A newbie question about fortress defending

[uho]

Heyas.

One thing I started to wonder as I'm building some fortresses to protect my rear areas. Do I have to build atleast one commander in each of those provinces to keep the castle in case of enemy attacks?

[Wauthan]

No. The enemy will either be able to breach the walls or it will not. One commander will not be able to put up much of a fight.

Just to clarify. The attacker will take the province (tax income) but not the castle (unitproduction, laboratory, temple and gem income). So a really nefarious opponent can send a very small force if you have no Provincial Defenders. Then he raises Tax levels to 200% which kills of population and generates a lot of unrest. That way he can disrupt your economy even if you can easily break the siege.

As far as I know a fortress is no barrier either. An enemy army can just break of the siege and go rampaging trough less protected areas around it.

In other words you should only invest in fortresses to protect location specific investments. A high yield in gems, a laboratory, a temple and many weak researchers are all worth protecting if their combined worth is larger than the cost of a new fortress. You can still summon units and transfer items while under siege so the researchers would not be completely defenceless if the enemy breaches the walls.

[uho]

Thanks.

[Chazar]

I thought that I have read somewhere here in this forum (but never tested), that at least one unit (regardless of commander status) is required to have siege...???

[archaeolept]

huh? my post got lost.

basically, i believe chazar is correct, since in a recent game one sieging tartarian immediately breached the walls of my undefended dark citadel. This should not have been possible w/out some special "undefended castles are immediately breached" rule.

[Cainehill]

Yep, you want/need at least 1 unit there defending - it can be a commander, or a militia man, but without it the castle can basically be walked into by the enemy.

[Chazar]

...but nevertheless, the sieger still needs antoher turn to storm, right? I even believed that there would not be a siege at all and that the castle would change ownership instantaneously. Maybe I just check this when I get home, not that it matter much...

I mean, you always have a single, crippled, weakened, mindless strength-1 unit left so that the siegers have to break down the whole defense as usual...

[Wauthan]

That's odd. In the few games were I managed to beat the enemy god by sieging and "praying him out" I still had to break down the walls for a couple of turns. Is this because I started the siege while there was units still inside it?