So as far as I can tell, goblins and undead spawn a certain distance from your settlement banner rather than your buildings? If this is intentional, maybe have the banners we can build extend smaller radii where mobs cannot spawn. that way we can keeps goblins from spawing in out towns, and the banners would be given a functionality. Also, we need red banners.
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while I agree, there is a problem when it comes to making it freely buildable - players could, potentially, place these banners everywhere and either severely limit spawn zones, or eliminate enemy spawns entirely. of course, upon final release the maps aren’t going to be this small (you shouldn’t even be able to find the edge of the map… if there even will be one), but still.
a solution to this is to give banners a drawback.
- make them limited. this can be accomplished in 2 ways
a. make banners expensive to craft. or, better yet, make them procedurally expensive, or even exponentially expensive. your 1st banner is free, the 2nd is base cost, the 3rd is double, the 4th is 4 times, etc. this is not recommended.
b. make banners based off of some variable. it could be based off of your city’s worth - since worth is heavily affected by buildings, it makes sense that if you have a lot of buildings you’ll be able to spread the spawn protection eventually. however, just having buildings doesn’t make them “safe”, so I don’t recommend this. instead, it could be based on another variable. namely, your military might. you can make another banner at 1 hearthling swordsman, but can’t make a 3rd banner until 3 soldiers, or even more, and continue from there. this makes more sense, as to defend your town (aka make it “safe”, preventing spawns), you need several patrols in order to fully defend it. having more land than soldiers has an effect of “making your lines stretched thin”, and, as such, you’ll have areas that aren’t defended. having more soldiers than land means you can expand your territory safely. this is logical, and is what I recommend is done. - make them destructable. basically, in addition to building costs, mobs will target the banners if they get close enough. since this reduces your spawn protection and allows for more reinforcements, it makes sense that mobs would try to tear down the banners when they get close. this prevents players from making 10 footsoldiers, building a bunch of banners, and then turning all of the footsoldiers into other classes. without soldiers to actively defend your town, your newly constructed banners will be targeted and torn down by enemy spawns, wasting your resources and time.
- finally, something I think would be a nice addition, is to make them non-craftable. instead of having the banner made by the tailor or carpenter, make it a standing structure that must be made at the location. kind of like with the building editor, except instead of clicking the building editor and immediately being able to select the floor and its size, you must select a block to place the banner. workers will carry resources (wood, stone, either a flag by the tailor or some cloth) to the site and will “work” on the banner zone until it’s fully built. give it its own button, and it’ll allow you to give a player a message when they can’t craft another banner, as well as highlight currently placed banners and their protective area. you can even have the button be grey until they can make their 1st non-free banner, and after then make it turn gold whenever they can make another banner (like the notifications button does whenever you have a new unread notification).
also, players should be able to craft normal banners at a carpenter/tailor that is purely decorative, so if they want 2 banners for OCD reasons, they can have 2 banners in 1 location without having to waste a banner slot on an already-protected area. these banners, while having the same looks, will be purely decorative and not have the function the protection banners have. this is also why I suggest having banners light up when they click the “place banner” button, so they can see exactly where their banners are, without having to sacrifice creative freedom.
Sorry i didn’t read your post Ridesdragons,
I think it would be cool if the banner height changed or was maybe relative to the score maybe, maybe if it was a flag instead or as well, anyway another idea 
I was actually thinking of the flags that we can currently make extending our current range. So if the main banner has a radius o “x feet where mobs cant sapwn” the large flags would have a radius of “x/4” and the small ones of like “x/6” or something like that
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Oh wait … if I remember correctly something like this is planed.
Since the firtst banner claims a region as your kingdom, territory you own and can build on etc. … you will be able to add new territory …
Perhaps they can only be placed within 30 blocks of your banner at the beginning, increasing by 30 every time you gain 750 more net wealth.
For example, At 1500 net wealth, you can place banners 90 blocks away from your banner. At 3750, they can be placed 180 blocks away.
They could cost 6 leather and 4 thread and the affected area will have a radius of 25 blocks in each direction.
Of course, you would need to make the AI more aggressive so they would travel greater distances to attack you.
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