Player Made Towns, Villages and Castles

So I have been thinking about player made cities and castles and such. My concern is simple, since this is a game and you are not on it all day long, how can you defend your city or village when you and your faction are offline? I came up with a solution.

I would suggest that the game allows you to hire guards to protect it. Meaning that there will be NPC guards hired by you through you spending gold daily or weekly for their service. Obviously, this will help with the player economy and create another gold sink so that a person doesn’t become super wealthy. This with also provide a small amount of protection for the individual or faction so that all their stuff doesn’t get lost when they sign off.

I know some people will say just get people in your faction who span the timezones…but that is a silly response. I believe that allowing individuals and factions to hire NPC guards to protect their villages and castles will create a great potential for siege battles and large scale battles. While balancing the economy, and providing small factions or individual players the ability to protect their building and investments to a certain point while they are offline.

Thoughts are welcome.