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Vetgirig

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Dec 1, 2015
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The fort system is notorious hard to understand. The many rules makes it hard for players and AI to use and utilize forts in the best way. Calculating how the AI can move forts becomes overly complex and slow.

Looking at CK series where armies is never hindered by forts and HoI where the just armies front hinder movement. EU4 should do something in between those games. I've been part of the fort discussion for many years now in these forums and others. I've been thinking of how to make the best system for forts that is easy to understand and implement in-game.

So forts need to hinder movement. However I would like to change the rules to the following:

1. The province you move into a fort province is the return province and you may ONLY leave the forts zone of control by moving back to this return province (unless you siege down fort).
2. Forts zone of control for pathing is only the province they are in.

This will remove ZoC outside the province the fort is in. So its a small change from CK, but still an important change that is more realistic then todays where forts reach is very large in reality, if you think of how large distance is in reality that the current fort system protects.

Since you have a return province you can never move over a fort and continue to another province - even if that province is owned by you. Forts will still hinder movement - and in some cases even better then today especially for small nation this is better since you cant walk straight over an OPM with a real fort like you can today since the OPM ZoC is reality is null in this case today.

However the rules of taking back provinces and not getting malus when rebels siege down a province beside a fort should still be in effect.

This will make it more important to build forts in more provinces. To build forts in choke points and with good defensive terrain will become more important. Forts that border another fort will no longer be a bad thing. More forts will have to be built and it will become a money sink for late game.

This will significantly make pathing easier and also make it easy for players to understand how forts works.

We won't get strange pathing and long walks around forts and it will also probably make the game faster and easier to understand for the players. Player will spend money and build a Maginot line in MP.
 
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I think it's an opposite of improvement, right now I can secure border with a few correctly placed forts, and with that I'd need to build fort in every province which would cost a ton of money and use precious building slots. If ZoC system is too hard for you to understand, good luck with other stuff like trade
 
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I think it's an opposite of improvement, right now I can secure border with a few correctly placed forts, and with that I'd need to build fort in every province which would cost a ton of money and use precious building slots. If ZoC system is too hard for you to understand, good luck with other stuff like trade
Actually you only need to build a fort in every province that borders an enemy.

If you check the description on point 1 you can not go trough a wall of forts on a border.

But yes you are right this require people to build more forts to restrict movement. So instead of having it on every 3rd province on a border you will need it on every province along the border.

As it is currently - the more forts you build the less restrictive enemy movement becomes. That's bad imho. This proposal fixes that.

Trade is easy, when you well understands it.
 
I think it's an opposite of improvement, right now I can secure border with a few correctly placed forts, and with that I'd need to build fort in every province which would cost a ton of money and use precious building slots. If ZoC system is too hard for you to understand, good luck with other stuff like trade
I think this level of reasoning is rather weak. If the developers ever agree to this proposal, there'll be nothing easier than adjusting building slots at the same time. And if balancing your financial position is too hard for you, you can try a lower degree of difficulty.
 
Maybe if forts get less expensive too it could be balanced. Currently they’re a pretty questionable proposition already in single player in many cases, and with the change you would need at least 2x as many, maybe more in some cases. This would break the AI completely without major rebalances. Or, more likely, the AI would just keep its starting forts and the player could just walk to their capital in almost every war.

Even if it’s balanced, it doesn’t really sound more fun. What’s the argument? Won’t you just siege the fort on flat terrain and then move on to the enemy capital or wherever you want to go? If basically removes chokepoints except if the chokepoint is exactly one province wide.
 
