Watchtowers & forts - any thoughts, experiences, or tips?

[HughTower]

I'm currently playing my first ever TW campaign in M2TW (Venice, long, m/m), and obviously am bowled over by the sheer weight of information and campaign parameters. As a result, I've not had a chance to examine properly the strategic advantages of watchtowers & forts.

Does anyone else have any input or examples of best practice on this?

Thanks in advance.

[USMCNJ]

forts:
-use them to construct walls around your empire. best places is river and mountain crossings.
-use 1 expendable unit for garrison (peasants do just fine)
-they are use as warnings, giving you at least 1 turn (3 max) to get an army into the area.
-when building on river passings, build them on the outbound side. by the time it gets sacked you should bring an army to wait for your enemy on the other side of the river. They will have to cross the bridge to defeat you.
-don't put your whole army in one, for if you lose the siege you lose the whole army

watch towers:
-put them on your boarder so you could see you friends (soon to be enemies coming)
-put them in the fog of war areas so you could see when rebels are burning up your resources
-don't put them in wooded or mountain areas as the don't work as well.
-when you're building them make sure you don't build them close to mountain paths or river crossing or any place where a fort would be more useful

[Vlad Tzepes]

1. Watchtowers - whenever you are weary about your neighbours and would like to see what they're up to. Never hurts to have some, kills FOW. In RTW watchtowers seemed to be first targets for rebel troops, which camped immediately near and turned FOW on. A good way to know where to find some training ground for your troops.

2. Forts - I usually use them as decoy, harrassing the enemy with them in their territory, buying me some extra-time to get ready for a bigger move or just blocking narrow passages. In RTW they were never a must if you wanted to dominate, dunno yet about MTW2, still to early, but I don't feel it's such a big change.

And welcome to TW!

[chunkynut]

I used to use forts a lot in RTW but have not made one in my first M2TW campaign. Watchtowers are a must, basically a stationary spy, if an enemy moves a army into the same square they stop working for you. Large open areas near your cities with fog (areas you can't see enemy/rebel movements in i.e. Ireland for rebels, North African areas for everything) are the best places for them, sometimes sea areas that you may want to watch closely you want may put one on the coast.

Also you used to get 'architect' trait for your generals in RTW for building these occasionally not seen any such increase yet though.

[HughTower]

Great advice, guys. There are layers to this game I haven't even begun to think about.

Also you used to get 'architect' trait for your generals in RTW for building these occasionally not seen any such increase yet though

.

I did receive that for my faction leader, but I thought it had been linked to just the amount of building in general I was doing. I had built a couple of watchtowers, but don't recall whether it was concurrent with receiving that trait or not.

[Monarch]

I personally don't bother with forts. 90% of the time if the ai enemy is in my province it heads to a city. Cities have much better defences that forts. So I just let the ai be in my procince for a turn or so until it attacks.

Watchtowers...well in my current Egyptian campaign I've got Imams all over the place, lifting fog of war around my enemies as they go.

[Lochar]

The few times I have used forts is usally when I am on my way to attacking/sieging a town and in enemy territory. I figure it may help if they decide to attack me along the way.

So far they just been wasted 500 coins

[USMCNJ]

The few times I have used forts is usally when I am on my way to attacking/sieging a town and in enemy territory. I figure it may help if they decide to attack me along the way.

So far they just been wasted 500 coins

you should never use forts for a place to keep your full army.
-If anything it is the worst place you could be. If besieged you will be starved out in 3 days.
-If you sally forth you have to fight the besieger on their terms
-if you loose the battle you lose the whole army, you cannot retreat.

forts are great for one thing and one thing only.
-being speed bumps for invading armies.

[hoom]

Never use forts at river crossings!
1: You can't build it at the actual crossing square so the river provides no protection
2: That means that if you are under siege in a fort next to a river crossing with the enemy stack sitting on the crossing, and raise the siege with another army, the AI gets to defend the crossing!

Much better to just sit your army on the river crossing itself.

