Building fortresses

[Jazzepi]

Something else to remember, you gain the income from any territory that you have any army in that the opponent has a fortress in.

Jazzepi

[Gandalf Parker]

For a large map against AIs I often take the province but not the castle. At least not for awhile. I can move armies thru that province and continue attacking deeper. As long as I keep a small force there I do not have to retake the province and I can still get gold and blood slaves from it. But the big advantage is that if another AI suddenly swarms up on me I can pull back. That AI will stop to try and take the castle from the first AI. I get an important benefit for a front-line castle (able to hold an attacker there while they seige me) without the expense of having to take the castle from whoever is inside. Once I no longer need to worry about a rush attack in that area, then I take the castle and the other provinces around it.

It might also be a worthwhile tactic in MP games. Using the province to move thru a beaten foes area but leave him there until you are sure that you can hold the area. If you get pushed back then let HIM defend it.

[MaxWilson]

It's true that it can be frustrating to try to hold a chokepoint with a fortress because, as you point out, the enemy can wipe out your PD unless you're patrolling, and that disrupts recruiting at that fort. Part of the problem here is that you're confusing chokepoint forts, which are intended to hold territory, with recruiting forts, which are intended to build troops. If he captures a chokepoint fort, it doesn't matter that you can't recruit troops there, and he's got an army tied up besieging your fort. You're correct that he can just move right on past, but the AI usually doesn't. Also, if he does move on past he's now cut off in enemy territory while you build reinforcements behind him, and it should be pretty easy to build pincer-movement him from in front and behind at the same time. Note that as soon as he moves past your fort you get your province back and can now recruit again, which is one time you might want to recruit at a chokepoint fort.

I've taken to playing lately with NI mods (No Independents, by Edi), which makes forts even more important because they're pretty much the only place you can recruit at all. I found it useful in my latest game to sometimes build two forts adjacent to each other. It slightly reduces the resources each fort gets (by 15 points or so, out of 160), but allows them to easily reinforce each other in case of attack. Since I'm playing LA Agartha, I was actually hoping they'd break down my walls and attack me in the darkness of my Cave Fort (with my F4W4N4E9B4 Sepulchrals that would have been fun), but it was so easy to break the siege from the neigboring fort that I did that instead.

Anyway, key point is that if you have enough forts, you don't mind letting the enemy occupy the province outside a fort because it doesn't slow down your recruitment any, it just shifts it elsewhere. And it also ties up an enemy army for a good long time.

-Max

[MaxWilson]

Crafty said:
Here's a scenario, you are playing a double blessed strategy, leading an early charge. After clearing the provinces around your capital, you strike out, and very soon you run into a fort build by the AI. It looks poorly defended (the main enemy force is probably raiding elsewhere), you can probably beat it, but it will take a few turns to break the walls which is time you cannot waste in the early expanding stage. Or perhaps you should ignore it, and just take the other equally poorly defended enemy provinces.

What do you do? I always try to take the fort, which I think is a bad idea on big maps...

You can't ignore the fort, or else he'll pump in reinforcements through it. Take the fort, turn up taxes and blood hunt for a turn or so to get the unrest above 100, and *then* take the poorly-defended enemy provinces. Then come back and actually take down the fort.

Too bad you can't pillage until the fort is down, or else you could do that instead of blood hunting.

-Max

[Sleet]

Great info.. thanks everyone.