The game need a rethink of how castles/forts work in warfare.

[ray243]

Honestly, in the current game, castles and forts serve little real purpose from a warfare perspective beyond being objectives you have to capture to win a war. While they have walls that make them harder to siege, the broader strategic significance of castles in medieval warfare is almost entirely ignored.

In reality, castles weren’t just strongholds to overcome for war score—they were central to controlling territory. Armies didn’t simply bypass them. Marching past an enemy castle without neutralising it meant exposing your rear to attacks: defenders could sally out to harass your baggage trains and disrupt supply lines. Foraging became risky, as scattered soldiers searching for food could be ambushed. This forced invading armies to either besiege the castle or concentrate their forces so tightly that gathering supplies became even harder.

Castles and fortified cities also occupied vital positions in medieval infrastructure. They often sat on key transportation routes and communication hubs. Markets—where food was gathered, stored, and redistributed—were typically based in castle-towns. For example, during the Crusades, the survival of crusading armies marching to the Holy Land depended on Byzantine markets being opened to them. Without access to fortified supply hubs, those armies would have starved.

Currently, the game does simulate army supply levels, but the only troops who can actively forage are landless adventurers. Regular armies don't suffer the same logistical vulnerabilities when bypassing enemy castles. More importantly, the game doesn’t reflect how one of the main use of levies soldiers is to act as garrison forces for castles.

Defenders inside them played an active role in local defense, including sallying out against invaders, yet in the game, castle garrisons are passive. They don’t count toward any army’s levies or men-at-arms, making them feel disconnected from the actual military system.

To make castles meaningful again, the game should reflect their historical role as both logistical centers and operational threats if left behind. Castles should influence foraging, supply lines, and rear-area security—not just be siege targets for ticking war score.

 

[Koronus]

Indeed. Currently Castles are merely used for either landing your son or a claimant without haveing to give them a vital title.
Or for Barony Lovers who want in Feudalism to have possible Vassal Families who stay there for generations.

 

[PAnZuRiEL]

This is already simulated by the additional attrition you face when you bypass unoccupied territory.

 

[ray243]

This is already simulated by the additional attrition you face when you bypass unoccupied territory.

On the other hand you lose attrition even as you stay and besiege castles anyways so it often doesn't make a difference.

 

[DiabloDeVille]

On the other hand you lose attrition even as you stay and besiege castles anyways so it often doesn't make a difference.

You do, but its monthly, instead of instant

 

[Apocal]

In reality, castles weren’t just strongholds to overcome for war score—they were central to controlling territory. Armies didn’t simply bypass them. Marching past an enemy castle without neutralising it meant exposing your rear to attacks: defenders could sally out to harass your baggage trains and disrupt supply lines. Foraging became risky, as scattered soldiers searching for food could be ambushed. This forced invading armies to either besiege the castle or concentrate their forces so tightly that gathering supplies became even harder.

That's not true, medieval armies bypassed fortifications all the time.

It was the combination of a network of castles and cities with a field-army which was the great strength of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Saladin invaded the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1177 and Smail noted: “Saladin ignored all the strong places which lay in his path and swept on towards Ramla and Jaffa; yet those strong places influenced the campaign in many ways. They did not halt the enemy at the frontier, nor prevent his temporary control of the open countryside. But intact they remained as the repositories of lordship.”
...
"Elsewhere in the kingdom the crusaders built castles in virtually all of the strategic points, many of them brilliantly sited. The effect of the massive castle-building
of the twelfth century was to create a network of fortifications, many of which were not particularly strong. They served the useful function of housing garrisons and providing refuge against raiding. Their worth was, however, limited. Most of the lordships of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem were suffering severe impoverishment well before 1187, probably because of the increase in raiding and the commensurate increase indefence costs. The real defence of the kingdom was the Frankish field-army, which could deter sieges of the real underpinnings of the kingdom, the cities: it was a point well made in the debate before Hattin."
...
Until 1187, Saladin – like the Count of Flanders and his allies at much the same time – was caught in a web of castles and fortified cities. This did not take the form of a
fortified perimeter of defence in either Hainaut or Jerusalem. The castles had been constructed where they mattered to individuals at different times. But, of course, most strategic points were covered, because it would normally profit somebody. The invader was ensnared in a catenaccio of castles which hardly barred his path but threatened him in minor ways, unbalancing his army before the threat of a field-force.
...
"The real strength of a castle was the garrison within it and their political connections beyond."
"Western Warfare of the Age of Crusades, 1000-1300" by John France


Castles were generally not barrier fortifications as they didn't (alone) meaningfully prevent, or even threaten, passage by a large force. That wasn't their job. Their role was hosting forces and the supplies necessary to support them in order to present a threat to the land around them. You couldn't say you held the ground until you had the castle, because otherwise there would be a band of untouchable raiders appearing whenever your army moved on.

