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Act 4 - Banner Network

Act 4 is the network act. Valenar stops feeling like one growing settlement with some nearby support sites and starts feeling like a defended banner network of settlements, outposts, roads, ward lines, and governors.

Role​

  • Make multiple settlements and dependent sites the default strategic shape.
  • Turn roads, caravans, patrols, and governor-style delegation into core play.
  • Force the player to think about link security, supply continuity, and route value under pressure.
  • Introduce the first real question of how different holdings specialize inside one banner network.

What Changes From Act 3​

  • Additional settlements matter as peers, not just as resource satellites.
  • Outposts become route, ward, watch, extraction, or relay tools in a wider network.
  • Travel safety and corridor control become as important as local output.
  • Demonic pressure can sever links between holdings instead of only threatening one map cell at a time.

Required Outcomes​

  • The player runs more than one meaningful settlement.
  • Routes, caravans, or patrols are part of ordinary planning.
  • Different holdings have distinct roles inside the same network.
  • Frontier defense becomes a line-and-node problem rather than a single-center problem.

Boundary Into Act 5​

Act 4 ends when the player is ready to formalize that network under a Province structure.

  • The banner network is large enough that one-settlement governance is no longer sufficient.
  • Administrative identity starts to matter alongside local output.
  • The next step is Province rule, not just another isolated foothold.