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I would like to see what is the most common use of forts for players. I would like a post saying good locations for them.
(Edit) I would like this information so I can write a guide on the defense of areas, (France, England, Turkey ect...) for minimum cost and maximum effect. As we all know, It is better to be able to mount an effective and cheap homeland defense so that our full stack shock armies can conquer the rest of the Medieval world. Muhahahahahaha!
All of the above, plus secret service (spies, assassins) HQ.
How about a choice such as "i don't use forts"?
Me too.Quote:
Originally Posted by FactionHeir
I use forts only if i am playing realism type game (not modded, just alter my own actions) then i make a fort every time they stop moving, after all, its what they would have done...in my opinion :laugh4:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraggenmor
I don't seem to be able to edit the poll.Quote:
Originally Posted by FactionHeir
I find placing well garrisoned forts at the local choke points is really a useful tactic - it allows you too head off invading armies and should that fail gives you a stack outside the city to help relieve seiges
i do use them as trade centres as well which is quite profitable
I chose "Natural Chokepoint" and "Fort in Hostile Territory".
When ending a turn in enemy territory I always build a fort, because 1) the AI seems more reluctant to attack forts and 2) there is always open ground around forts, which suits my cavalry and archer-heavy armies better than being attacked in the middle of a forest.
Natural chokepoints are, of course mountain passes or narrow patches between natural obstacles (like southeast of Antwerp). I also use them to block land bridges. This doesn't work with all land bridges, but it works on the one connecting Jutand with Fynen (Denmark), so you can effectively lock the Danes out of Europe.
I didn't tick "Inland Garrisons" because the only inland fort other than the obvious chokepoints is my "Messina Fort". When I first got the game, I was disappointed that the famous Crusader port was not there, so after conquering Sicily, I always build a fort in its location where I gather units bound for the Holy Land. Call me sentimental... :laugh4:
I never liked merchants much and I've never used them more than sporadically, but I might consider doing the "merchant outpost" thing in future.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The merchant outpost works wonders for keeping the Uber-Merchants that AI factions seem to have from wasting your junior merchants. Often I will build a fort at a resource near my merchant producing cities and put the new guys there as a ersatz training facility.
In RTW I mainly used forts for holding choke points. In M2TW, small armies without a general seem to rebel much more often, so I now build forts midway between cities that are too far apart to transfer units in one turn as defection-proof (so far, anyway) way-stations.
Hang on - forts can raise cash?
> Hang on - forts can raise cash?
Not by themselves, but they allow you to stack merchants, and keep them
safe from persecution. Sort of like a trading post with a military garison.
I never use em - cant really see the point. And, now that i think about it... i dont think i've ever seen the AI build one either :inquisitive:
Never.
I tried building a fort in Nicaca province to prevent crusading armies from entering Anatolia by land, but the crusaders just scooted around the fort. I haven't tried building one since.
Never bothered with one yet.
You can block the approach to Venice from the east by bottling up the road near Venice's port. It's effective. But in retrospect, I should have just had the army standing there, since:
1) The army was musketeer and basilisk heavy.
2) You're forced to deploy all your troops inside the fort, and there wasn't nearly enough room for the full stack I had in there.
3) The Gunpowder units could not fire on the approaching army since they have a flat firing trajectory, and there were no walls to stand on. Knocking holes in the wall to shoot out is a ridiculous workaround IMO.
In every scenario I can think of, enemy archers and catapults/trebs are going to have a field day raining death on the packed units within, since the 5' walls provide little cover. It would be really nice if the option was given to pay extra for the contruction of larger forts that at least had some room to maneuver, and some basic wooden walls for archers. As it stands, the most effective use of forts seems to be non-military, rather taking advantage of their exploitative functions, such as "trading forts".
it is called GAH!Quote:
Originally Posted by FactionHeir
Usually I use fort as a trap for the enemy's full stack ...Tempt the enemy to attack my fort and move in after victory. Then I immediately lay siege on it using full stack of cannon/ballista/archer...
Then....you all know what's going on...
Very effective trick for mongol invasion
Quote:
Originally Posted by MilesGregarius
Ditto
I use them as trading posts... and I would probably build them if I were in enemy territory with an infantry army, so that cavalry couldn't catch them out in the field.
That reminds that I did use a fort for just that once. While playing the Scots and army I had bound for Stockhom got ambushed and depleted to the point I needed to turn it around and go back to Oslo. On ending the march a little more than a turn's movement from Oslo I saw the big ol' stack of Danes coming on an intercept course. So, I had the army shelter in a fort.Quote:
Originally Posted by Musashi
The stack of Danes didn't attack and I brought the lads home.
