Temporary forts

[Omisan]

What's the use of building forts (General's ability)? I thought it was a good idea when moving troops in enemy territory, but I quickly realised it was a big mistake.

These tiny wooden forts are deathtraps. It's nearly impossible to effectively deploy your units inside. Yourranged units can' t shoot at incoming enemies. I really don't see how this is supposed to help defend my army. I would rather deploy on a regular battle map.

So anyone uses them? Am I doing something wrong?

[Mega Dux Bob]

IMHO Forts are really for slowing down another faction when they attack your cities on an inactive front. Best used in a pass with some junk foot unit. I personally never put my armies in one except to garrison them so they don't desert.

[CamelGunner]

They're good for me when I have a ton of horse units. I fly em all out the side gate and cut down their units out in the open. I've never actually defended one by staying inside.

[pike master]

do the stakes actually cause damage to cav or are they just for looks?

[holycow]

I've never used forts cause well, never had to.

Are you using forts to shuttle units? or to shelter army? cause if you're worred about getting ambushed or attacked while in enemy territory, try screening your main army with spy, low end cavalry, or peasants - just send these units(except for spy) ahead of your main path or to block other roads/paths to your destination.

[HoreTore]

Another good use, is to use them to slow down enemy reinforcements.

Say you're planning to attack toledo, coming from pamplona. You're marching down, but then you see a big stack coming from valencia. To stop them, plant a fort in their path with a merc/expendable unit in it. Unless they've got siege weapons(and reinforcements rarely do), they'll have to besiege and make rams, allowing you to deal with the army in Toledo.

As for defending, I usually use mountains and rivers, but where these are not available, I sometimes use forts. The brilliant thing about them, is that the enemy is forced to concentrate when they attack, and they'll be disorganised coming through the gate. Depending on your army and the enemy, this can be a big advantage.

[Hochmeister]

Forts have some great "gamey" uses like sacrificing one unit to slow down the enemy but like the op mentioned are deathtraps for a full stack.

I hope CA improves on this feature for the expansion as this should be something that should add to the game tactically and historically like the keeps and watchtowers of old.

Maybe a larger more permanent structure which can be placed almost anywhere within each province and improved from wood to stone over time??

[dumas]

...the enemy is forced to concentrate when they attack, and they'll be disorganised coming through the gate.

That's why I use them too. Just like any other sieges, 3 Pikemen boxing in the gate and a couple swordsmen to mow down the trapped prey could easily take out an enemy army twice their size. Even defending against a full stack, they'll do significant damage and cripple the enemy calvary that just love to charge in first.

[Kraggenmor]

I used to wonder the same thing and used to never use them.

I have come to find forts to be a priceless strategic tool. Especially for breaking Mongol stacks.

Place a fort at the end of a bridge or geographic choke point and you will absolutely control access in and out of your territory.

Tired of non-allied troops just wandering around your turf?

Forts.

Need to shelter that crippled army at the end of it's move while it's trying to outrun an enemy army?

Forts.

Need to delay an enemy advance so you can build up or move troops in response?

Forts.

Want to break several Mongol stacks BEFORE they get to your settlements?

Forts.

For that last one, I typically had a stack of troops inside the fort and outside the fort. One thing to keep in mind is that, the idea isn't necessarily to stay inside the fort but, to get the enemy to commit to entering it.

Once they are committed to a gate, or breach they've made, you have them!

Pin their leading forces with some of the troops inside the fort and send the rest out through the uncovered exit to flank them. Of course archers should have been harrying them with flaming arrows the entire time regardless.

Of course, I am not saying that I run about throwing forts down everywhere. Proper tool for the proper job and all that. Used for the job they're intended for, forts rule!

[dunno]

This was suggested by some else in another thread some time ago, but the idea was to scale fort size by army size (makes sense, more soldiers = more builders). So they'll need maybe 3-5 fort size templates and the largest could equal the wooden castle settlements or something. Cost would be scaled appropriately, of course. I think that's the best way they could improve forts in some future patch/expansion. Right now it's completely backwards and unintuitive to be better off defending on open land than behind fortifications.

[Quillan]

Forts aren't there for you to hide inside. They are there to pin the enemy, either strategically or tactically. Place a fort at the end of a bridge, and the enemy will stop on the bridge. The following turn it can only move forward one square, either to besiege the fort or to sidestep it. After that they can continue moving, so you have delayed the army by two full turns without engaging in combat. Tactically, you make them pile up trying to enter the fort and hit them from both sides.

Troops don't go rebel in forts, as far as I can tell, so a network of forts slightly less than 1 turns march apart will allow you to move captain-led armies in safety.

[vonsch]

Troops don't go rebel in forts, as far as I can tell, so a network of forts slightly less than 1 turns march apart will allow you to move captain-led armies in safety.

I use forts, though less (so far) in MTW2 than in RTW, where I used them a lot as strategic defensive posts.

But I keep forgetting the use you mention here. It's annoying having reinforcements go rebel not just for the loss of troops, but because they then cost you more troops in removing them from your reinforcement path. And all it takes is an agent to keep the fort "alilve." Or a unit chopped down to a couple of men. The 500 cost is paid back pretty easily if you prevent one unit from going rebel. The ongoing support cost can be very low if you use severely depleted units or agents you would park in that area anyway (like spies keeping an eye on things). Or if you have a steady flow of units passing through so there's always one there anyway.

As far as the AI use of forts goes, they seem to not build them. But they sure did like using them in RTW. One downside of using them defensively is the AI would take and hold them, effectively stoppering your bottleneck in their own favor. But that still mitigated an invading army's threat level, so it was very much worth it. The AI tended to park the army that took the fort in it and just sit. Fine with me.

[HoreTore]

I've seen the AI build forts lots of times. The turks, egyptians, poles and byzantines seem to be the ones building them most.

Got an egyptian fort utside Acre(along with 10 mongol stacks....) as we speak.

[pike master]

ive seen em do it to but usually at random with no logic behind its placement aside from it being on a road.