Background;

So for me probably the most enjoyable part of this game is hamlets. I love PvP and that seems to be the only real way to actually hit someones units, without them attacking me directly or just hitting a random siege that's basically trapped with defense units.

Additionally, looking at the weekly rankings, they are all competitive except siege, siege is basically just whoever has the most patience and time. There's no real benefit currently to sieging anything, even the resources from sieges are garbage compared to what most people are used to from raiding, even without including champions and the absurd amount of resources battle pass gives you. 

Idea;

Footholds are an individual beacon of sorts. 6 will be dropped at one time per influence area. Footholds are desginated initially to the person that contains the most influence in that area, be it through the most sieges initially, then branching off as a pseudo-beacon in regards to influence. The person will hold all 6 footholds, with or without units, but like any siege, someone else can take it over with offense, and defend it with defense. 

Mechanics;

I'm not going to provide any specific numbers as the concept of this is the suggestion, not the game-balance 

Plarium will drop X amount of footholds, these will be divided into 6 footholds per influence area. These may need to be level hidden, similar to hamlets, or not, I'm not entirely sure. These footholds can be found in the eagles nest. Influence is important for several reasons. 

Sieging any castle in the area around the footholds (say 100 miles or whatever) adds influence to the footholds, (think of it like you're making that castle fight for you) - Influence will both increase the rewards of the footholds (see next section) and mean that the footholds have a higher defense (works same as castle defense) - your influence will not help the enemy if they capture it, influence is individual. Additionally, influence can work as a multiplier for offense when attacking footholds.

This means that the more control of the area you have, and can maintain, the easier it will be to hold the foothold or capture/take one back, and the better rewards they provide to you. 

Rewards;

Each foothold (6 in one area - although you can capture hundreds if you wanted to spend that much time, units and effort sieging the whole map) provides individual rewards, similar to how sieges work and you can switch from iron to gold. Each foothold will be able to generate rewards based on the players choosing, as a sort of 'tribute'. Influence will increase the amount of rewards each one can generate, as it's basically like you making each castle pay you. So a list of rewards may be something like this;

Resources

Legendaries

Defense/Offense units

Mara amulets

Misc sapphire stuff (like gateways, weor protection, training boosts)

Sapphires

Paragon points/crystals

Soulstones

Hero equipment or champions

Darkening units

Why?

So as mentioned in backgrounds, I see a clear lack of interaction with sieges and the ranking system, and one thing I've noticed is that every time I hit someone, even a low-ranked person from a top league, they ALWAYS threaten war immediately. It's basically made me just avoid the top leagues since everyone is scared of losing some units in a war game (kekw). However; this system puts the onus on an individual person, similar to hamlets. 

If you choose to defend them, and put time and effort into securing more influence, more rewards and possibly even weekly rankings is up to the person, and it leaves more units in the open because people will need to defend (or in the off case you hit someones offense as they try to take one). 

I believe a system balanced well, would encourage people to play around with sieges more often, rather than them just being a waste of space which they have been for years. It would provide more opportunities for PvP - which is something I desperately want, as chasing PvP points without just hitting someones castle or (a beacon) is a nightmare sometimes.

Even trickling down, for new players, although they tend to not understand offense/defense, it will give them an interactive system which is easy to understand, capture more sieges, defend the foothold, get rewards and introduce them to these concepts of PvP. 

This system also allows for outplaying someone which for the most part this game doesn't have. 99% of this game is just straight up overpower someone, either through spending more, baiting them into a heavily walled castle. The biggest tactic you can really try to do is hit offense units as they return, but even then, catacomb hider negates that and it's a hit or miss anyway. 

Plarium;

So I didn't post this in the suggestions section for 2 reasons

First is this concept isn't fully fleshed out, I have a super basic outline of how something like this would actually function.

The second is that although I truly believe this encourages PvP - thus more units die - more sapphires used to revive - more packs of units bought (etc etc etc). I don't think Plarium could monetise this without it throwing everything off-balance and just becoming another system that's pay-to-win. 

Conclusion;

I really think this game needs to incentivise more PvP and I do understand I'm biased as that's what I enjoy doing, baiting people, outplaying them, watching hundreds of their units die. I think this would be a cool way for people to push the barrier of risk vs reward. A system which can even out the imbalance of having (for example) 1.1billion defense just casually roaming. This will increase the importance of siege, make the weekly rankings atleast somewhat competitive, provide more opportunities for PvP, and give a risk for reward factor that isn't really in the game right now. This could introduce a wide range of strategies, for defending them, filling up the higher level sieges with defense, to the enemy attacking and lowering your influence, thus making the footholds weaker, could be a way to protect your footholds. Or just straight up blanketing a massive area. For offense, you could make a mixture of your own sieges, and take over the enemies, shattering that defense bonus from influence, and then taking the foothold over much easier. 

Final thoughts;

This system isn't fully thought out or fleshed out but I still think the core concept would be impactful in the game. I'm sure DJ, Bio or Limad will tell me I overlooked something obvious though lol. As for the actual balance of things, their may be arguments for example, the rewards darkened units should only be from beacons (although you can get them elsewhere). I havent really put much thought into the rewards, so maybe X is a bad idea or I overlooked something. I just want to make the point that I think exposing people to things that are more exclusive, for a smaller cost (in this case losing units through PvP) isn't a bad thing, it could incentisive people to chase those rewards more - EG joining a bigger league for a beacon, or, holding more footholds and trying to expand their influence. This system would be deterministic, similar to the dragon stone arts, and sort of like the weor battleground rewards (like castle defense, unit move speed etc) except you can choose from a much bigger pool of rewards that you actually want, rather than a lucky dip.