Upgradable forts

**Cheetah** · 08-03-2007, 20:55

I am not sure whether anyone had this idea but the obvious next step for forts would be if you could upgrade them. Like to motte and baley first, then upto castle level (which could be the upper limit).
Of course there would be no village within the the castle and it would generate no income, but the walls and towers would be the same and it would cost the same as a castle.

**Rhedd** · 08-03-2007, 22:15

Welcome to Kingdoms. ^_^

Actually, I don't think there's any actual fort upgrading in Kingdoms, but the new fancy forts are permanent, and are like castles without the troop-production capabilities.

Some even have moats!

Yes, I'm looking forward to Kingdoms. Can you tell?

**RemusAvenged** · 08-03-2007, 22:33

I second this motion. I'm always in favor of increasing the usefulness of strategic items. Maybe they should only be upgradable in your own territory though.

Another thing that would be good would be to make use of the small randomly placed mansions as forts. You know all those nice houses and churches sitting in the battlefield. A lot of them have nice courtyards and walled off areas. If your on defense I think you should be able to comandeer them and station troops inside.

**Soulforged** · 08-03-2007, 23:51

Better yet. Make them upgradable and then also convertable to cities

**Mangudai** · 08-04-2007, 04:40

I like your upgrade idea, but I was thinking of downgrades.

I think it would be great to enable armies to dig in, for overnight camping. On the battlefield the camp would be an earth berm and ditch with wooden stakes. The enemy could walk into it, but they would have a slope disadvantage.

It would also be good to be able to retreat off the map instead of fighting to the death.

Currently the main use of forts is to deter or delay the enemy army by putting a fort with one crap unit in it. Nobody in their right mind would want their good stack trapped in a fort.

**Ibn-Khaldun** · 08-04-2007, 11:20

like the idea...
but they should be upgraded only to the level of wooden castles or so...
and if there is no troops inside they should vanish in a turn or so ..

**ReiseReise** · 08-04-2007, 15:34

instead of vanishing, the should/would suffer damage if unoccupied. The simple pallisade forts of current disintegrate (or they did in RTW, haven't built any in MT2W), because logs fall over, rot etc with no one around to repair them. A sturdier fort (wooden castle for example) would last longer, but perhaps gaps would appear in the walls over time. A stone fort is inplausible as it would require a huge amount of effort to quarry stone, and these are supposed to be temporary structures. Founding a permanent fort would in essence be founding a new settlement as support buildings and merchants set up shop in the area, as often happened in Roman times. In fact, many of the north european settlements in the game started out as Roman "forts" that grew into towns. The best example: London was founded on open ground as a fort to defend a crossing on the Thames.

**Mangudai** · 08-04-2007, 19:42

I understand that the Italian city states were surrounded permanent stone border forts, with cav garrison.

The idea was an enemy could reduce the forts but this would take time. Or the enemy could bypass the forts and besiege the major cities, but then italian cavalry would show up on their rear.

**Valdincan** · 08-05-2007, 01:57

I just want forts to be useful, right now there a death trap.

**sapi** · 08-05-2007, 02:17

Originally Posted by Valdincan

I just want forts to be useful, right now there a death trap.

I think the main improvement made to forts needs to be scaling them to your army size, so that you don't get 20 units crammed into 20 square metres.

**Askthepizzaguy** · 08-05-2007, 06:24

Originally Posted by sapi

I think the main improvement made to forts needs to be scaling them to your army size, so that you don't get 20 units crammed into 20 square metres.

THATS what I am talking about!

I don't mind the fact that the walls are paper thin and there are barely any defenses. I don't mind getting peppered with arrows. I do mind the fact that there is no ditch surrounding my fort, and stakes would be nice. And I do mind the fact that the entire fort is full of tents and space-wasting stuff when I can't fit my army inside it. I also would like the option to escape from the fort and retreat from the battlefield, rather than being pinned to the fort and being forced to win under penalty of death if I lose on even a technicality, such as a draw, or losing the square while I retreat.

Forts should become more permanent over time, progressing all the way to a small stone castle.

**ForgotMyOldNick** · 08-05-2007, 12:33

Upgrading castles is obviously dependant on the settlement? population and sort of seems a bit err...

I reckon you should be able to upgrade forts to castles etc and receive little or no income from it; maybe requiring heaps of wealth to make a fort a major stronghold (Castle, citadel, whatever) in an isolated territory as the templars had.

Whatever the case, an upgraded fort's purpose would be a military one and not for trade etc.

Maybe upgrading a fort could attract population due to the safety factor they think it gives them and having a fort-castle spring up in the middle of nowhere could generate a tiny amount of income based on surrounding resources and population of the region. with some very basic buildings that could be made too to increase it's income but not like a major settlement (city/citadel).

Could even have a limit of the number of upgradable forts per region as well.

This would make the game a lot more interesting on the campaign map for sure.