Castle upgrades/garrisons/confusion

[bluebird]

In my current campaign as the English, things are going very well, I have conquered the British Isles and still hold my homelands in France. I am at war with no - one and have a good revenue. My problem is castles. I have built a fortress in each province ( I upgraded each one with walls etc along the way.Was this a waste of time or do you have do build each stage to get the maxium fortress in the end? Some of my sieges in fortresses in other games took place in some weedy fortresses that fell rather too quickly.) and no army. The only units I have built are a unit of Royal knights for each province to act as governors and so the fortresses will not fall without a direct assault. Great. No problem. The royal knights can hold off 500 men at least from this position, sallying out to take out siege engines and retreating inside or starting the battle dismounted and holding position behind the last gate.
However, this is the early period (expert difficulty) and cannons have not emerged yet. Will I be able to add cannon towers to my finished fortresses or will I have to start over in each province?

Is it possible to deploy your own catapult units on top of towers? I seriously doubt it but I can't experiment with seiges.

[Darius]

It's not necessary actually. It's just there in case you think you are going to be attacked soon and want to quick build a few more defenses to hold out a bit longer. Also it is not possible to put siege weapons on the walls, though if you use catapaults and the like you might be able to arc your shots over sometimes.

[sir_schwick]

whenever you upgrade to the next fortification level, then the defence upgrades from the previous ones are included. This means that manually building the upgrades is only useful for immediate concerns or if you do not plan to upgrade the fortification to the next level for the rest of the game(pretty common in my games). Remember that the upgrades increase your siege time, so they can really frustrate the enemy.

You're playing Early/Expert as English and the French aren't eliminated? Fix that immediately, especially since it shortens your borders(Burgundy rocks, unless you have to attack it :)). While your at it take out Spain before Phillip II decides to send an armada after you.

[Quietus]

Bluebird,

All you have to do is protect the border provinces. Just protect your coasts from any possible sea invasion as well (building ships; the ai needs a chain of ships to port invade so keep an eye on that).

As you push outward, you really have nothing to worry about the other provinces.

Also, don't go on an army building contest with the AI for you will lose that competition. Don't turtle, but keep expanding.

[bluebird]

If I build up to a fortress without upgrades will the finished product have a barbican? I am sure I have fought a battle at a fortress without a barbican but I might be wrong. It is nearing the end of th 13th century now and the
French are holed up in Brittany, I've pinched Flanders after a civil war and my assasins and inquisitors have eliminated the Spanish. I hired some organ crews to help the defend the fortresses. A unit of Royal knights and an organ crew in a castle will not fall without a direct assault but what's the limit that I can put in each one before they start taking seige damage?
I've not had a war with any faction yet as there are enough rebel provinces to grab but I've not been attacked either - does the expert setting only affect the battle scenes or the stratergy map as well? Less money, more rebellions that sort of thing?

[sir_schwick]

Yeah, you only start with 4k florins and eveyr province is angry. Also the AI gets a +6 morale bonus in combat and will pull all kinds of crazy stuff. Suprised you have not been attacked.