.domaindlx.com/seifer9/sb.txt (broken link) (Thanks Seifer, and please note, this is somewhat dated material)

• 100% Weapons - Probably the most important thing about Vendors is that, at Rank 7, they make the 100% skill required weapons. Many of these are elemental damage and there are quite a few class templates that people create which are dependent on these weapon types. Example: Faith Hammers are dependent on Liturgy rather than Hammer Mastery. Thus, if you see a Duel Wielding hammer Crusader running around, you can be sure he wants some faith hammers. (Unless he's gimped, of course). If you don't know what kind of characters your guildmates have created you cannot determine which vendors need to be ranked first. (You also have no business being a Guild Master either, and you're going to soon learn the hard way that your guild actually sucks, but that's another story).
• Armor - Make nice 100% stuff for armor at R7 too. In the past we assumed that you needed R7 armor vendors to make the ever-elusive Windlord type boots. These give run-speed increases of 15% and are much coveted. However, R7 is not required. (I made some on an R5 vendor). Some armor vendors make Windlords more easily than others. For example: Over the past few builds my friends and I are about 3% successful at making Light Armor Windlords. However, Medium Armor Windlords are quite common (~40%). I believe this to be an undocumented feature of sorts, for balance sake. Also, beware Mr. Centaur with Medium Armor. There are no Medium Armor boots for Centaurs… so they are unable to get Windlords. This sort of knowledge comes with experience and, I'm sure, this information is already obsolete… so, pay your money and take your chances. It's a crapshoot, but you'll learn.
• Sages - Sages make Bane Circles at Rank 7, which cost (currently) 800k each and take a couple days to create. Obviously, you need a sage or two for the end game. In the mean time, sages make Scrolls. Make a bunch of Recall Scrolls and make sure all of your members put a couple in the bank. When they get killed under the ToL (in town nowadays) they will go to the Ruins. Rather than spamming requests for summons home, let them use the scroll. Identify Scrolls are very popular with the non-mage folks. Make a bunch of them. Rings and Necklaces are pretty random. Some day some one may figure out that Signet Rings generally create some special type of magic benefit or that Gem Encrusted Rings are more likely to create a special kind of item. There SEEMS to be some kind of relationship between some of these basics, but I have yet to understand it. The fact is, you'll have to just keep making things and hoping something useful comes up. This means constant attention to making, junking, and making more stuff. You'd think this a good job for any IC member… but understanding what item is useful or junk takes a knowledgeable eye. I wouldn't put any shmuck in charge and I've seen a great deal of wasted time on "don't touch my sage shop". Sage Shops also create staves and wands. As wands require Staff Mastery now days, they are rarely used.
• Seamstresses - Seamstresses make Cloth based products. Occasionally they make Windlords (although currently rare). The magic items they make are often bizarre. Sometimes you'll find a Mage-only item with + Benediction (a healer only skill) or something of this nature. Generally, I'd say that 75% of Seamstress Created stuff is Junk, so you'll need to constantly make and sort through this stuff.
• Carpenters and Quartermasters - These guys make furniture and knick-knacks, which you can place in a building you are friended to. While nice and all, they are decorations which increase the polygon count for your city residents and cost money. I have no use for them, but eventually we'll all want our own homes with tapestries and statues, I suppose.

Guards

I love guards. I think I could write an entire book on guard behavior alone. I'll try to hit the high points - and remember, this is subject to change without notification!

Types of Guards

• Shield Guards - Currently "Block" seems an over strong skill. Guards with Shield currently block a lot. This is good. They can't hit fliers. This is bad.
• Caster Guards - Mage guards can nuke and, occasionally, they do. However, one never knows if or when they will.
• Special Guards - Occasionally Wolfpack will bless a city with "special" guards such as Shades or Confessors/Templars. Sometimes even Monsters. These are not only cool, but they exhibit the fact that Wolfpack thinks your guild is special or, rather, sticking to Wolfpack's prescribed "lore". Personally, I've got my own "lore" and realize that nobody wants to hear about it… but that's subject for yet another discussion. At very least, be well aware that these NPC's come equipped with the strengths and weaknesses of that specific class. Added to their general lack of common intelligence, they could be somewhat of a liability. Example: If the class is keen on AE spells, you might find them blasting you, your guests, and your other guards starting a general mayhem within your peaceful city walls.
• Wall Guards - Wall Archers can be placed on 90-degree corner walls. Although walls are expensive to place, the guards are relatively cheap and quickly rank up.

