Cheaply securing my front lines

[Chronos]

There are different ways I have found to do this and I’m interested in hearing if others have also found other ways to Cheaply secure their front lines…

Sometimes I have gotten myself into situations that cause me to want to stop expanding my Empire or to have to defend boarders from a more powerful Enemy…. So, this is how I deal with that, without having to wage a costly endless war or give up to much territory;

1. Keep a veteran army and a veteran general protecting the boarder but this can get expensive and there can be many endless battles.


2. I weaken my enemy until I can leave enough of his cities (totally destroyed and looted cities, lol, so he can’t stand a decent army against me again) in the way of a bigger enemy and that will stop a bigger enemy reaching that boarder if you leave your weaker enemy in the way and crushed…This only works if the bigger enemy has alliance or wont attack the smaller crushed enemy along the boarder.

3. If there is a nation near that (war) boarder that my Enemy doesn’t or wont attack because of alliances or AI strategy and that nation is weaker than me or doesn’t attack me, then I will send an emissary and “give” them the cities along the boarder so as to totally split me from my enemy. Sometimes you will have to give them money to make them take it… This can end war on that boarder for generations…It costs cities but it brings peace and stops war totally…Which gives me a breather to start pouring my money into strengthening my cities and my economy before I “choose” to go to war or expand….

4. If these three options don’t work for me then I use forts….I Build forts all along the boarder in a checked fashion, one behind another, all the way back to a city and I make sure I can reach all of my forts from a city, like a domino affect, so I can move from a city right across the front to fill a defeated fort…I Fill my forts with battle broken small units, like 15 men in 1 fort. Then, when my enemy attacks a fort (which is instead of a city) and then takes it, he will then walks out of the fort and attack another fort. So, I then send another small cheap unit into the abandon fort and the Enemy Army gets confused and leaves the new siege and returns to the old fort and sieges that all over again. This is a very effective way to screw up the enemies army’s…I have had 4 or 5 full enemy armies caught up behind my forts going round in circles until I had time and money to raise an army and go out and destroy them and move my line (boarders) further into there territory. Forts don’t cost anything to bye in EB but I am not sure if they cost anything to keep each round.

That’s a couple of ways I have used to defend my fronts lines but I would be interested to hear what other ideas people are using to do this.

[Callicles]

Your 3rd and certainly your 4th options sound like cheating (well, not cheating, but taking advantage of the fact that its a game).

Maybe try to use rivers and mountain passes to your advantage. A fort in a narrow mountain valley works well, too, without breaking role-play.

Probably the best way is, while technically a cheat, not considered cheating at all: the force diplomacy mod. Depending on your usage of the mod, it can make the game feel more realistic. You should read up on it:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=80763

[Chronos]

Just checked out that link...I think I will go with that:laugh4:

[Leão magno]

4. If these three options don’t work for me then I use forts….I Build forts all along the boarder in a checked fashion, one behind another, all the way back to a city and I make sure I can reach all of my forts from a city, like a domino affect, so I can move from a city right across the front to fill a defeated fort…I Fill my forts with battle broken small units, like 15 men in 1 fort. Then, when my enemy attacks a fort (which is instead of a city) and then takes it, he will then walks out of the fort and attack another fort. So, I then send another small cheap unit into the abandon fort and the Enemy Army gets confused and leaves the new siege and returns to the old fort and sieges that all over again. This is a very effective way to screw up the enemies army’s…I have had 4 or 5 full enemy armies caught up behind my forts going round in circles until I had time and money to raise an army and go out and destroy them and move my line (boarders) further into there territory. Forts don’t cost anything to bye in EB but I am not sure if they cost anything to keep each round.

That’s a couple of ways I have used to defend my fronts lines but I would be interested to hear what other ideas people are using to do this.
Really interesting, any pictures of this?

[JeffSteel]

From my experience with forced diplomacy mods, I would conclude that they dont work. Sure you can force the AI to accept a peace or protectrateship or whatever, but they will still turn around and backstab you within the next couple of turns. The "peace" only lasts as long as it takes the AI to get its army to whatever it was planning to attack before the imposed truce.

[Sygrod]

The checker fort formation I believe to be unnecessary. Build a fort where the enemy has to pass to get to your city. FILL it with units. Have more than half of them missile units, a couple of good defensive units, a couple of good mobile offensive units and some cavalry. Missile units are relatively cheap. If an enemy lays siege on the fort, sally and decimate him. If he tries to bypass, exit the fort and do battle. Make sure you have reserves withing marching distance and always replenish losses. Crushing local superiority will ensure that your city will not be bothered.

[Leão magno]

Yes but this implies in fighthing and sometimes it is tiring to have an army fighting small stacks of depleted AI units...

[Chronos]

Sorry Leao, I have lost the program I use to take screenshots and can’t remember the name of it to find it again…I am not sure how to paste a screenshot at this point either…
I will keep trying because this fort method works Mate…. Have you tried it for your self yet?