Other than that time, I haven't used forts.
I'm of the feeling that the merchant fort trick is totally unfair and unbalances merchants. The AI can't do it, so, you shouldn't be allowed to either.
It's not smart; it's just not working as intended. Merchants can be high-risk to lose, if they're subjected to being alone without any backup. You don't get 2,000 gold from Timbuktu so you can have thirty merchants there in a fort and 2k gold from EACH one.
Thats just haxx0r. Awesome, but still, haxx0r.
Nah, it's realism. You don't even have to have a fort there, you can just have one unit of peasants to create a stack and attach all the merchants.
i use m as chokepointgarrisons... In my spanish campaign i sealed off the pyrenee mountain passes and the the crossing from spain into africa... In my byzantine campaign i sealed off the entire boshporus with 2 forts... this saved my butt several times. The AI launched a jihad and i had 3 muslim stacks wandering around + 2 enemy crusader stacks... but they couldnt pass because there was no way passed my forts... they were lightly garrisoned at first but when the threat increased the garrison increased. When they attack my fort in the bosphorus i dispatched a army from nicaea, landed them behind the besieging army on the bosporus by fleet and crushed the army... because they were totally surrounded and had nowhere to run they army disbanded.
Forts should not be used to defeat enemy armies but to slow their advance a few turns so you can train extra forces... In RTW this tactic wasnt as useful because you could only train 2 units in 2 turns... but in M2TW 4 or 6 extra units can make the difference.
I wondered if Forts could be more useful and representative of the myriad of minor castles that dotted the medieval landscape by using the smallest castle settlement as the battle map.
I think the current forts are left over from RTW where the Roman army was famous for building temporary wooden stockades etc. whilst on the march, in M2TW I would like to see them represented more as minor keeps.
I don't know if it is possible to mod the battle maps that are triggered at the start of battles or not but I think it would be a nice feature.
but then they shouldnt be able to be built in enemy terratory... It would take a while to build a fort like that and i doubt a enemy would ever let you build it... also they shouldnt decay after they have been abandoned... atleast not after one turn
I still say they should start out as wooden pallisades, and the longer you have men stationed there, they start to grow into real castles.
While I agree stacking merchants in a fort is an exploit; what 'back up' is it you're suggesting be left with them?Quote:
Originally Posted by OMGLAZERS
I use forts near cities or castles as a place to house spillover troops for my huge armies. They come in handy because the troops don't rebel. They are also good when I am retraining troops and it provides a good staging area.
I don't know about others but my forts get attacked on occassion.
I also use forts for merchants sometimes. Call me a cheater.
Another good use for a fort is to house your one defensive army in a central location... allowing you to have nothing but free upkeep units in the actual settlements surrounding it, and still be able to rush to the aid of those settlements and break sieges with your uber stack.
using forts to protect the best economical assets is crucial for my economies. I don't view it was cheating or pulling one over on the AI, because military assets often are used to protect economical ones. Plus, you don't keep losing your merchants to enemy buyouts which made a huge difference for me. In fact I stopped using them for a while since it took way to long to micromanage them when the enemy keeps picking them off with super merchants. Now I farm merchants in a few forts around the map and then send them to destroy opponents merchants after they build up status. Good point on an above post about there always being open land around forts when using a lot of archer and missile troops that are less powerful in wooded areas. I will start keeping my armies in forts when marching through woodland in enemy terriroty so I dont lose the power of my artillery.:beam:
I make use of forts for all those purposes in the poll excluding merchants. I don't feel the merchant thing is balancing as there is no possible counter to it that the AI can figure out. In any case, I like to use them to delay the enemy advance, extra defense for armies out in enemy territory (or sometimes when I have to go defend my own lands), garrison point for backup troops when my armies lose troops, and I also use the good choke points to prevent enemy agents from getting through. Naples is a good example of this. Just need a couple forts along hte mountain passes and no armies, agents, heretics, etc can get through.
All of the above :2cents:
The only use I've had for forts was to use them as a mercenary mustering yard. What I'd do is send any and all depleted mercenary units into this fort along with any good mercenaries I came across but didnt have room for in my current armies. This way I can combine depleted mercs to bring them to full strength and allow my armies to be easily supplemented with a decently sized mercenary arm to make up for any shortcomings in the stack.
I forgot one thing I should mention, but since I cannot edit my posts, I'll have to write this one.
