How much forts do you build

[Bugnr01]

I think i am going a bit over the top with forts so i want to know how much you build.
After being raidet by 2k stacks i didnt caught because there where bigger fish to fight i started to build a lot of forts.

I am under the impression that pops, especially citizen and nobles, are the backbone of your economy and military. So cities are to be guarded. Every city gets a fort, capitals two, megalopolis three. I took over Italy so i dont really have a protected hinterland. All the high pop Provinces are prone to naval invasions.

 

[MishaTX]

1 fort per province, in the capital. Check you tactical tab for a province to see if you're over the limit (5, usually), and reduce if you are., Once you go over the limit, they get insanely expensive.

And turn them off when you're not at war and not worried about anybody declaring war on you. (Economy tab)

 

[olivenkranz]

Barely any; Capital gets one lvl 1 and otherwise its a defensicve belt on the borders, but only if the region has a good defensive structure (Mountains or Desert f.ex) or a big (potential) enemy (e.g. Seleukids). In total my expenses for mid game for forts is between 10 and 20 max. net Income at 200+

 

[Poliut]

That collection of OPMs can get you after a while.

 

[Daft]

Not many I fact, I spend more time dismantling forts than building.

However, I will probably build defence in depth with forts placed in depth along probable enemy approaches in order to slow them down, forcing them to siege down several forts before reaching my 'core' territories.

Once my Rome is satisfied with the borders of the empire that is. And once I am ready to consolidate and focus inwards.

 

[Less2]

Almost zero, I use some captured forts but dismantle probably more than half of them. 1 fort per province seems insane, do people that do that spend half their income on forts? I have cities and wonders to build. Around 10-15% of income spent on forts is about the highest I'll go and I try to keep it lower. Forts are only really needed on borders with strong rivals who would be tough to fight, on borders with a bunch of small tribes you can just overwhelm them in offense and beat them with almost no provinces being occupied.

You can see how many pops are captured and killed per war in the war screen. Assuming you are on the offensive and annexing enemy land you'll get back all those captured pops, so only the killed ones really matter. I find the killed pops to be very small in most wars.

 

[IsaacCAT]

I like forts a lot.

In provinces with unintegrated POPs they give me a reduction to unrest.

In province capitals at the border and strategic locations allow me to keep armies stranded and wiithout access to province food so they run out of food to high attrition. Very lovely.

High level forts look very nice.

 

[Nostalgium]

Beyond the keystone province capitals, it depends a lot on who I'm playing and where I'm expecting to fight. In large VS large games, for example - like Armenia VS Seleukids - I usually like to fortify the border where I'm not expanding. Using the Armenia example, I fortify the hell out of my mountain passes, but leave the border to the Median plateu open, as that's where my armies will be operating. This is to prevent Seleukid allies, feudatories or primary stacks slipping through and sieging my capital while I'm busy elsewhere. I also tend to fortify my "final" borders, beyond which any expansion is a bonus. A good example of this is any finalized border with India, where I like to build forts so ridiculous that I can ignore war declarations from Maurya until they give up. My favourite was a level 12 fort in Alexandrou Limen, with Earthworks. Suck on THAT, loathesome, megastable blob!

 

[Bovrick]

Any large City gets the full Fort Capacity for their Province in the end. Followed by maintaining a contiguous line of control around the borders, unless it would go over the Fort Cap. If I'm smaller and by someone large, then I'm willing to exceed the cap, and will probably have a second layer of control.

 

[scriptkiddy]

After fighting a war where mini-stacks of enemy feudatories literally depopulated my countryside so that I had to colonise them again I build forts in every city as well as on defensible terrain to block any hostile movement into the heartland.

 

[Saladin87]

I was stingy with forts for a long time but I'm trying a different approach in my current run, building at least one fort in the province capital and two if there's a border to defend against barbarians / enemies. I like my borders clean and tidy lol but there are other benefits too,
- they prevent civ reduction on surrounding territories from barb raids and keeps them busy long enough for my levies/legions to reach them.
- very helpful in wars against an equal/superior enemy.
- helps increase province loyalty, basically a good way to control provinces after conquest. Once the area loyalty is no longer a problem, delete.
- btw the fort maintenance cost is now reduced so it's not so heavy on the economy anymore. Within the first 70-80 years income booms so high compared to fort maintenance cost that I feel too lazy to bother going back to the economy screen and reduce it. It's better to just keep it on anyway to keep barbs at bay.
- Can't deny, the higher level forts do look pretty cool.

 

[Razor Feather]

I build them to make a ZoC wall along the borders of my core territory so that the enemy has to siege down something before getting in, and then I usually also keep one in the capital of most provinces, doubly so if its an isolated city. The amount of damage that can be dealt by letting the enemy run around unopposed in your hinterlands is too much to ignore, and the maintence cost isn't really that high, compared to the cost of things like wages, navies, or legions. I usually don't bother with higher level forts except in important chokepoints, however.

 

[juanpacirca]

For me it also depends on which nation I'm playing as. In my Seleukid run I didn't build forts except in the border with Maurya. Currently, I'm playing as Crete and expanded into Greece, where Rome has already a foothold, so I built two forts per province in case they declare on me.