From my experience with forced diplomacy mods, I would conclude that they don’t work. Sure you can force the AI to accept a peace or protectrateship or whatever, but they will still turn around and backstab you within the next couple of turns. The "peace" only lasts as long as it takes the AI to get its army to whatever it was planning to attack before the imposed truce.

I have been using this “forced diplomacy mod” and I agree, you are right!!!…It is also 100% cheating!!!
If you want to cheat, this program can do a lot…i.e. you can take your enemies cities and either give them to someone else or keep them or just destroy the cities and end up rich…Personally that spoils the Game…


The checker fort formation I believe to be unnecessary. Build a fort where the enemy has to pass to get to your city. FILL it with units. Have more than half of them missile units, a couple of good defensive units, a couple of good mobile offensive units and some cavalry. Missile units are relatively cheap. If an enemy lays siege on the fort, sally and decimate him. If he tries to bypass, exit the fort and do battle. Make sure you have reserves within marching distance and always replenish losses. Crushing local superiority will ensure that your city will not be bothered.

This scenario of blocking paths and using good size forces in the forts works for me when I am the stronger side or at least as strong but sometimes a lot more powerful enemy comes along and this method will not work…I loose whole army’s and Generals, time and time again and it becomes filled with endless warfare and money just defending one pass…

Blocking Passes is a good defensive strategy but not all cities are in the mountains or near rivers…One place I am using this method of Jagged forts is beyond the Nile River, to protect Memphis and Alexandria because Carthage owns more than Half the board and they have endless amounts of money to throw huge endless amounts of armies at me…
This method with forts has held them of for a long time…I am still a long way off being able to openly confront them…I have no problems destroying there armies with a good general but I don’t have to many of them and he has heaps of them and endless armies, so it seems pointless wasting my armies trying to confront them…I need to spend the money on a few of my cities so I can produce army units that will annihilate them at a rate of 10 to 1…I need time to do that…These forts are by far the best way I have found to do that…

I don’t think this is cheating because if it was real time, I could do the same thing…If an enemy had to cross from one fort after another to get to a city, it would cause similar problems, with the forts taken and then left behind and being re-manned unless they are totally destroyed…So, this is real-time strategy for me because it is a solution I had to find to save my front from a way more powerful Enemy that would have totally collapsed it and I have done this cheaply with using a good half dozen or more forts manned by 1 small broken unit that can be reinforced as soon as the enemy army leaves that fort to siege another…

This has been the most affective way to defend beyond the Nile and up in Sarmation territory…I am confronting Carthage there also…in mountain regions, I am still using forts to block their pathways…

Yea, that's right, Carthage is in Sarmatian terratory, lol, never seen that before...

[Olaf The Great]

Yes, the fort "walls" are one of my best used border defenses.

Especially easy at chokepoints(North-Eastern Iberia, Rhegion, Hellespont, Crimeria etc etc).

Also, in my Casse Campaign I usually take cities that are close to other nations territory bur somewhat isolated.

For example...

Theres a city directly below Cassemorg in Gaul, I took that, and heavily fortified it with stone walls and garrisoned Forts, recruited a small( bout 10 unit strong levy army) and a watchtower, diplomat, and spy in the city.

Voila, I get a colony.

I also do this with other rebel city all over the map.

I got Vesontonio(Iberia), Syracuse and Messana(Sicily), the Crimerian cities(Ok I actually bribed these, THEN got a general and some casse troops), Crete, and I got a boat with lots of Levies(and a very good governer) to India, I'll tell you guys how that goes.

Yeah, I wanted to do something different this time.


BTW I was grouping up the levies in the garrisons to attack a rebel army, when the Aedui attacked the colony in Gaul.

I used forced diplomacy to stop it because I wasn't ready for conquest yet, I also got a plague in Vesontonio(got rid of it now) and recruited like 20 spies and sent them into gaul :) aint that evil?

[Leão magno]

The spy force of Olaf the Great!!! It is good to see some enimy city rebelling through the action of our spies and assassins isn't it?

[Olaf The Great]

The spy force of Olaf the Great!!! It is good to see some enimy city rebelling through the action of our spies and assassins isn't it?
Yep, Its fun capturing cities without losing any troops. :)

[Leão magno]

Impose fear and they shall bend to you! :) :) :)

[Olaf The Great]

Impose fear and they shall bend to you! :) :) :)Course once I got some of the cities I had a very lw pop problem, lol Plague

[Meothar]

I sometimes make a rampage tour through enemy territory, sell all useful buildings and let the cities rebel (or being captured). When the enemy captures the cities, I put a lot of spies into them, so he has no fun in this area. It gets more difficult when the cities rebel towards a faction, but spies are useful here, again.

So, I have a belt of independent cities at my empire's border that delay enemies quite effective. It's a bit like option 2 from your list, just without involving 3rd parties.