Fort defenses

[Sheogorath]

I think that may have been me.

The basic problem seems to be that CA didn;t do much research into what made star forts so damned difficult to take. I looks to me as though they just made them look a bit like the photographs of whats left of them today, which is only about half of the actual fort. The glacis and counterscarps and ditches are all long gone and in most cases have been forested or built upon. So, you get a completely wrong impression of what a star fort really looked like from those photographs.

Well, even as they are now in the game, forts in general would be more effective if it wasn't so easy to get onto the walls, if the wall cannons actually worked and could hit things, and the defenders got some sort of bonus on the walls.

Sadly, as far as I can tell, it's still far more effective in the European forts to simply garrison the buildings inside, or stick a cannon crew on the flagpole and let them fire grapeshot at anybody who gets near. The non-European factions get a little screwed in that respect, since all of their buildings are too far from the center to fire on units taking the flag.

[Didz]

Well, even as they are now in the game, forts in general would be more effective if it wasn't so easy to get onto the walls, if the wall cannons actually worked and could hit things, and the defenders got some sort of bonus on the walls.

Well its a moot point really because if the forts were properly modelled it wouldn't matter. The main reason the artillery and musketry on the walls is so crap is because the glacis which was designed to afford them a clear and unobstructed line of site to the attacker is missing and as such the attackers have ample dead ground to avoid being hit.

Likewise the grappling hooks only become viable because there is no ditch, which means the enemy can just walk straight up to the walls without having to suffer the trauma of crossing a 20' deep chasm under massed enfilade fire, bombs and mines.

Plus of course enemy artillery are actually able to hit and breach the walls which was another thing the glacis prevented.

[al Roumi]

I'm guessing you've noticed the glaring blind spots on the corner of each fort too? I'm afraid I've exploited it all too often to breach the walls, even though it feels cheap as hell. It's quite absurd how easy it is to storm the larger forts with only 1 battery in support.

[Didz]

Yep! makes Vauban look like a complete idiot, when if fact he was one of the foremost military engineers of the era. Whole campaigns were focussed on reducing just one of his Star Forts.

[al Roumi]

Yep! makes Vauban look like a complete idiot, when if fact he was one of the foremost military engineers of the era. Whole campaigns were focussed on reducing just one of his Star Forts.

Well, courtesy of a quick consultation of wikipedia on Star forts and Vauban (after your earlier post ), apparently vauban's defensive ideas were somewhat discredited by the repeated capture of some of his forts, his (greater) reputation for taking them being a more lasting legacy.

Nonetheless, I'm sure he didn't design any of the forts in ETW! It's not like we see anything like even this pretty basic plan:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Or the more elaborate ones like this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Didz]

No all we get is the inner core wall and buildings.

It would be a bit like representing a Medieval Castle by sticking a keep in the middle of an open field, or perhaps a maze with a fountain surrounded by a hedge.

[Marcus Caelius]

Yes I've wandered around a few period fortification, - i like them very much. I lived for a while in Freiburg, not far from Neuf Breisach which has some very well preserved Vauban fortifications.

But this time to add to an impressive tale of woe, i must relate the assault i recently performed.

RTI campaign, stage 3.

I attacked a strongly defended Philadephia with my main stack.

I made a breach in the wall easily enough (see earlier comments) and marched three regiments of Colonial line infantry to form a U at the mouth of the breach, safely in the dead zone (see earlier comments). There are other details to the events, but to keep it simple, what basically happened is one by one, the defending units left their positions and advanced out of the breach into the concentrated fire of my three line infantry.

One by one they exited the fort and got mown down.

By the time i got round to actually entering the fort, there were only 3 defending units left, an artillery unit, one horse and a line infantry that spent it's last few minutes of life going into and out of square formation (i had no cavalry with me in the fort).

The British did have one, albeit not the last, laugh. General Washington was killed. Although not by British gunfire. I ordered him to move somewhere without paying too much attention and he got mown down by his own artillery at very close range.