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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 8437137" data-attributes="member: 53980">Two soldiers in a wooden crows nest are certainly going to give bandits more pause than a lone farmer, IMO.I mean, maybe you're right, but I'm skeptical. A lookout needs to be aware of what to look out for. The watch might not be informed of the exact itinerary of the tax payment (or whatever) but I think it likely that they would be informed that they ought to be on high alert and report any suspicious activity in the area.Also, sending stones have limitations. IIRC, they only work once per day and they have a word limit. Potentially useful, but I don't think that it plus a farmer can really even replace the budget watch that you've posited.Even if it can, it's still a risky proposition, particularly in the short term. Want to hurt the kingdom? Just snatch up all the stones you can. Taking a magic stone from a farmer is arguably easier than assassinating pairs of soldiers, and replacing the soldiers is much cheaper in the short term. Even if the kingdom can afford to replace them, how many times can they continue to do so? Eventually they will have to assign soldiers to guard the stones, which removes the economic incentive to have them in the first place.Which is to say, I don't agree that a farmer with a sending stone is a suitable replacement for a tower watch. Supplementing the tower watch with sending stones could have enormous strategic advantages (even limited instantaneous communication is potent in the age of the carrier pigeon - imagine a medieval commander appraised of enemy movements in real time) but not an economic one.</blockquote>

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