But medieval armies could, and very frequently did, simply move on, because holding a piece of ground didn't matter. They didn't have supply caravans or baggage trains following them around to sustain them. They were, for the most part, self-sustaining by foraging (read: stealing food from peasants) and didn't really worry much about being ambushed while doing it unless there was an equivalent hostile field force running around nearby. It wasn't particularly necessary to break down into small groups, except in a micro-tactical sense. The armies moved from one supply of food (read: village or town), coercing or buying the necessary supplies from them as they went. And sure, they had wagons with them and sometimes would leave the wagons behind to move faster.

However it was nothing like the noria of today, requiring a constant, uninterrupted connection to sustain the army.

 

[ray243]

That's not true, medieval armies bypassed fortifications all the time.

It was the combination of a network of castles and cities with a field-army which was the great strength of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Saladin invaded the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1177 and Smail noted: “Saladin ignored all the strong places which lay in his path and swept on towards Ramla and Jaffa; yet those strong places influenced the campaign in many ways. They did not halt the enemy at the frontier, nor prevent his temporary control of the open countryside. But intact they remained as the repositories of lordship.”
...
"Elsewhere in the kingdom the crusaders built castles in virtually all of the strategic points, many of them brilliantly sited. The effect of the massive castle-building
of the twelfth century was to create a network of fortifications, many of which were not particularly strong. They served the useful function of housing garrisons and providing refuge against raiding. Their worth was, however, limited. Most of the lordships of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem were suffering severe impoverishment well before 1187, probably because of the increase in raiding and the commensurate increase indefence costs. The real defence of the kingdom was the Frankish field-army, which could deter sieges of the real underpinnings of the kingdom, the cities: it was a point well made in the debate before Hattin."
...
Until 1187, Saladin – like the Count of Flanders and his allies at much the same time – was caught in a web of castles and fortified cities. This did not take the form of a
fortified perimeter of defence in either Hainaut or Jerusalem. The castles had been constructed where they mattered to individuals at different times. But, of course, most strategic points were covered, because it would normally profit somebody. The invader was ensnared in a catenaccio of castles which hardly barred his path but threatened him in minor ways, unbalancing his army before the threat of a field-force.
...
"The real strength of a castle was the garrison within it and their political connections beyond."
"Western Warfare of the Age of Crusades, 1000-1300" by John France


Castles were generally not barrier fortifications as they didn't (alone) meaningfully prevent, or even threaten, passage by a large force. That wasn't their job. Their role was hosting forces and the supplies necessary to support them in order to present a threat to the land around them. You couldn't say you held the ground until you had the castle, because otherwise there would be a band of untouchable raiders appearing whenever your army moved on.

But medieval armies could, and very frequently did, simply move on, because holding a piece of ground didn't matter. They didn't have supply caravans or baggage trains following them around to sustain them. They were, for the most part, self-sustaining by foraging (read: stealing food from peasants) and didn't really worry much about being ambushed while doing it unless there was an equivalent hostile field force running around nearby. It wasn't particularly necessary to break down into small groups, except in a micro-tactical sense. The armies moved from one supply of food (read: village or town), coercing or buying the necessary supplies from them as they went. And sure, they had wagons with them and sometimes would leave the wagons behind to move faster.

However it was nothing like the noria of today, requiring a constant, uninterrupted connection to sustain the army.

I think in the near east the situation is rather different because of the level of urbanisation and cities as the key admin and logistics hubs.

Whereas in Europe cities exist but not function in quite the same level of influence, or in similar amounts as it is in Near East?

The Crusader army marching through Byzantine empire has to force the Byzantines to grant them access to markets for food as opposed to just foraging their path to Holy lands.

 

[DiabloDeVille]

I think in the near east the situation is rather different because of the level of urbanisation and cities as the key admin and logistics hubs.

No, you see the same in europe where forts arent impassable, but can be bypassed during certain campaigns, but at great risk

Whereas in Europe cities exist but not function in quite the same level of influence, or in similar amounts as it is in Near East?

The Crusader army marching through Byzantine empire has to force the Byzantines to grant them access to markets for food as opposed to just foraging their path to Holy lands.

