Modding Forts

[Mr_Matt]

Is there any way at the moment to mod forts, castles etc?

I'm tired of mid to late games against the AI when they build forts like crazy(I've noticed Sauromatia builds forts like every other province). During the late game when I'm at war with someone I seem to be sieging them about 75% of the war, which gets boring after a while and war isn't supposed to be boring! I want more epic field battles.

So far all I've come up with is modding every nation so that they can only build jervallen walls (50 def) so that the sieges don't take forever. It doesn't keep the AI from building them like mad though.

Any thoughts?

MrMatt

[Amos]

Mod in a spell that summons a creature with extreme siege bonus and paltry cost. That should solve your problem. As for modding AI to stop building forts I dont think thats possible.

[NTJedi]

Mr_Matt said:
During the late game when I'm at war with someone I seem to be sieging them about 75% of the war, which gets boring after a while and war isn't supposed to be boring! I want more epic field battles.

Any thoughts?

MrMatt

During mid and late game use the magic item gate clever and flyers to break into castles. Also use siege golems and the spell called Crumble. Breaking into castles is easy... especially against AI opponents.

[llamabeast]

Crumble is even better than its description says - it's guaranteed to bring the walls down in a single casting! Sometimes a very worthwhile use of 20 gems, e.g. if you've captured a castled province using a single SC who will never bring the walls down by himself. If you time the spell so it's cast the same turn the SC attacks the province, you can burst in immediately on the following turn. Blitzkrieg!

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

What nation(s) are you playing, Mr_Matt?

Flying helps, strength helps. Siege bonus is the best.

If you're trying to mod forts out of the equation, the simplest solution is to lower the forge cost of Gate Cleavers, or if you want an option for every nation, make a nature one siege item. Anybody can find an indie n1 shaman.

If you want to decrease the number of forts built, here's a slightly complicated idea. I'm not certain its a good idea...

Halve the gold cost of every unit. When setting up a new game, set the gold economy to be half strength. This effectively doubles the cost of every fort.

The Wall Shaker (Air, misc) can also help.
Siege Golems are a more effective use gems than gate cleavers if you don't have a forge bonus. Speaking strictly from a siege/cost point of view.

If you're talking umodded late game play, there's little you can do, but I'd suggest three forces. One strong force to take the province. A huge team of militia to siege the fortress. And a team of strong units summoned in bulk. To provide some more severe damage and provide a backbone to your militia in case a breakout attempt occurs, while your combat force moves forward. If, however, the enemy has serious force in the fort, then you'll have to keep your first combat force on hand.

Possible spells for the third force.
Legion of Wights (16 str, all 20 together are worth 51 milita in tearing down fortifications)
Contact Draconians (18 str, all 16 are worth 67 militia)
Ether Gate is way too expensive, but it is late game, so if you're already winning.
Troll King Court (22 str, all 18 are worth 87 militia)
Sea King Court
Hidden in Snow is quite unreliable, but you can expect to get at least 10 warriors, quite possibly 20. 16 strength. Worth anywhere from 25 militia (at 55 gems!) to 64. May grant you a mage or two. Not highly recommended.

An army of Draconians with Wall Shakers and Gate Cleavers will tear down walls fairly quick.

[jutetrea]

I fully agree, forts are just way too plentiful late game, especially in SP.

I have a "wish list" item of a troop producer with no associated fort. From there, increase the cost of forts x2,3 or 4. So just to produce troops may cost 800-1200 depending on terrain, but a fort will cost 1600-4800. Still available if needed, but much easier to build a troop recruitment camp.

Ideally it would be an option on the game setup screen so you'd have the choice of playing standard or low forts.

Actually, no one answered the question of: Can forts be modded directly?

[Amos]

no

[Mr_Matt]

Thanks for all the replies.
By the way I didn't mean that sieging castles was hard I just feel it slows down the war to much when an enemy nation has say 50 provinces and 35 forts... meaning at least two turns to take each one unless you've a couple massive armies. Gets a little repetitive.

I've never tried the spell crumble and may have to try that some time.

As for the summons most of them I already use most of those mentioned. And for halving the cost of every unit in the game... it could work... but thats a LOT of changes and would be extremely time consuming. With school and work I just wouldn't have time.

Well since fort modding is unavailable I guess I'm stuck unless the devs could add fort mods in a patch.

MrMatt

[NTJedi]

Mr_Matt said:
Thanks for all the replies.
By the way I didn't mean that sieging castles was hard I just feel it slows down the war to much when an enemy nation has say 50 provinces and 35 forts... meaning at least two turns to take each one unless you've a couple massive armies. Gets a little repetitive.

I've never tried the spell crumble and may have to try that some time.

As for the summons most of them I already use most of those mentioned. And for halving the cost of every unit in the game... it could work... but thats a LOT of changes and would be extremely time consuming. With school and work I just wouldn't have time.

Well since fort modding is unavailable I guess I'm stuck unless the devs could add fort mods in a patch.

MrMatt

I believe 'defensive AI' personality is probably more likely to build forts compared with the 'aggressive AI'. Not 100% positive since there's no details describing how the defensive, standard and aggressive AIs are different.