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Actually you only need to build a fort in every province that borders an enemy.
In every province on every land border, because anyone can get military access anywhere with little effort.
As it is currently - the more forts you build the less restrictive enemy movement becomes.
Yes but they are still locked until they manage to wine some siege. Also, it's not bad that fort placement requires some thinking, you can destroy or disable excessive forts and they will lose their ZoC effects.
Trade is easy, when you well understands it.
ZoC is easy too, just a few rules to remember.
If the developers ever agree to this proposal, there'll be nothing easier than adjusting building slots at the same time.
As well as maintenance costs, and probably costs of fort buildings themselves (see below).
And if balancing your financial position is too hard for you, you can try a lower degree of difficulty.
It's not hard, but I'm sure AI won't be able to afford building new forts when you conquer its prebuilt defense line. Also, forts don't make any profit (besides a little of military traditions in some cases), so in single it will be easier just to avoid any attempts to secure border (and then play whack-a-mole during wars)
 
Are the forts useful, in the first place? I think yes, because they eat enemy's time and manpower. That was precisely their purpose in history.
So, I am not discussing whether there should be forts. I just agree with the OP that current state of ZoC is counter-intuitive, often leading to weird situations. OP's proposal sounds more logical. You enter a region (province) and there's a fortified post there. Your movement is restricted. You can either conquer, or turn back from where you came. That looks like a reality, a bit. Closer than ZoC.
All the other counter-arguments are invalid. If it makes necessary to build too many forts, well, we'll add building slots and adjust the economy, and that's that. After all, Europe is full of old fortified castles, not only near borders, and virtually all cities used to be walled. Exactly because some fort in more than few kilometers' distance could never save them.
 
Are the forts useful, in the first place? I think yes, because they eat enemy's time and manpower. That was precisely their purpose in history.
So, I am not discussing whether there should be forts. I just agree with the OP that current state of ZoC is counter-intuitive, often leading to weird situations. OP's proposal sounds more logical. You enter a region (province) and there's a fortified post there. Your movement is restricted. You can either conquer, or turn back from where you came. That looks like a reality, a bit. Closer than ZoC.
All the other counter-arguments are invalid. If it makes necessary to build too many forts, well, we'll add building slots and adjust the economy, and that's that. After all, Europe is full of old fortified castles, not only near borders, and virtually all cities used to be walled. Exactly because some fort in more than few kilometers' distance could never save them.
It does sound more intuitive, with that I agree. But I haven’t seen a case yet that it would make for better gameplay. Currently forts are interesting and require some thought to build and conquer.

Also, brushing aside redesigning the combat and economic AI, redoing every country’s start position and all the knock-on effects of this as an invalid consideration requires a bit more of a case. Will there need to be larger troop counts, since we’ll need more sieges? Will war score change? And again, what gameplay benefit are we getting from all this? Avoiding a few annoying corners cases, sure - I hit something weird maybe once every few hundred years in game.

edit: actually, there was one argument, that it makes the strategy of putting forts in good defensive terrain more important. I think it’s actually the opposite, except in rare cases good defensive terrain will become useless because the enemy can just walk around. Unless it’s your capital, then no change.
 
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If it makes necessary to build too many forts, well, we'll add building slots and adjust the economy, and that's that.
If such adjustments are made then AI or player with strong economy will be able to build forts in every province in whole country (or at least in capital region), turning war into countless sieges. I wouldn't like such gameplay.
 
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If such adjustments are made then AI or player with strong economy will be able to build forts in every province in whole country (or at least in capital region), turning war into countless sieges. I wouldn't like such gameplay.
If you seen some Dev clashes you would know that some players today build forts in every province even today.
In every province on every land border, because anyone can get military access anywhere with little effort.
You can not get access to my land. So its enought to put it in my border provinces. Basically building a Maginot-line to stop the enemy. (The Maginot line was circumstanced since France did not build it towards neutral countries in the conflict and Germany attacked Belgium to get into France).

Most of the war score is sieging down forts. This does not change that. So does not affect war score etc. As for build slots - we have development so I am not sure that actually has to be changed at all.
However it might be good to go over the map and add some starting forts more in the start date for better game play. For example looking into adding forts to represent the chinese wall etc.

However this will make it so its more important to make sure your capital is safe by building a fort there. And probably also building a fort in any province bordering your capital to slow down the enemy.