Make forts great again

[Megadietie]

I don't know if people look at this forum, but let's give it a shot.

For the moment, I have one big problem with forts. If I would ever have build a fort in the given time region, I would probably have done so where it can benefit from the landscape (i.e. hilly, mountain land). However, with the current mechanic, if an enemy besieges your fort in a mountain region, you cannot really relieve the fort without a terrible modifier, since you are attacking. This means that building a ring of Alpine forts hurts you more than it hurts the enemy.

My suggestion is simple: when an enemy besieges a fort and your army enters the battle, let it join as DEFENDER. This feels kind of right, since you are lifting the siege / stopping the attack of the enemy.
Also, when your army stands on a fort tile and it is attacked, give it a defence modifier (or a negative modifier to the attacker). This also makes sense, since you can much more easily defend when you are having a fort to do so.

Benefits:
forts actually have a defensive purpose: having a fort will increase the defensive capabilities of your armies. Having an army stationed there will be tougher to fight and relieving a fort will be easier without combat penalties for the relieving army and possible combat penalties for the attacker (depending on the terrain).

adds a new layer of tactics: it matters where you build your fort. It will help holding choke points (defence boost) but can now also be used by countries with mountainous terrain (e.g. Caucasus, Alps, Pyrenees)

Just my 2 cents it's not a big overhaul but would, in my humble opinion, improve gameplay a lot

 

[Canute VII]

Oh yes!

 

[Canute VII]

Alternatively, always give +1 bonus to an army in a controlled fortified province, weather it enters the province to relieve a siege or it sits in the province and is being attacked by the enemy. Precondition(s) could be that

• the fort is up-to-date and /or
• the fort's garrison is >50% and/or
• the army's leader's manoeuvre pips are greater or equal the enemy's leader's (possibly only a condition if the fort is not up-to-date)

 

[Karl der Fünfte]

there are many times that a sieging army was traped. (siege of pavia 1923, second seage of viena..) i think it would be plausible to give a modifier ore even events like when your ruler is sieging a fort and is attacked, so he is caughed (like in ck ii)

 

[Canute VII]

An additional thought: if you have forts on both sides of a strait, these should/could block enemy ships from passing during war and also during peace time if you embargo them.

 

[Grand Historian]

Any fixes to forts will be welcome.

 

[JCricket]

The defensive terrain bonus would be great, but I would make an exception for river crossings. An army that is showing up to defend a castle should benefit from rough terrain, but it should still get the penalty for crossing a river to do it.

 

[Connacht]

I wouldn't change who is the attacker and who is defender, but I would give a heavy bonus to the country owning the fort (i.e. the fort is bombing with cannons or the garrison lifts the siege from the back).
Besides, IMHO forts on a strait should blockade both ships and army crossing from the other side. A coastal fort might also give a small amount of attrition to enemy ships (like real forts used cannons against enemy ships). Not too much though, otherwise if two or more forts are over a sea, the fleet would be destroyed soon.
Maybe we can set ships to select which provinces should be blockaded, so if they don't blockade and simply stay in the sea, they don't get attrition from forts. It would work also for concentrate small fleets to a single province, instead of divide their blockading potential between various provinces.

 

[FrogCrusher]

I wanted to try this for long but never did it : is a sortie considered as attacking or defending ? In the second case, this is the solution: do a sortie one day before your army will come. An answer before testing ?

 

[Edmon]

I wanted to try this for long but never did it : is a sortie considered as attacking or defending ? In the second case, this is the solution: do a sortie one day before your army will come. An answer before testing ?

Attacking, so it can't help you, unless you are attacking into farmland.

 

[FrogCrusher]

Attacking, so it can't help you, unless you are attacking into farmland.

Ok

 

[Canute VII]

Let me "scorch earth" a province with a fort (even if I have no army standing there). Even better: let me scorch earth all provinces in the ZOC (choose individual provinces to be scorched though).

 

[Thravid]

The first feature would be amazing already.

 

[Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedom!]

Forts definitely need some work. It used to be a tough call sometimes whether it was better to siege or assault. Now you don't even have a choice unless you roll lucky to break the walls. I get really annoyed when under staffed forts still holding out for 4 or 6 months. There are 120 men in the garrison and i have 10,000 infantry, even without cannons or a breach, I should be able to send troops up with ladders, grappling hooks, and whatever else to take that damn thing, sure I'll lose 1,000 men or more to that 120, but I need to get moving.

 

[Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedom!]

A couple other functions that could mix up sieges a bit:

Barrages: If you have cannons (and lots of money for munitions) you could roll extra siege dice that either do nothing or cause a breach, with the cost and strength of roll depending on number of cannons against the fort level.

Counter siege: If the besieged player can position his own armies to block off all routes to the besieger's own territory, it starts causing attrition, representing that you cut off supply.

 

[Johan]

for 1.18

- Relieving a siege now makes the sieging force the "attacker" in the combat.

 

[crysanja]

I would like to see some economic influrences too.
I think a fort should reduce autonomy and maybe revolt risk or size.

A fort is a "strong" military presence.

 

[Grand Historian]

for 1.18

- Relieving a siege now makes the sieging force the "attacker" in the combat.

Thank you! This is a solid step forward!

 

[GeneralPetrov]

for 1.18

- Relieving a siege now makes the sieging force the "attacker" in the combat.

While I think this is a good change, I do have one small concern: will the AI realise and take advantage of this? Could be kinda exploity if the AI doesn't take this into account.

 

[Grand Historian]

While I think this is a good change, I do have one small concern: will the AI realise and take advantage of this? Could be kinda exploity if the AI doesn't take this into account.

I don't know whether or not the AI will be able to take advantage of it, but I just realized that while the AI's free maintenance cheat is still active, fighting against numerically superior foes, provincially superior foes, or the Ottomans is going to be even more ridiculously hard than it already is.