Anyway, while I find forts very useful, the major downside that I do not like is how the fort was made in the map. It is a nightmare if you have a lot of units in your fort and you end up getting attacked. How can all those soldiers stay in such a tiny fort, let alone get proper placement for them during the deployment phase? Maybe they're not meant to hold huge armies, but I think it would have been nice if there were several different kinds of forts based upon army size rather than having one simple fort that does not do too well with large armies. Like a previous poster here mentioned, he likes to use his artillery on enemy armies when they are the ones in control of the fort so he could just go on a mass killing spree without much danger to his own army. Clever use of a fort, but I feel they could use some work.
Great thread!
I'm a little uneasy about using forts for my main armys...
I tried it once and ended up with my artillery and cavalry squashed in a corner, whilst my Longbow men stood behind the palisade loosing a shooting match to ranks of Militia Crossbowmen and a few Bombards...
I won, but it was nowhere near the victory I would have won If I had faced my opponent in the field.
Perhaps they should have built a simple earthen sconce, but thats getting out of the Medieval period and into the Renaissance...
I completely agree with the posts above asking for forts to be able to be built up to a basic castle... A bit of clear, sloped ground infront, a few towers aside the gate and a wall-walk for my archers would make the feature worth my hard pillaged cash...
Many thanks
SJH
Russia is big. So since it takes as long as it does to get anywheres I deviced the Steepe Fort Defense System! Which is the movement points away from a settlement or other fort to reinforce the next one. I keep motely units of peaseants and other obsolete units in them. Of course I aways try to put them some wheres tactical.
My idea was that other factions armies may lay siege to my fort giving me early warning of there attack. It also allows me to stall kill and mess with units on better terms than the field might allow. Think peaseants crowding into the breach.. it also gives me a staging post to kill thosse bandits who are too coward to face me and sit on the very edge of my frontier!
For a bandit killing network... excellent. But the other uses haven't been tested yet. I believe the AI knows it can walk right on by.. But as for a good place to put a fort.. I beleive the pass between Sarkel and Tiblis'i will get me a lot of dead Turks. I think there's three Mountain passes in Tiblis'i and I intend to put forts and all of them! Bwahahaha! The Turkish land with all it's passes may be just about the only place forts will actually see action and be really useful to.
Anywhere with bridges, I use the forts. Especially Tunis, I keep the Moors at bay and attack them with my powerful navy if they go by sea. I also use them for Merchants, too. I don't use them in enemy territory, because I hate taking the defensive and forts force one to take the offensive. I like to pick my battles and be agressive. Forts are not agressive.
Has anyone noticed that the AI never sallies from forts.
Here's another crazy exploit: If the AI seiges and then occupies your fort but does not leave it you can actually seige it again on your next move with only a unit of peasants. Provided they don't have a army nearby to attack your unit of peasants you automatically win after 3 turns and their army in the fort disappears.
I rarely use forts. When I do it is usually as sleeping policemen, slow down and delay an attacking faction whilst I organise a better welcoming party for them.
I build them only when the need arises and very rarely try to defend them.
E.g you know that the full stack enemy army is only one turn away from starting to siege of your settlement.
The settlement only has a governor and two half depleted spear units. If you let them start the siege you will not be able to recruit more units.
So send out the governor to build a fort in their path and garrison it with your weakest unit only. This will buy you two or three turns, whist they massacre the fort, before they start to siege your main settlement.
I once had a full stack french army sally from their fort. So maybe it depends on army strength. They consisted mostly of Peasant Crossbowmen and Armoured Sergeants with a few DEKs thrown in the mix. They were, of course, butchered by my elite English army (Retinue Archers, Armoured Swordsmen, Templars, and Hospitallers), but yes, it does happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nebuchadnezzar
I usually use forts as camps to transfer units between towns that take more than two turns to reach to prevent them going rebel. I just garrison each with either townies or peasants depending whether the fort is near a city of castle.
Also I recommend not to put a full stack inside a fort. your units get bunch up and are undeployable as such. That makes them excellent fodder for artillery and archers. They should really make forts sizes proportionate to army size for example.. small fort - around 200 bucks - holds maximum 6 units(anymore and you will have to build next level...med fort - 400 bucks - holds max 12 units and finally large fort - 700 bucks - holds 20 units and comes with walkable wooden walls to put archers on. What do ya think??
I still don't understand this 'stacking' concept. Do you mean that if you put a merchant in a fort you can recruit another one in the city he came from? And then if you build the fort next to the resource he can both exploit the resource and the security of the fort? So you could build a fort next to the gold resource at Timbuktu and keep pumping merchants out of that city?Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuidjy
Voted for all of the above but must admit I usually use them as trading posts and half-way stations.