Guarding Your City

In your Manage City Assets HUD you'll find an area for guards. This can be confusing and the guards don't always respond the way you'd like. Lets review some basics. You'll want to place at least one guard shack near your ToL and put that asset's guard behavior as "Guard ToL". These guards will now lurk near your ToL and keep out unwanted baddies close to your city center. Your other guards can use Patrol Points so they can wander around. You can also set them to stand in a certain position such as just inside a gate. You should constantly play with your guards and get comfortable with them. If you're lucky and skilled you can, over time, even get them to walk up ramps and stand on the walls or even go outside.

At present you can place barracks (or whatever) outside your walls to the east and south of your city. These are still city assets and can be protected, etc. This is a nice place to put some guards. Those guards will chase bad-guys for miles and miles, however, as they are not enclosed within the walls. This can be used as an advantage or a liability depending on how smart your enemies are. Sending guards all over the territory can make things very annoying for wandering enemies. However, as they are not at home, they are not protecting your city. Again, archers are best for this, as they don't have to be on top of your fleeing enemy. On your north and west outer walls you cannot place protected assets, however, currently it is common practice to place citadels in these areas. At present, citadels and fortresses can hold one guard captain who can spawn several others according to his rank. This will go away in version 1.0 so utility on these structures may change dramatically.

Guards, once killed, might respawn fast or slow, depending on how Wolfpack has tweaked the code recently. Obviously, the more guards you have the more of a mess your enemies will need to take out. Here is another situation where the NPC's should be ranked higher than the building in which they live. If an enemy can knock down a Rank 4 Barrack (also known as RAX among the elder beta testers) then they can knock down a Rank 7 RAX. However, a Rank 4 guard is wimpy versus a Rank 5 player, while a Rank 7 guard presents a challenge to a small group of players regardless of rank. It is a common myth that Rank 7 guards can also see invisible unless the stealthier in question is Grand Master skilled. In fact, guards cannot see stealthed characters at all… This is a myth! Guards will only see you if you've stealthed within their aggro range which is the entire city. Further, once a guard aggro's on a stealthier, re-stealthing will not break aggro unless they leave the zone area first.

When the bad-guys come calling (siege) you'll want an experienced IC member operating the guards. Position them to guard areas where the bad-guys are. Given the nature of the Heads Up Display, you can do this from nearly anywhere in the general area, even from within a locked building.

Note: All walls can be ranked except straight walls and stair/ramp sections. Ranking adds an additional 400k - 500k HP per rank so use straight walls and stairs sparingly.

Open ToL vs. Unlocked Doors

Someone asked me if attempts to allow the public (non-Nation Members) into your city for the purposes of trade were a good idea or a bad idea. Well, that opens an interesting debate. I'd say that most of that debate has to do with your political objectives but the mechanics are worth review.

To begin with, you have the choice of making your ToL and "open ToL"; meaning that anyone can rebind to your city. Although I've never run an Open City of this sort, so perhaps I'm wrong, I'd think this is a poor idea. Why? Well any griefer with an eye for opportunity could repledge to your city and abuse the privileges offered including a) listening to your only provided means of communication with residents at time of war (/city chat), b) Killing your members when you're not around to Banish/KOS him, c) buying up highly valued items and training which you would prefer your valued members to receive. Quite frankly, you'll not have time to sit and monitor every person that comes through the re-pledge pipe.

However, having an open trading system achieved through simply unlocking the doors is a pretty good idea. No question about it. Anyone willing to spend money in your town is going to benefit the town itself. You can keep an eye on the migrants at a reduced level of panic, as you'll have separate pricing for Guild Members, Nation Members, and Everyone Else. The question is, how do they get TO your somewhat remote city and, once they are there, how do you keep them from hogging up the nearby resources? I've often considered the benefits of a nearby and Open ToL, which is not officially attached to my Nation. This would get people into your neighborhood and they can buy your products and services at a competitive, but not real low price. The only major difficulty with this idea is management of that ToL (on separate characters, remember) and the realization that your nearby hunting areas are going to be clogged up with anyone who finds them attractive. Remember, these hunting areas might become attractive to some because of the high concentration of YOUR MEMBERS, which hunt there. Putting an Open ToL in the neighborhood could be handing a Griefer or an Enemy the keys to your city. One of your defensive aspects is your remoteness from enemies... adding an open ToL removes that defense. Given that, perhaps it is worth the risks.