[USMCNJ]

Never use forts at river crossings!
1: You can't build it at the actual crossing square so the river provides no protection
2: That means that if you are under siege in a fort next to a river crossing with the enemy stack sitting on the crossing, and raise the siege with another army, the AI gets to defend the crossing!

Much better to just sit your army on the river crossing itself.

That's exactly what i do but i do use forts(and you should too), only build the fort on the enemy (outbound) side and leave a peasant unit to defend it.

Most of the time the enemy army will have no siege equipment so you will have at least 1 turn to get your "River" army to the crossing. Leave it there and wait for the enemy army to capture your fort and attack you by crossing the bridge.

Now you're get to destroy their whole invading army for the cost of one fort and one unit of peasants.

The "river" army should be 1 general (moral boost) 4 infantry that has good defense and 4 + missile units.

I also add a few light cav units.

Use the infantry to pin the enemy on the bridge, use the missile units with fire arrows enabled to kill the invaders and destroy their moral. When some of them start routing charge your general into the fights, the whole army will rout. Then pick up the prisoners using your light cav.

[hoom]

I guess you can do that...
I just tend to leave a permanent garrison at the crossing.

[katank]

I honestly don't bother with forts. Even strategic locations like river crossings aren't worth the trouble most the time. Just going offensive and wiping the enemy on the other side out is better.

Watch towers, on the other hand, are damn useful in lifting the fog of war so that rebels don't spawn there. This keeps your interior regions clear. It can also be used to spot rival agents etc. so you can eliminate them.

[Grimmy]

In addition to the choke points I use forts occasionally in my own provences but only in specific situations.

If I have 2 or more cities within a one turn march from a central point that is on a contested front, I'll put a fort and a stack of troops at that point.

This way, I have the forces already set up and ready to march out to relieve a siege on any of those cities without having to keep a large force in each city.

I'll also keep one fort and a short stack of good troops centrally located in my home provences to serve as the primary rebel killers. I'll keep this half stack at best troop type available with armor/weapon upgrades. This ensures that I can take the rebels that tend to pop up with better troops than what can be made in my cities and also serves as an immediate "ready react" force to deploy if my provences on the front start getting pressured.

This lets me keep only enough troops in towns to maintain order and those are the cheapest and lowest maint available.

[Aenlic]

As someone noted above, watchtowers make great rebel magnets. Rebel armies seem to like standing around watchtowers. Makes them easier to find when you go rebel hunting.

[Somebody Else]

Watchtowers - great - can see stuff, and attract rebels. No reason not to build them pretty much whereever and whenever.

Also, watchtowers occasionally feature on the battlemap - kind of a handy defensive position, without the negative of being trapped in a fort.

Forts - not a particularly useful long term defence in my opinion - handy as early warning for an attack, as some mentioned. I assume the worst of my neighbours anyway, and always have armies capable of fending most anything off in my border settlements. If I don't have an army like that in one of my border settlements, it's because it's about to become an interior settlement, as the garrison toddles off to take the next one.

One occasion when a fort was handy... Marching on Moscow with a large contingent of artillery and melee infantry. Planning to assault as soon as I got there. A few Russian cavalry heavy armies were bimbling about the area. So I built a fort. Was duly besieged. Sallied and merrily pelted the enemy horsemen from within my walls with no fear of retaliation.

[Kobal2fr]

I tend to build as many watchtowers I can afford . Along my borders, along each and every road (brigands around the country side only cause devastation and can be ignored if need be, but when they're on roads they cut down trade, so I need to know when, where and how many there are ASAP), right next to cities (saves on spy upkeep), on the shores to watch pirates...

I also usually make them redundant too, i.e. two watchtowers 2-3 squares apart, so when the first is captured by brigands/enemies, the other is still operational.


Forts... Never used them. Did armies even bother with palissades and fortified camps when on the move anymore, in the Middle-Ages, when there were castles pretty much everywhere ? It was my impression that only the Romans did, and that they did so more to keep the men busy than anything... I'm probably wrong though