@Matty:
What I think it means is that you place a fort dead on top of the trade resource (Say a Gold mine) and place more than 1 merchant in the fort. Now all of the merchants make the full amount of money from the gold mine, even though you would think they would share the profits. What's more, enemy merchants can't reach these ones because they are inside a fort.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug-Thompson
so this starategy works?
units in forts do not rebel?
NopeQuote:
Originally Posted by crpcarrot
https://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b...rtleFrance.jpg
:wall: :beam:
them me
I could think of a few, like extra merchants and assassins. I'm playing as the Turks right now so have three merchants over there right now. It took forever to get them there, and nearly lost them at sea after my admiral was trounced by the Egyptians.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraggenmor
I think building a merchants guild, training high level merchants is the way the game should be played to avoid exploits. But a few extra merchants seems like a good temporary back up plan, until some of them achieve high ranking on their own.
I never have a problem with my merchant's getting put out of business from enemy merchants, and not from using the fort exploit. Like you said, getting a merchant's guild, especially the HQ, is vital to this. The frequency in which the AI merchants attempt to sieze your merchants' business is dependant upon the skill of the merchant. The more skilled the merchant, the less likely you will see your merchants get attacked. This has always been the case in all of the campaigns I have played so far. For the mid-skilled merchants, they, on occasion, have an attempt made upon them, but they have a good chance of resisting or even making it backfire on the enemy merchant.Quote:
Originally Posted by nheero143
Quote:
Originally Posted by nheero143
I certainly understand having extra merchants but that's not really a 'back up' plan. As you've already noted, just getting a merchant to some of these locations takes a big chunk of their 'lives'.
When I see the term 'back up' I'm thinking , on hand ready to use the moment anything happens.
From that point of view there's not much to realisitically do to 'back up' a merchant. You're certainly not going to build one to have sitting around doing nothing in case the other one dies.
As for assassins: In my experience they have as little chance against the multi-starred 'super merchants' the AI pumps out at whim as my merchants have of successfully buying them out.
My point really being that there's really no effective method to actually 'back up' a merchant.
Point well taken. I guess the best way is to train higher level ones to start with. But the ones I took there were trained before I had much in the way of merchants guild improvements. Seeing that it is so far away and yet so lucrative, an extra merchant or two might not be a bad idea. They could always handle less lucrative trade nearby until the need arises to come back to Timbuktu, i.e., one of the primary merchants is bought out or dies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraggenmor
OK, taking the map on the left, the border between France and Spain.Quote:
Originally Posted by elbasto
If I own Toulouse and Bordeaux, I have two big "forts" (aka citadels) that any enemy who comes through those 4 passes will head straight for. Those citadels more than effectively control that territory. With a couple of watch towers to warn me that an emeny is heading my way, I can get by with maintain minimal garrisons in those citadels if I am in need of troops elsewhere.
Why would I want to tie up 4 armies and spend 1600 florins to take enemies on under less favorable circumstances? The game is all about cities, "controlling" land has minimal value.
Those 4 armies could be rampaging through Spain instead.
That's actaully one single army guarding ALL of France, 1 fort with 1 peasant each buys me from 2 to 3 turns, more than enough to prepare myself (aka train troops and bring the reinforcements), reducing enourmously the upkeep.Quote:
Originally Posted by dismal
Bordeaux is a city also, so more money. I had 3 citadels, Metz, Tolouse and Angers.
With all that profit all of France and the Benelux were fully developed by 1200 (1 turn per year).
Thanks, elbasto, that was a really excellent post for me. I am taking notes as to placement of forts and garrison armies. This hopefully will turn into a guide on to regional defense on all "areas" of the map. Like how to garrison and protect Turkey with minimal cost. Or France, ect. Thanks everbody and keep it up!
Well, if it's just one peasant, it's not so bad. There may be cases where you could save a little money on a static front. But, it's probably even better not to have static fronts.Quote:
Originally Posted by elbasto
Honestly, I generally pay next to zero attention to defense specifically once I get rolling. Certainly not near where I have a citadel. A citadel will normally be pumping out troops and be more than ready to defend if need be, which is seldom if you are generally taking those troops you're making and attacking with them.
What's stopping the AI from completely ignoring your forts and plunging on straight to your cities?
Well, apart from its own stupidity, that is. Since the AI doesnt use forts in this way itself (and a human player would certainly tend to ignore them if they only had one peasant in each) this is almost an exploit IMO.
