Is this just theoretical or are we actually considering this? I can't say any of these really interest me. The ones that separate the southern land bridge are a very bad idea. It would just throw off the flow of the continent. I don't like the idea of eliminating donut regions either. I've always liked them because it makes it possible to have an actual siege, the extra travel time is worth it.
I can see how Storm's Keep serves as a refuge and little more, but what about adding a ferry lane from there to Cold Spring or Springdale? Then it will have a real choke point to defend and could be a rallying point for invasions. (Ferry lane attacks have better odds against a fortified region then attacking by sea correct?)
Also I've always thought it would be cool to turn those two little isolated uninhabited islands into island strongholds. Perfect for founding pirate realms.
I'm not a dev, I'm just brainstorming for the sake of discussion.
For Storm's Keep, in the last versions I added a bridge to Rye. Makes both Strom's Keep and Springdale less isolated, and makes for potential conflict over who owns what there, given that the semi-isand of Nifel and Springdale are often held by different realms. Makes it a choke, and simpler to manage than ferry lanes.
Tiny islands were kind of cool, and there were many on Dwi's first draft, but they were all removed due to being very impractical. For one, you can only takeover regions you are adjacent to, so no one could claim them as is. Then, sea travel kind of assumes you'll eventually get access to a harbor somewhere if you travel far enough, unless ferries are installed you could literally get stranded on them. They are pretty much always, by definition, "far from the capital", making them inefficient. They would be either be too hard to defend, making them only suitable for overly pacifistic realms, or on the contrary too hard to invade, making them unfair. And that's just to name a few. Also, we've had "pirate" realms... they didn't really do any piracy. Granted, Madina's capital wasn't on the inner sea, but on the southern sea, and sea travel only came in much later, so that probably contributed to it. D'Hara did a bit of piracy, but hardly any, trade was too important to it. Mostly raiding rogue regions during a few very brief periods. It's kind of hard to project military might from islands to anywhere, and when your troops tend to get scattered to the smallest battle, you don't get to do much piracy. Distance to travel makes it hard to arrive together, provisions present a whole lot of headaches, sailing costs cut down on your recruitment funds, etc.
We've had the doughnuts for years now, and I don't remember a single meaningful siege. In BM, troops can hold out in a city much, much longer than invading troops can hold out at its border. It's also my understanding that sieges are the result of when the attackers have too many troops for the defender to defeat, but too few to breach the walls. This would remain fully possible with 2-region "doughnuts", which is what I went for in most cases.
Zakky, could you please mention which forts in particular you find to be a problem? Also, while we may not have naval combat, forts still serve as fortified sailing and landing locations. I don't really believe that they should exclusively be in choke points, and I'm not even sure they have ever been in choke points before Dwilight.