The byz supplying crusader hosts is the same process as foraging, just the threat of violence never becomes actual violence

 

[Apocal]

I think in the near east the situation is rather different because of the level of urbanisation and cities as the key admin and logistics hubs.

Whereas in Europe cities exist but not function in quite the same level of influence, or in similar amounts as it is in Near East?

The Crusader army marching through Byzantine empire has to force the Byzantines to grant them access to markets for food as opposed to just foraging their path to Holy lands.

There are other examples from Europe itself: English chevauchees during the Hundred Years' War, large-scale Arab/Andalusian raids throughout the history of medieval Iberia, large Turk raids on Anatolia, arguably everything happening in Italy.

 

[Dayvit78]

I feel like we've talked about this before, since forts are a huge topic in many Paradox games (esp. EU and IR). I fully agree with the OP and the other commenter that castle are essential to establishing control in an area.

Linked to that is how Paradox thinks of armies wrong. They always have army and garrison as two separate things. In reality, they are the same thing. When an army is not on campaign, they are in the castle or disbanded. So you should be able to decide how much of your army to leave in the castle and how much to take with you. In CK2 terms, I would like to see when you raise armies by province, they stay in garrison if you don't take them. But if you think you're safe, you can raise them and take them on campaign. That would be a strategic choice - and I think a fun one.

As it is, you garrison just sits there, not doing anything except increasing the amount of soldiers the enemy needs to siege the castle. You should have the ability to use your garrison to inflict casualties on the invaders, either killing people or reducing supplies. (Just like they have the option when they breach the walls)

Worse, when the enemy finish sieging the castle, 100% of the garrison is now theirs with no loss to their own army (it starts small and grows). But their entire army can just keep marching on instead of getting weaker the farther they campaign.

Obviously, this would have to come with a complete warfare overhaul, but I do hope they consider what exactly is a garrison and what exactly is a castle.

 

[DiabloDeVille]

I feel like we've talked about this before, since forts are a huge topic in many Paradox games (esp. EU and IR). I fully agree with the OP and the other commenter that castle are essential to establishing control in an area.

Linked to that is how Paradox thinks of armies wrong. They always have army and garrison as two separate things. In reality, they are the same thing. When an army is not on campaign, they are in the castle or disbanded. So you should be able to decide how much of your army to leave in the castle and how much to take with you. In CK2 terms, I would like to see when you raise armies by province, they stay in garrison if you don't take them. But if you think you're safe, you can raise them and take them on campaign. That would be a strategic choice - and I think a fun one.

As it is, you garrison just sits there, not doing anything except increasing the amount of soldiers the enemy needs to siege the castle. You should have the ability to use your garrison to inflict casualties on the invaders, either killing people or reducing supplies. (Just like they have the option when they breach the walls)

Worse, when the enemy finish sieging the castle, 100% of the garrison is now theirs with no loss to their own army (it starts small and grows). But their entire army can just keep marching on instead of getting weaker the farther they campaign.

Obviously, this would have to come with a complete warfare overhaul, but I do hope they consider what exactly is a garrison and what exactly is a castle.

RETVRN to med 2 and rome 1 style garrisons

 

[Benismann]

Currently, the game does simulate army supply levels, but the only troops who can actively forage are landless adventurers. Regular armies don't suffer the same logistical vulnerabilities when bypassing enemy castles.

You do lose a percentage of your army if you go more than 1 county deep into the enemy territory though.
I do agree however that castles feel kind of.... meh. They are there, i guess, but not much more than that in terms of warfare...

And worst of all - there're no effects in ck3 to influence garrison other than a refill one. As a modder, i cant even do anything about garrisons, which is just sad.

 

[Benismann]

Indeed. Currently Castles are merely used for either landing your son or a claimant without haveing to give them a vital title.
Or for Barony Lovers who want in Feudalism to have possible Vassal Families who stay there for generations.

Yeah "secondary" castles are also exceptionally useless. Sure you can maybe fall back on them if you lose your domain somehow, but that's not really an inherit quality of a castle, if you had an ability to hold cities you would build them instead. There's very little utility in having more castles in a county except for making raids take forever.
It's actually kinda worse to have additional fortified holdings in a county coz when there's a debuff for when holding gets sieged down, but all the holdings with no forts never get sieged down, they just get painted over by an occupation, and as such dont recieve the debuff, so when you re-occupy the holding back (or take it in a war) they're still 100% as effective as they were before (not counting control loss), while fortified holdings would have -50% tax debuff for some time.

