Castle Upgrades

[Dr_Who]

We all know how to build castles but what about the upgrades? If I have a citadel and have the option to build a barbican, or to upgrade to a fortress, would the fortress automatically the have the barbican installed?

I just noticed that if you don't choose any of the defense options, they are not availible after you get the next castle upgrade.

[R3dD0g]

I asked this on another MTW forum and was told that I did get to keep the defensive enhancements. I built a castle with ballista enhancement and then upgraded to a citadel. But, then I had to defend that citadel and there were no ballista.

So, I'm wondering whether they do go forward or not. Personally, I'm not building any enhancements until I get to the final fortification size that I plan for that province; then build all of them.

[Dr_Who]

thx, because the manual does a terrible http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif job at explaining these things.

[Portuguese Rebel]

IMO those upgrades are just a waste of time, because of tree reasons:

1- I think you lose the upgrade if you upgrade the fortification

2- The time you waste on building those upgrades could be spent building a new fortification

3- How many times have you seen the AI assaulting your castles?

So are this worth it? Does someone have some kind of use for these?

[Bhruic]

Any time the enemy has siege weapons, they always attack my castle/fort/citadel/whatever. However, since I almost never retreat to the castle/etc unless I have a force to retake the province, that's not really a big deal for me. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Bh

[Ryttare]

EI have never been assaulted my the enemy whiel hiding in my castles.....so i always keep very few peasants in the provvince so the food wont run out...i can sit in there and wait for years with 10 peasants.

[Mihai Viteazu]

I find castles very useful. The best defence for me is a strong castle and a single unit. When the enemy invades my province I choose to fight the battle and I deploy my unit near the back edge of the map, so I am sure a few men will escape. If the castle were strong enough and the men sufficiently few it would never fall without an assault. In this case the AI actually assaults the castle. When this happens I always choose to fight the battle. It's essential for this tactic not to autocalculate the battle, since your castle might fall this way I deploy my men in the center of the castle and just sit and watch the AI loosing hundreds of good men. Of course, one could set the time to go faster. Since now, the AI only got a few times into the first enclosure, but never more than that. It suffered terrible losses, 2 kings died at the gates of my castles and a few other high rank generals. The result of these losses is a drop of loialty in the province which would eventually induce a revolt of my loialists, sometimes with many good units When this happens I might get some other troops in the province to join their forces. Of course it helps if you had some spies nearby and moved them in the province immediatly after the invasion, but this is not really necessary. Sometimes the AI brings new forces and assaults the castle a few years in a row until it has no troops to bring and the revolt finally emerges. One can help by attacking other provinces and giving the enemy a hard time reinforcing that procince.
I have lots of fun playing like this http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Elwe]

I believe that the extra fortifications help to protect some of the buildings from being destroyed when you retreat to your castle as well. Haven't fully tested this yet, but it seems to work.

Cheers.

[SmokWawelski]

As Bhruic said, they are only worth building if you will use them.

However, to reply to P Rebel, I was assaulted by AI many times, especially if I used the small crew tactics to maximize the siege time.

What I have found very good tactics is having at least two cav units, archers and spears in a castle to defend it. When the siege commence, I take one cav out and draw the enemy away from the castle and the siege machines. The other cav takes on the machines then and, if possible, archers/other targets of opportunity. If the enemy manages to breach the walls afterwards anyway, I plug the hole with spears and keep shooting over their heads, maybe taking the cav out again....

Works suprasingly well for me...

[Shahed]

Quote[/b] (Mihai Viteazu @ Feb. 24 2003,23:00)]I find castles very useful. The best defence for me is a strong castle and a single unit. When the enemy invades my province I choose to fight the battle and I deploy my unit near the back edge of the map, so I am sure a few men will escape. If the castle were strong enough and the men sufficiently few it would never fall without an assault. In this case the AI actually assaults the castle. When this happens I always choose to fight the battle. It's essential for this tactic not to autocalculate the battle, since your castle might fall this way I deploy my men in the center of the castle and just sit and watch the AI loosing hundreds of good men. Of course, one could set the time to go faster. Since now, the AI only got a few times into the first enclosure, but never more than that. It suffered terrible losses, 2 kings died at the gates of my castles and a few other high rank generals. The result of these losses is a drop of loialty in the province which would eventually induce a revolt of my loialists, sometimes with many good units When this happens I might get some other troops in the province to join their forces. Of course it helps if you had some spies nearby and moved them in the province immediatly after the invasion, but this is not really necessary. Sometimes the AI brings new forces and assaults the castle a few years in a row until it has no troops to bring and the revolt finally emerges. One can help by attacking other provinces and giving the enemy a hard time reinforcing that procince.
I have lots of fun playing like this http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Brilliant

[Shahed]

Some castle upgrades i.e Culverin towers REQUIRE that you have followed the tech tree the way up. Darn can't find mine now, but as far as I recall, you have to build the towers, then bombard towers, then demi-culv towers. Once you arrive at Fortress (highest) level you will not be able to build culv towers if you did not build demi-culv towers at Citadel level.

So upgrade the fortifications only if yo want them to serve a purpose in defence.

I personally have highest level structures in rear areas, in order to continue up the tech tree only. In forward or line of control sectors, I build my castles with all the defences upgraded as much as possible. In the eventuality of the province being overrun, I send my routing men to the castle. There they stay as long as they like, and await a loyalist revolt. The AI usually does not manage to take a Citadel with 800 men, cuz AI does not usually come equipped with siege engines.



http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Papewaio]

Instead of parking a unit at the rear... just have a ballista or catapult and retreat to the castle.

10 guys and they can shoot when the enemy attacks... just be careful you don't destroy you own fort.

[Shahed]

Koool idea