Actions for province with a fortress...

[earwicker7]

This is a fairly simple question. If you control a province with a fortress, I know that you can keep the troops inside with the Defend command, and outside with the Patrol command.

My question is... where are the units which do commands other than these two? If a leader is preaching, will he be doing so outside the fortress? Same goes for researching, blood hunting, etc.. I could see a blood hunter being outside, but you'd think a researcher would be behind castle walls.

One other side question... what are the pros/cons of defending vs. patrolling if the attacker has a weaker force? Is it best to just patrol, and that way you take most of their force out when they attack, or are there any cases to be made for staying in the fortress (other than it being cold outside lol)?

[thejeff]

I think everything other than patrol stays inside.
The advantage of patrolling is you get to fight with your PD and you never actually lose the province.
The disadvantage is that anyone you have patrolling isn't doing whatever else you need them to do. And they might not even attack this turn. Which would mean you wasted a research turn for all those mages.

[rdonj]

Any action other than patrolling leaves the commander inside the fortress.

Pros to patrolling - you won't get the unrest that comes from them occupying the province, you won't lose a turn or more of castle build time due to being sieged, protects your income, and destroys the attacking army straight off. You also get to choose just what parts of your garrison meet the enemy.

Cons - the enemy force may be stronger than you think, or it could be a lure to send out forces to meet it, at which point you could see something teleport in and destroy your army that wasn't prepared to fight it. Also any mages that are involved in said patrolling will be spending a turn doing that, whereas they wouldn't otherwise. And if the enemy doesn't attack, they've spent that turn doing nothing for no good reason.

Also inside the fortress, you get the funneling effect.

Edit: Meh, I knew I took too long and was going to get a ninja.

[NTJedi]

I thought blood hunting placed you on the outside of the castle.

[Colonial]

Seems like it should... but maybe your just terrorising the kitchen staff :P