The AI doesn't stop. Particularly if you simply put a light garrison inside, the AI will definitely attack it. even if they decide they don't, they will have to deal with the zone of control (assuming the fort is in a nice choke point). Though if you don't put enough of them down, then the AI can probably slip a few armies through (did once with me as Egypt... bloody mongols).
@ Dismal:
Well, that depends on how you like to play. Sure, blitzing it's the shortest road to victory, but I enjoy turtling a lot and so this strategy helps me to.
@Davebavy:
Whenever you come close to an enemy or neutral army or settlment (including garrisoned forts), there is a red area around it which means that you can't pass through that area without attacking the unit.
If you place the forts close enough and in choke points (a.k.a. mountain passes, next to bridges, etc.) neither an AI or human player will be able to pass through.
For this effect, notice the 3 lined up forts in Bordeaux.
Actually, playing as Russia has been a lot of fun, I've been campaigning as Russia nearly exclusively for a while now (Have an England game going to test whether there is really a bug in the random generator but that's it) and the forts work great on a number of levels for Russia :2thumbsup: I have a setup that keeps getting a bit wider as I go, but when the Mongols arrived and I hadn't taken Sarkel yet (went for the wealthier East Europe/Balkans first) they looked to be ready to do my eastern front some very heavy damage. I had 2.5 stacks of not-my-best guys (shoulda left 1 more castle up instead of converting I think!) vs a streetgang of 7.5 stacks for the Khan. My fort network was partially developed and in too close I thought, I did not have time to close the final river crossing, however, once in range of my forts which had been partially reinforced they turned back towards Sarkel and lo and behold...decided to wage war against Turkey and take Sarkel like they should have in they should have in the first place. Sure, it costs a bit of upkeep, but it paid off big by giving me a chance to reposition, especially dragging the ships with two full stacks of my best troops back from a now-aborted mission to destroy the all-new nation of Egypoland (which at least sounds better than Polypt!). Poland is gone from Europe but has Gaza, Cairo, and Alexandria from taking Jerusalem, losing Jerusalem, and then making do with what else they could assault I guess. At any rate, well-positioned choke points are the obvious starting points to build the fort-web, then fill in to make the set mutually reinforcing...AND best of all....it gives you something to use those CoN mission rewards of 'some military units' in a military fashion. They also make nice retirement homes for units that pulled the load early and are ready to be put out to pasture (though with a draft-recall clause in their contract of course!). The construction project was a lot of fun and I am going to see how long I can keep them out of my nation without using direct attacks. So far it's been good to keep em at bay for about a dozen or so....Quote:
Originally Posted by Czar Alexsandr
Good Stuff! I am slowly sorting all of this into map area defensive fort placement. I probably will include map coordinates for the placements when it is done.
P.S. You get map coordinates with show_cursorstat while you are hovering the mouse over some point on the map.
Well, I wouldn't presume to tell you what you should and shouldn't enjoy.Quote:
Originally Posted by elbasto
Cool! Had no clue about the map co-ordinates, thanks! And, I'll be watching for your setupQuote:
Originally Posted by Von Nanega
I saw something on Venice earlier, and if you really want to know the best way to defend that city has nothing to do with forts. Station an army on the bridge to the city! Bridges are far superior to forts and even cities as defensive positions. SECOND BONUS: stationing on the bridge prevents all agents from entering the city. Venice is probably the single best defensive position in the entire game.
Ah yes! Another Russia player uses the forts! Sounds like you have a good network of forts Snoil. I also have been almost exclusively playing Russia. But I've messed around with England, Sicily, Egypt, and France to. I started a new campaign as Russia though and hope to have enough money to build some very nice defenses.
Has anyone used one in an actual battle well? Well, I discovered that a few units of spear at the breached gate and a unit of shock infantry on a flank seem to do wonders to the enemy's siege force. On a budget you can stick a unit of spears at the gate and a unit of woodsmen or other cheap crap on the other side. In a V formation. Have both charge when it gets close and you'll probably lose the battle... but this is about killing as many as possible with little cost. If you don't want to losse.. consider a few good spear that can do shiltron.. 3 works good. And two units of specialty infantry like swordsmen or axes. Don't even bother at that breached gate. Put your spears in the square put them in Shiltron and set them in a L shape. Pur a unit of specialist in front of them and one in the back. Enemy runs right into your spears and gives your specialty guys the time to kill a ton of them. It's not easy and a lot of men will die but you're still winning economicaly. Also.. if you're looking for a challenge this definately worked for me.