 

[Koronus]

Yeah "secondary" castles are also exceptionally useless. Sure you can maybe fall back on them if you lose your domain somehow, but that's not really an inherit quality of a castle, if you had an ability to hold cities you would build them instead. There's very little utility in having more castles in a county except for making raids take forever.
It's actually kinda worse to have additional fortified holdings in a county coz when there's a debuff for when holding gets sieged down, but all the holdings with no forts never get sieged down, they just get painted over by an occupation, and as such dont recieve the debuff, so when you re-occupy the holding back (or take it in a war) they're still 100% as effective as they were before (not counting control loss), while fortified holdings would have -50% tax debuff for some time.

What I think would make them useful would be if a castle would basically be a roadblock until conquered. I mean the Burgenland of Austria refers to the area where all the castles where build back then when Hungary whas an enemy region to ensure they are like a light version of the Chinese Wall. So if for example you build a castle in the only way through a valley, the enemy would either have to spend time siegeing the castle or walk all arround the mountains to get to the weaker regions behind.

 

[Citizen Caen]

That's not true, medieval armies bypassed fortifications all the time.

It was the combination of a network of castles and cities with a field-army which was the great strength of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Saladin invaded the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1177 and Smail noted: “Saladin ignored all the strong places which lay in his path and swept on towards Ramla and Jaffa; yet those strong places influenced the campaign in many ways. They did not halt the enemy at the frontier, nor prevent his temporary control of the open countryside. But intact they remained as the repositories of lordship.”
...
"Elsewhere in the kingdom the crusaders built castles in virtually all of the strategic points, many of them brilliantly sited. The effect of the massive castle-building
of the twelfth century was to create a network of fortifications, many of which were not particularly strong. They served the useful function of housing garrisons and providing refuge against raiding. Their worth was, however, limited. Most of the lordships of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem were suffering severe impoverishment well before 1187, probably because of the increase in raiding and the commensurate increase indefence costs. The real defence of the kingdom was the Frankish field-army, which could deter sieges of the real underpinnings of the kingdom, the cities: it was a point well made in the debate before Hattin."
...
Until 1187, Saladin – like the Count of Flanders and his allies at much the same time – was caught in a web of castles and fortified cities. This did not take the form of a
fortified perimeter of defence in either Hainaut or Jerusalem. The castles had been constructed where they mattered to individuals at different times. But, of course, most strategic points were covered, because it would normally profit somebody. The invader was ensnared in a catenaccio of castles which hardly barred his path but threatened him in minor ways, unbalancing his army before the threat of a field-force.
...
"The real strength of a castle was the garrison within it and their political connections beyond."
"Western Warfare of the Age of Crusades, 1000-1300" by John France


Castles were generally not barrier fortifications as they didn't (alone) meaningfully prevent, or even threaten, passage by a large force. That wasn't their job. Their role was hosting forces and the supplies necessary to support them in order to present a threat to the land around them. You couldn't say you held the ground until you had the castle, because otherwise there would be a band of untouchable raiders appearing whenever your army moved on.

But medieval armies could, and very frequently did, simply move on, because holding a piece of ground didn't matter. They didn't have supply caravans or baggage trains following them around to sustain them. They were, for the most part, self-sustaining by foraging (read: stealing food from peasants) and didn't really worry much about being ambushed while doing it unless there was an equivalent hostile field force running around nearby. It wasn't particularly necessary to break down into small groups, except in a micro-tactical sense. The armies moved from one supply of food (read: village or town), coercing or buying the necessary supplies from them as they went. And sure, they had wagons with them and sometimes would leave the wagons behind to move faster.

However it was nothing like the noria of today, requiring a constant, uninterrupted connection to sustain the army.

My understanding is that everything you said about foraging is true for smaller armies in the thousands and below. But as soon as army sizes hit the 10 to 20 thousand mark it becomes a different ball game and logistics became a lot more complicated. Though if you have more details to the contrary I’d be interested in hearing them.

From what I understand An army of that size just totally devours the countryside, so much so they essentially have to keep moving forward or else they starve. Most baggage trains only storing a month or two of food at best.
Notice that Saladin’s whole campaign to take Jaffa is less than a month. And he doesn't settle for a long siege but almost immediately breaches the walls and assaults the town.

So while foraging was a primary part of medieval logistics in most situations, full sized invasions used merchant contracts and supply depots to deliver food to designated locations. For example Edward Longshanks used the Royal prerogative of Purveyance to requisition and deliver supplies to depots in occupied territories during invasions of Wales and Scotland.

