This issue is very interesting. We can make the garrisons totally passive
units, a la Carl Edman's Epos, and provide no reports at all from them.
Teleporting gold makes even less sense then; instead of a DECREE HOSTILE,
you would need to send a noble around and TELL each garrison who it should
attack...
That's one extreme. We're at the other, where the ruler can instantly change
the attitudes of the garrisons (as soon as I write DECREE), full reports are
sent in instantly, and gold is teleported to the land administrator.
I don't know what kind of middle ground can be found. If getting the full
report is optional, players will choose to get them. Especially the kind
of empire-builder players who are likely to make the most use of garrisons.
There is no obvious way to compress the location reports and have them
still be useful and readable (else I'd do it for all of them.) A table
of garrisons can't squeeze in all the info.
<thinking...>
Here's what I could do. Instead of getting a full location report from
each garrison, you get a list of your garrisons, and a play-by-play log
for all of them as a group. Some sort of "watch for so-and-so" decree
would need to be added.
5501> decree watch 2342
5501> decree hostile 3971
Garrisons:
unit where fight castle ruler
---- ----- ----- ------ -----
4539 cp23 10 iu08 5501
7211 cp24 15 iu08 5501
2582 cq23 11 iu08 5501
Garrison log:
5: Garrison [7211] spotted Feasel the Wicked [2342] in Mountain [cp24].
8: Garrison [2582] attacks Rocko [3971]!
8: We won. Rocko [3971] has been taken prisoner.
15: Garrison [4539] spotted Feasel the Wicked [2342] in Forest [cp23].
To prevent the empire builders from issuing a WATCH for every entity in
the game, there would be a 5-10 unit limit. Garrison units aren't smart
enough to keep track of more people they should be on the lookout for.
-- Rich Skrenta <skrenta@shadow.com>