Reason for Villages healing +8 & Castles/Keeps 0

[eddieballgame]

Curious as to why the Castles/Keeps offer no "healing" bonuses. I am sure it is a gaming decision, but even just a little increase would seem to be ok. I, currently, am using a +5 for my games & it "feels"...fine.

[zookeeper]

The original reasoning was likely to make it less viable for wounded leaders to simply camp in their castles while recruiting and healing; instead, you (often) have to choose between the two.

[Jabie]

There are occasions when the villain leaves his castle to heal, at which point I jump a unit on his throne and prevent him from recruiting. Giving keeps a moderate bonus (Leaders only: +2HP and heal poison) might prevent some of these shennanigans.

[nuorc]

Giving castles/keeps healing would change the balance of the game. It would encourage camping at the castle and make fighting 'uphill' onto a castle an even less pleasant undertaking than it already is.

shennanigans

Could you please stop calling my legitimate tactics 'shennanigans'?

Preventing the enemy boss from recruiting or poisoning him is something I frequently do.

[Dixie]

Why would castles and keeps heal? You present this as if it should be obvious, but it really isn't. It doesn't make sense at all from a gameplay perspective. Even from a "realistic" point a view, a kind of argument that is generally dismissed at first sight, it doesn't make sense. Historically, castles were great defensive positions, you could raise and train troops from there, but they had limited food and water supplies. They aren't villages with vast farmlands at hand, they are relatively small stone fortifications. The biggest medieval castles were hardly bigger than a few square kilometers. They usually had a well, sometimes a small garden and a diminutive pasture for some livestock, but that is hardly enough to feed an army. That is war of attrition and siege tactics in all it's splendor. I think it makes plenty of sens for castles not to offer any healing. Also, gameplay.

[iceiceice]

Arguably, wesnoth already gives too much advantage to the defender, this would make the game even more campy. I think its imbalancing also, not all factions are supposed to have easy access to healing.

(^novice opinion)

[Anonymissimus]

Dixie: Kind of offtopic, but medieval castles very often had a secret tunnel as well, to be able to survive a long siege as well. This is of course against what you wanna prove.
Forget realism.

[Tom_Of_Wesnoth]

If anything castles should do very slight damage to simulate the besieged running out of food.

[eddieballgame]

Interesting opinions on why a Castle/Keep should not allow a bonus to healing. I am not in agreement, however, in the thought that it would imbalance the game play. Some races might be tougher to siege, but if that is all the sieged race has left to defend, than good luck. The sieging army would also get that bonus, once entering the enemy domain.
One of the gaming reasons my group thought it might be ok to allow said healing is because we tend to like maps with less villages/1000. ( 10 to 15 )
I trust the judgement of the experienced players, so maybe it would not work for "gaming" purposes. But...I am not totally convinced.

[Ravana]

You could implement different terrains healings as modification.

I do not see change of this as part of core.