Walls & Doors

Walls are not cheap. A typical full set will cost you around 4.2 mil these days. When you buy a wall deed it will only cost 2,000gp, but when you place the wall deed you'll need to have the required cash for the asset in your inventory. Corner walls cost more than straight walls (2x). As these are not cheap, you can be assured that someone walking around a fledgling city building walls is probably loaded down with a boatload of cash. Kill him, take the money, and build your own walls. It's fun for the whole family! Walls are helpful and will keep the riff-raff out. However, flight isn't exactly rare and passwall allows entry for Assassins and Black Masks. The main purpose of walls, IMHO, is to provide a deterrent to sieging forces, and little else. A recent addition allows for two archer NPC guards in each corner type wall.

Once you get the walls up, the NPC's are quickly and cheaply ranked up and provide excellent cover. Obviously this brings the thought of many angles in your walls to mind, however, you will lack for room inside the city. If you are a class limiting guild (and don't need the space) this might be the way to go. Or, perhaps, if you are running a forward base this may be advantageous (but very expensive). Note: You may think that you can build your walls outside the blue-dot grid on the east and south sides given the Wind Blows phenomenon (see above) but don't try it. Although the protection given by the ToL extends beyond the grid the terra-forming properties of the ToL do not. Thus, your walls will be irregularly placed on a variety of altitudes in a hilly area. The result may well put tunnels under your walls and render them useless.

Doors

You'll have to friend everyone in your nation (subguilds) to your doors (wall doors, not building doors) so they can unlock them. Always keep your doors locked and beat up anyone who forgets to lock them. Again, walls provide little real protection from anything but a trebuchet, so some folks don't lock their doors, figuring "why?"

Siege Equipment

Don't put siege equipment in your town until you really need it. Perhaps a Siege Tent if you're actively involved in sieges as it is a nice place to buy siege hammers and bows, and all that stuff. If you're just goofing around and want to see what a siege tent looks like, you'll see what the maintenance looks like too… 9 million gp a week! If you want to play with siege equipment, put it somewhere out far from your city where it cannot do damage to your assets. Yes, someone CAN take over your bulwarks and make your day uncomfortable.

Additional Buildings - I've mentioned Citadels as nice places to have a set of guards, however, this will go away in 1.0. These are also nice places to stand on top and shoot enemies below. Be careful, your enemies can use these against you.

KOS Lists

In order to put someone on a Kill on Sight (KOS) list you'll need to grab their Heraldry. This can be achieved a number of ways, some more drastic than others. The easiest way is to click on someone's shield in the target window and drag it into your heraldry list. The harder way is to have them kill you and get it from your death list. At one time in the beta I was often found running into known enemy territory asking to be PK'd. It was the only way at the time. If you're an IC member you can drag the guild crest from one of these lists into the KOS list on your tree or any other building. The guild, or nation, will now be found on the list. You must check the box to actually enforce the KOS. Warrants are a tool intended to transfer a crest from one person to another. As of writing, they don't work but, when they do, one of your members will be able to hand you a crest for another guild. I always require my cities to have the crests of every guild and nation found in on the world map.

You don't have to enforce the KOS list, but you might have desire to at some point. Although annoyingly time consuming, his includes Safeholds and Hamlets. Politics are ever changing and people will stop at nothing to defeat an enemy. KOS lists are not an assurance that foul play might happen, just a safeguard. Someone can start a new guild here-to-fore unheard of and wander through your town, even PK your members in town, without guard protection until someone puts them on KOS. You'll want to be wary of this. Additionally, Guild Hoppers will often join an Open ToL and then come to PK your people. Make sure and KOS these people as individuals so they are KOS no matter who they represent each time they visit. Another thing to remember is that vendors will not sell, train, or interact with people on their KOS list. Keep this in mind when placing that lone bank out in the wilderness or creating a "hands off" asset within your own city.

Note: Only people friended to the asset can access its KOS list. This means that your IC members will need to collect and add crests.

Conclusion

Through this exercise I've tried to explain as much as possible about city planning, building, and operation as I can. By no means have I really begun to explain all the details and theories gained through experience, trial, and error. Given that, I am sure others will have differing views, differing experiences, and have tried other approaches. By no means am I the final authority on the matter. However, if I can impart one thing to the aspiring architect or Guild Master it would be this: Experience is the key to success. Perhaps you don't have any experience or your guild is making its first city… that's OK. Just don't expect it to go perfectly the first time. It's going to take a few tries. Remember: You need an Architect who knows "which way the wind blows".

References

1. City Building Guide at IGN.com
2. City Layout Template Builder (Excel)