Overview
Back in May of 2019 when the Know Your Nodes Blog series started, we were expecting to get information about all four Nodes; however, during that time there were some design changes going on with the Nodes. Instead of pressing forward with the blog series they held off on the Divine and Military Node Blogs. Lacking those blogs there is very little we can say about the Military Nodes.
Nodes will be identifiable as Military Nodes beginning at level one as the transition from Wilderness to Expedition is marked by the arrival of NPC Guards/Soldiers.
Government
The government system for Military Nodes has undergone major design revisions since it was originally presented to the community. We know that the election system will be some sort of Player-vs-Player event. Originally it was slated to be a last man standing event between the different individuals vying to be Mayor. This has changed; however, when Intrepid realized an election system of this nature didn’t really mesh well with the idea that PvP in Ashes of Creation is being balanced around group content not based on 1vs1 fights.
The change to the system is now that instead of fighting as your own character, you will create a champion NPC to fight as. You will be responsible for building the character, gearing the character and fighting as the character. This design change is partially responsible for the delay in the Node Blog release, especially given that if Ashes is not balanced around 1v1 combat, the election system had to adapt or there would be classes that had a natural META advantage for being Military node Mayors.
Unique Buildings
We know the Military Node unique building is the Barracks. While we are not 100% sure what you will do at this building, we know it will involve training and questlines related to combat as well as defeating monsters near the Node. Through the Barracks there may be some involved with Guild Warfare and some involved with Castle Sieges; although what that involvement is we cannot say.
The only name we currently have is the Barracks name for the building type, we do not have the names for them at each level.
Metropolis Super Powers
The Military Node Metropolis Superpower is unknown at this time.
Extra Notes
Two additional side benefits of Military Nodes are:
The Accessibility of the Bounty Hunter Quest
The duration of corruption is reduced while in a Military Node
From the 26 June 2020 livestream, we know Intrepid is planning on possibly changing the Bounty Hunter quest to include either all the Nodes that are allied with the Military Node, or all of the vassal nodes. We await further information.