Looping this back to CK terms, what I would argue for is a food system like Imperator, every county has a certain amount of food to be taken from passing armies, and once it’s eaten it’s gone. If the present army doesn’t have another way to supply itself it begins to take drastic attrition. Then I would add the alternative to foraging is a supply line, but these can’t go past enemy castles, so if your army is in an enemy county but neighboring friendly territory it can be supplied at extra maintenance cost. But if the army moves 2 counties deep past an enemy castle then the supply line is cut, you have no ability to get resupplied and have to completely rely on forage.

 

[CrabHelmet]

Most armies in this period didn't have supply trains to cut; logistics on that scale is the product really of the EU4 era (and even then not til the late sixteenth century). Medieval monarchs were not sending supply wagons over from friendly territory or anything similar, medieval armies subsisted entirely from foraging.

The point of the castle was to last out the enemy. If an army can only survive on what it can forage from the local area, then it has at best a few months to take a castle. If it can't do so, it has to leave or all the soldiers starve (or realistically the soldiers make the decision to leave themselves, identifying and meaningfully punishing deserters was very difficult in the period).

A more accurate look at warfare would be for each barony to have a certain level of stored food supply (also used by towns and whatnot during winter) which would be depleted by the presence of an army, with incredibly harsh attrition once gone. Armies would be able to "hide" in castles so they couldn't be engaged, and castles would also have a stored food supply which couldn't be accessed by enemy armies unless they won the siege.

Edward Longshanks' depot you refer to were set up *after* the conquest to support the occupying army, not *during* the main bulk of the invasion. They didn't follow an army, they were conscious attempts to create food stockpiles in fortified areas ahead of conflict. Imperator is not a good comparison because while Roman armies did have active supply chains in the field, that level of organisation would never really be obtained again (at least in Europe, anyway - China is a very different story) in the CK3 period.

Realistically I don't think Paradox will ever implement this because the AI would struggle catastrophically to deal with attrition like that. Old-timers will remember in EU3 how easily you could beat much larger armies by luring them into high attrition provinces back in the days when Paradox titles still had high attrition occasionally.

 

[The Shacks]

Edward did build some dirty roads and cut back all the forest around them to secure his supply lines .... but i guess this was kinda AS/AFTER the initial invasion. It was a guerilla war anyway.

 

[DiabloDeVille]

Most armies in this period didn't have supply trains to cut; logistics on that scale is the product really of the EU4 era (and even then not til the late sixteenth century). Medieval monarchs were not sending supply wagons over from friendly territory or anything similar, medieval armies subsisted entirely from foraging.

Why claim entirely, when we can already point to supply trains existing at some level prior to 1453?

Realistically I don't think Paradox will ever implement this because the AI would struggle catastrophically to deal with attrition like that. Old-timers will remember in EU3 how easily you could beat much larger armies by luring them into high attrition provinces back in the days when Paradox titles still had high attrition occasionally.

Advantage still makes mountain baiting worth it

 

[CrabHelmet]

Why claim entirely, when we can already point to supply trains existing at some level prior to 1453?

Advantage still makes mountain baiting worth it

I did say "most armies". CK3 covers a nearly 600 year long time frame covering half of the Old World, there's rarely a single statement that you could make that is fully universal.

Nevertheless, it is generally true that "supply chains" and similar concepts to support actively marching armies are rare enough in the period to probably not be worth representing and simply abstract away, because the forage model was so predominant (within the European context, anyway). We know this from contemporary accounts of the time - for example, The Chronicles of James I of Aragon (written by the king himself!) contain several detailed discussions of supply which invariably reach the conclusion that it couldn't really be done except by sea (which is plainly not relevant to discussions of castles).

 

[DiabloDeVille]

I did say "most armies". CK3 covers a nearly 600 year long time frame covering half of the Old World, there's rarely a single statement that you could make that is fully universal.

You also said "medieval armies subsisted entirely from foraging."

Nevertheless, it is generally true that "supply chains" and similar concepts to support actively marching armies are rare enough in the period to probably not be worth representing and simply abstract away, because the forage model was so predominant (within the European context, anyway). We know this from contemporary accounts of the time - for example, The Chronicles of James I of Aragon (written by the king himself!) contain several detailed discussions of supply which invariably reach the conclusion that it couldn't really be done except by sea (which is plainly not relevant to discussions of castles).

How? You can sail by sea, then up rivers, or land the goods then take by cart