Your Use Of Forts

[Snoil The Mighty]

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.

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 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....

[Von Nanega]

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.

[dismal]

@ 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.

Well, I wouldn't presume to tell you what you should and shouldn't enjoy.

[Snoil The Mighty]

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.

Cool! Had no clue about the map co-ordinates, thanks! And, I'll be watching for your setup

[JCoyote]

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.

[Czar Alexsandr]

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.