Cheaply securing my front lines

**Leão magno** · 11-05-2007, 22:02

Yes but this implies in fighthing and sometimes it is tiring to have an army fighting small stacks of depleted AI units...

**Chronos** · 11-06-2007, 03:40

Sorry Leao, I have lost the program I use to take screenshots and can’t remember the name of it to find it again…I am not sure how to paste a screenshot at this point either…
I will keep trying because this fort method works Mate…. Have you tried it for your self yet?

From my experience with forced diplomacy mods, I would conclude that they don’t work. Sure you can force the AI to accept a peace or protectrateship or whatever, but they will still turn around and backstab you within the next couple of turns. The "peace" only lasts as long as it takes the AI to get its army to whatever it was planning to attack before the imposed truce.

I have been using this “forced diplomacy mod” and I agree, you are right!!!…It is also 100% cheating!!!
If you want to cheat, this program can do a lot…i.e. you can take your enemies cities and either give them to someone else or keep them or just destroy the cities and end up rich…Personally that spoils the Game…

The checker fort formation I believe to be unnecessary. Build a fort where the enemy has to pass to get to your city. FILL it with units. Have more than half of them missile units, a couple of good defensive units, a couple of good mobile offensive units and some cavalry. Missile units are relatively cheap. If an enemy lays siege on the fort, sally and decimate him. If he tries to bypass, exit the fort and do battle. Make sure you have reserves within marching distance and always replenish losses. Crushing local superiority will ensure that your city will not be bothered.

This scenario of blocking paths and using good size forces in the forts works for me when I am the stronger side or at least as strong but sometimes a lot more powerful enemy comes along and this method will not work…I loose whole army’s and Generals, time and time again and it becomes filled with endless warfare and money just defending one pass…

Blocking Passes is a good defensive strategy but not all cities are in the mountains or near rivers…One place I am using this method of Jagged forts is beyond the Nile River, to protect Memphis and Alexandria because Carthage owns more than Half the board and they have endless amounts of money to throw huge endless amounts of armies at me…
This method with forts has held them of for a long time…I am still a long way off being able to openly confront them…I have no problems destroying there armies with a good general but I don’t have to many of them and he has heaps of them and endless armies, so it seems pointless wasting my armies trying to confront them…I need to spend the money on a few of my cities so I can produce army units that will annihilate them at a rate of 10 to 1…I need time to do that…These forts are by far the best way I have found to do that…

I don’t think this is cheating because if it was real time, I could do the same thing…If an enemy had to cross from one fort after another to get to a city, it would cause similar problems, with the forts taken and then left behind and being re-manned unless they are totally destroyed…So, this is real-time strategy for me because it is a solution I had to find to save my front from a way more powerful Enemy that would have totally collapsed it and I have done this cheaply with using a good half dozen or more forts manned by 1 small broken unit that can be reinforced as soon as the enemy army leaves that fort to siege another…

This has been the most affective way to defend beyond the Nile and up in Sarmation territory…I am confronting Carthage there also…in mountain regions, I am still using forts to block their pathways…

Yea, that's right, Carthage is in Sarmatian terratory, lol, never seen that before...

**Olaf The Great** · 11-06-2007, 06:22

Yes, the fort "walls" are one of my best used border defenses.

Especially easy at chokepoints(North-Eastern Iberia, Rhegion, Hellespont, Crimeria etc etc).

Also, in my Casse Campaign I usually take cities that are close to other nations territory bur somewhat isolated.

For example...

Theres a city directly below Cassemorg in Gaul, I took that, and heavily fortified it with stone walls and garrisoned Forts, recruited a small( bout 10 unit strong levy army) and a watchtower, diplomat, and spy in the city.

Voila, I get a colony.

I also do this with other rebel city all over the map.

I got Vesontonio(Iberia), Syracuse and Messana(Sicily), the Crimerian cities(Ok I actually bribed these, THEN got a general and some casse troops), Crete, and I got a boat with lots of Levies(and a very good governer) to India, I'll tell you guys how that goes.

Yeah, I wanted to do something different this time.

BTW I was grouping up the levies in the garrisons to attack a rebel army, when the Aedui attacked the colony in Gaul.

I used forced diplomacy to stop it because I wasn't ready for conquest yet, I also got a plague in Vesontonio(got rid of it now) and recruited like 20 spies and sent them into gaul :) aint that evil?