Let's Change Forts

[JimMorrison]

Also since for example Swamp City is 50 Admin, and it's in a SWAMP, perhaps some nations could actually get pretty nice forts in their preferred terrain. Give "nature" based nations better forts in Forest, but remove Fortified City, and give them Fortification, or Ramparts or something in plains. By the same token, boost production somewhat in mountains/caves for those nations who reside there (maybe wastes for Abysia?). Reason being that while the terrain is rugged and inhospitable to most, it is their favored habitat, thus you would assume they've put some thought into the engineering and infrastructure to make industry more lucrative in those terrains.

Also I'd think it wouldn't be game breaking to boost underwater forts a little in production. As it is, it's abnormal to see underwater provinces with >30 resources, and poor little Kelp Fortress is only 10 Admin. To balance that, maybe say non-aquatic races can built fortifications underwater (you can leave them down there for years if they have magic items to breathe), but either disable unit creation other than amphibious and indies, or just let people train troops and have them drown immediately.

And finally, I think that increasing the gold benefit of Admin would go a LONG way to at least somewhat altering the behavior of the players. Making the more costly forts generate a significant amount of gold compared to the more "outpost" style, would make it more of a strategic choice than it currently is now. As it is it seems most DO go only for the cheap fast forts, and if there is anyone else like me, I choose them for location only, regardless of type. Neither behavior places any value on the Admin rating, or any of the actual properties of the fort itself.

[Leif_-]

I'd like to see the fort's defense rating taking an active part in the battle somehow (bonuses to the defender's recuperation, morale, precision, range and defense, free garrison/PD size or something) and give the besieger the ability to storm the castle at any point after the first turn. That way the attacker can decide whether to take the hit of the castle defenses or spend time to lower them by besieging.

This would probably mean that high-level battlemagic makes forts moot in the endgame, but that actually strikes me as thematic. Fortifications ought to play their biggest part during the early game.

Also, it would be nice to the upkeep of garrisoned units reduced by the fort's administration value.

[JimMorrison]

The upkeep idea is interesting, that alone would provide some pretty huge incentive to build more expensive castles, so you could more affordably keep garrisons available in more locations.

Only problem that I see with it though, is the sort of huge disparity in home castles, and what that would mean for research costs, as well as the fact that mage costs are relatively well balanced already, and thus it would seem to make sense to make them more expensive in that case, and that would be painful in the first year or so.


As far as defense rating, it sure would be nifty if the better defended castles had better tower defenses at least. Currently if you get 8 xbows in your towers, you get that in every fortification type that you make. This would make early kills that much more difficult, and painful, as you'd be much more likely to lose expensive sacreds or expensive leaders in the assault.

[TheMenacer]

Just a thought, it'd be super cool if province defense was better in fortified provinces, with the very best province defense coming with thematic/more expensive fortifications. It certainly wouldn't fix the problem of the only meaningful attribute of a castle being the build time, but it'd go a ways toward making the more expensive castles more desirable.

[Leif_-]

JimMorrison said:
Only problem that I see with it though, is the sort of huge disparity in home castles, and what that would mean for research costs, as well as the fact that mage costs are relatively well balanced already, and thus it would seem to make sense to make them more expensive in that case, and that would be painful in the first year or so.

I suppose this could be solved by applying the admin bonus only towards the upkeep of troops, but not commanders. A little fiddly, but not entirely unbelievable.