Empty fortresses

[Loren]

I don't believe empty fortresses should do anything. If there's no defender you get the fort when you get the province.

It's really silly that a flier needs to break down the walls to take a fort with nobody inside!

[licker]

There are of course people inside, just not military.

Its silly enough that a single scout can capture a province with 15k people in it...

[Gandalf Parker]

That problem has been fixed. I use it in many of the games I run on my server.

[Tifone]

I'm with licker. Lol, the single scout enters the 15k pop province momentarily empty, claims the rulership over it without anybody moving a finger, goes to the fort, the grunts inside (the ones who shoot from the towers, remember?) open him the drawbridge too, he enters the court and everybody applaud?

[Agema]

I like to imagine a province without PD as not just being without a garrison, but lacking infrastructure, administration and governance from the capital. In such cases the scout isn't physically attacking, he's exploiting the void in central authority to bribe the local dukes, tribal chiefs, satraps or whatever with promises of wealth and power, so they switch sides.

[Dedas]

But a bribe should cost money - no?

[Zeldor]

He steals them first :P

[Agema]

Bribes would cost money - but it can come from an economic system outside the game's represenation. For instance, giving cooperative nobles ownership over the land taken from the unruly scum causing the unrest after you take the province; getting the job as your PD leader; being favoured supplier for the materials for your temple; etc. Makes no difference to the national tax, but that theoretical noble is richer.

[SlipperyJim]

Originally Posted by Agema

I like to imagine a province without PD as not just being without a garrison, but lacking infrastructure, administration and governance from the capital. In such cases the scout isn't physically attacking, he's exploiting the void in central authority to bribe the local dukes, tribal chiefs, satraps or whatever with promises of wealth and power, so they switch sides.

And capturing an empty province with Call of the Winds? Are the Black Hawks carrying bags of money in their beaks?

Certain situations remind me that Dom3 is, in fact, a strategy game. Realism must bow to gameplay.

Say ... how exactly are Blood Slaves instantaneously transported from a laboratory on one end of my empire to another laboratory that's hundreds (or thousands) of miles away? And before you answer with "Magic," remember that those Blood Slaves can be transported before I've even done any magical research.

Back to the OP: I don't like the idea. Forts are expensive. They should offer some defense -- even if empty -- by slowing down the attacker's conquest.

[Agema]

I'd argue Call Of The Winds sends a decent army of oversized man-eating birds led by a really huge intelligent bird that is capable of military enforcement.

I agree that the fort can and should be able to hold out even if not staffed.