Let's Change Forts

[Renojustin]

Wow, I'd agreed with the general principle in the last post on the matter, but I didn't really appreciate the true knuckle-gnawing frustration of it until now.

Nations are very much punished by having "good" fort types in terrain that they're SUPPOSED to be well-suited to.

Really the main purpose of a fort is for the buying of caommanders, usually mages. When you charge a nation 1200!!!! gold pieces to construct one in a forest (as Pangaea) when the normal price is 800, and 5 turns to build instead of 3... that is UNQUESTIONABLY a disadvantage.

This definitely, definitely needs a change.

[Jazzepi]

To me, the fort system is basically broken. You're rewarded for building your forts in the most abysmal locations possible because they cost less and build faster, especially for nations that have sucky troops and sloth.

Personally I would like to see a tiered system where you could pick from a number of forts for a given province type, all with different construction times, defense values, and costs.

I'd also like to see the fort's defense value mean more than just the amount of time a defender has to take ripping down the walls. Seriously, if I'm going to sink 1.2k and 5 turns into a fortress, it should be shooting FLAMING BAT'LETHS OF DOOM.

Jazzepi

[Leif_-]

At the least, forts should come with their own PD chaff when they're stormed.

[Twan]

Another option would be to raise the tax bonus from admin (admin value instead of admin value/2 %, so fortified cities would be really interesting to build on rich farmlands).

It wouldn't solve the problem of hard to build forts with low admin and hard defense.

To give them an utility, I would find logical if supply availables for besiegers were reduced a lot instead of increased by the presence of ennemy forts. When provinces are attacked, peasants should logically take refuge in the fortress, especially if it looks hard to take, instead of helping the invaders, giving them food and gold. Diminishing ennemy supplies and province income by base defense value of the fort /10 (so -70% on a province with mountain fortress) would be a good idea IMO (but may advantage too much undead or nosupply units nations).

[Aezeal]

I think the cash is .. well a think you should accept.. you get some benefits for it after all.

I do think all forts should just be build in 3 turns, maybe the cheapest in 2.

Or... and this might be better.. make the weaker forts much weaker than they are now in admin and supply etc.

[Renojustin]

Peasants do not refuge in a fort because that would be worthless mouths to feed during a siege. Castles are reserved for fighting men and those with useful trades, like blacksmiths and coopers and such.

[Twan]

I do think all forts should just be build in 3 turns, maybe the cheapest in 2.

Personally I would like to see a tiered system where you could pick from a number of forts for a given province type, all with different construction times, defense values, and costs.

The main reason forts are as they are was to avoid to see everyone building the cheapest/fastest to build forts everywhere, something which ruined many dom2 games.

If all forts are changed to have the same build time or cost I think it should be high ones, 5 or 6 turns, 1000+ gold. Or if a choice is made possible, fast to build forts should be more expensive than others.

[JimMorrison]

Renojustin said:
Peasants do not refuge in a fort because that would be worthless mouths to feed during a siege. Castles are reserved for fighting men and those with useful trades, like blacksmiths and coopers and such.

What about the Fortified City, Tel City, Great City, Swamp City, Jeweled City, Mountain City, Cave City, and perhaps the Citadels?

"Citadel" seems to me to refer to a monstrous fortification like Helm's Deep in LOTR, designed to temporarily house enormous numbers of people, with the direct intent of keeping them all from being slaughtered by the occupational forces (and deprive them of slave labor) during the seige.

[Kamamura]

You are mistaken there. Peasants were allowed to take refuge, because they were not just mouths to feed - they helped the defense by extinguishing fires, and doing various support works. Moreover, it was the promise of security that made the feudal life less unbearable - a feudal lord that would not protect his subject in times would face desertion/revolts/loss of prestige. What's more, peasants, even if not free subjects, were source of income and wealth and well worth protecting.

[PvK]

Seems to me that the admin rating could be used to re-balance forts. Gold cost gets repaid by admin, especially if/when you have the time and willpower to invest in building them, and choosing good spots for them.

The weakest forts don't provide wall defenders or bottlenecks. This could also be developed a bit - it could be interesting if some fort types had multiple breakthrough points during storming.

Some modding might help this by giving crappy low-admin little-value forts to unthematic choices, so building forts out of your nation's element is more expensive, time-consuming and/or provides little value, to a greater degree than currently. I.e. maybe the problem isn't so much that Mountain Citadel sucks, as that the nations which have it thematically, have better alternatives in unthematic terrain. With mod commands, they could be given alternatives of questionable value in unthematic terrain, encouraging more use of thematically appropriate forts and locations.