Now that I’ve played with Vanquisher raiders (not overall vanquisher just the raiders) I feel like I can give a little feedback. It feels pretty good, it presents more of a challenge where I need to focus my resources on dealing with them more, so it changes up my approach to building my town and how I spend resources. I like it and I think I might continue with that increase in their strength for a few more maps. BUT - I can see that instead of a raid every third year for medium difficulty raiders (Trailblazer? I forget) it’s a steady every other year that I get raiders, and this feels kind of like it’s making me see the skinner box too much. It would be kind of nice if there was some more flexibility in raid events so it rolls between every other year and every fourth or fifth year, so it’s still a harder raid to deal with, but you never quite know when that raid is going to happen. Is this going to be the year they hit me? Or can I go deal with a raider camp and possibly lose a few soldiers I’m going to really really need if a raid suddenly shows up.
I keep track of the raid years and it’s become almost random. Worst was when they happened every two years, most frustrating was a 13 year run without raids whilst I manned towers in anticipation, costing me dearly in gold. Level of play has no correlation to frequency but does to raider aggression.
If there is no raid, simply turn off the tower mode, it will no longer cost gold. Arrange the defense system so that the villagers can run to the warehouse to get weapons and go to the tower before the bandits get close to the tower.
There are no raiders in the first 5 months, and I do turn off the towers as soon as autumn arrives, no raids ever happen in winter. At the beginning of a potential raid year I save and if a raid does occur I go back to that save, although the raids will strike from a different location, necessitating that all my towers get switched on again. The developers might want to look into staggering the raids during the year to make it more confusing.