Fortifications... Do they work as planned?

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Some oddities:


1.The defender of the battle, not the controller of the province gets the bonus.

So if I build forts to slow down the possible enemy offenses so that I have time to mobilize, the forst actually work against me?!?
And also building forst to slow down rebel movements is also pointless. Afterall I can not afford to have one division in every province just waiting. And if I move my army to crusht the rebels, then I suffer from the penalty myself, although the rebel armies have taken only 5% of the province under control.


2.Everyone is affected by attrition in a province with a fort.

This is insane! Pure madness! If fortificating a province is supposed to represent the preparations of the province for the use of a friendly army (Supply routes, tunnels, trenches) THEN why do my units suddendly suffer from attrition in their home province just because they have extra supplies and logistics?

It was really odd. Playing Switzerland, I had to actually disband my main army, BECAUSE I had fortified my provinces. Pure madness...



I mean 7k £ put into something that only works against you, most of the time? Madness....


Am I just playing a bugged version? Or what?

 

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2.Everyone is affected by attrition in a province with a fort.

This is insane! Pure madness! If fortificating a province is supposed to represent the preparations of the province for the use of a friendly army (Supply routes, tunnels, trenches) THEN why do my units suddendly suffer from attrition in their home province just because they have extra supplies and logistics?

Never noticed this

 

[Nightcap]

1.The defender of the battle, not the controller of the province gets the bonus.

I certainly agree the controller of the province should get the bonus and not the defender.

Perhaps the fort bonus should only count if you are the defender AND control the province.

2.Everyone is affected by attrition in a province with a fort.

If that is true then I'm sure it is a bug. I don't really build many forts though so I can't confirm it.

 

[Moquel]

Why on earth would you think that a redoubt or something similar would only work in the hands of one nation during a war? I'm pretty sure if I was able to capture a fort and the enemy was trying to take it back, that I'd be fighting alot from inside it rather than go stand in open ground to make things more even.

There is an attrition penalty in surrrounding provinces yes, and it's there for logical reasons. Soldiers don't like to stand all alone staring at an enemy stronghold. Alot of them tend to wet their pants (which of course leads to infections and such, and thus they die ) or desert when faced with something as powerful as a fort was during this period.
Keep one unit in each fortified province. It seems logical that you would like to man a fort, no? It really is useless if you just build it and leave it there and as you say will work against you.

I think for all intents and purposes, forts work in game as they would in real life, and they can thus work greatly in your favor if you use them correctly (ie not building them to hand them over :rofl: )

 

[Nightcap]

Why on earth would you think that a redoubt or something similar would only work in the hands of one nation during a war? I'm pretty sure if I was able to capture a fort and the enemy was trying to take it back, that I'd be fighting alot from inside it rather than go stand in open ground to make things more even.

If you do not have control of the province why would you have control of the fort? If you are a hostile force taking control of the province I would expect the fort would be one of the last places to be under your control. If you control the province (via right or via capture) then of course you can use the fort.

There is an attrition penalty in surrrounding provinces yes, and it's there for logical reasons. Soldiers don't like to stand all alone staring at an enemy stronghold. Alot of them tend to wet their pants (which of course leads to infections and such, and thus they die ) or desert when faced with something as powerful as a fort was during this period.
Keep one unit in each fortified province. It seems logical that you would like to man a fort, no? It really is useless if you just build it and leave it there and as you say will work against you.

I believe idealist is saying that he gets attrition from friendly forts ie ones he built on his own land and not being controlled by the enemy..

 

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Why on earth would you think that a redoubt or something similar would only work in the hands of one nation during a war? I'm pretty sure if I was able to capture a fort and the enemy was trying to take it back, that I'd be fighting alot from inside it rather than go stand in open ground to make things more even.

Excactly. IF you were able to capture it.

However with province control at 5% or less, I doubt you have yet to taken control of the whole fortifications chain, at least not effectively, at least not 100% effectively.

I think at least cancellation of all bonuses for the defender and not the controller is in place.


And Attrition seems a bit far fetched for own troops. You said I should man my all fronts. All right sounds reasonable. Tell me how I do man my forst when they all lose 1000 men daily to attrition?

And of course it would be all reasonable if one could remove fortifications, which one can not.


So if I play Korea and I decide to do the strategically right thing of fortificating my Northern border for the possible Russian invasion, I am actually doing game-play wise the wrong decision. I, as Korea, can not afford to have large armies sitting around, and most of my army relies on mobilization. That being said and acknowledging that Russians don`t DOW months before they come, it is most propable that before I can get my defences up, they have already entered my Northern provinces with the forts. So now if I counter-attack to the province that is still 80% in my hands, I get a malus for my attack, as the Russians are ... "Defending"... That makes very little... Actually is makes no sense at all.

The Russians hopped to the forts, turned the trenches and guns 180 degrees around, learned the maps and logistic plans inside out and had time to set their own mines, traps, artillery positions and aim sets in place... All this is three days?



EDIT: Beaten to it by Nightcap. o

 

[Chaingun]

I believe there is one problem with the type of fortifications that serve as static gun emplacements; they have a front,flanks and a rear. In game terms this certainly speaks for a "Controller AND Defender" rule, or even better a "Owner AND Defender" rule. It means that if a counter-attack ever occurs it is likely to be in the opposite the direction of the front of the fortress, thus rendering it much less useful to its captors who now happen to be its defenders.

I would imagine (notice "imagine" that does not equal a fact), that fortification system designers of the time had a mind set that forts should be easy to defend for the nation's troop but easy to retake. Of course, it leads to the problem of rear attacks from enemy forces that could surround it, but that problem is more at the tactical level which is a abstracted in Paradox games. In the whole an efficient strategy is to remain at one defensive line until it is breached, and then to fall back to another level and recapture the forward line later.

 

[Emre Yigit]

Why on earth would you think that a redoubt or something similar would only work in the hands of one nation during a war? I'm pretty sure if I was able to capture a fort and the enemy was trying to take it back, that I'd be fighting alot from inside it rather than go stand in open ground to make things more even.....I think for all intents and purposes, forts work in game as they would in real life, and they can thus work greatly in your favor if you use them correctly (ie not building them to hand them over :rofl: )

Well, despite the example of the defences of Singapore during WWII, I can't really agree. There, the guns faced the sea. So when the naughty Japanese attacked from the land side, pop went the fort! However, I very much doubt that redoubts would have gun emplacements facing away from the frontier!

 

[Lamprey]

And Attrition seems a bit far fetched for own troops. You said I should man my all fronts. All right sounds reasonable. Tell me how I do man my forst when they all lose 1000 men daily to attrition?

Attrition from your forts doesn't affect your own troops. I just got done loading up a save from one of my Germany games to verify this, my own troops were not affected by attrition when sitting in a fort, or when sitting in a province next to it. If your guys are suffering attrition in your home provinces, the only thing I can think of is that there is a fort across the border in Germany/Austria/France.

So if I play Korea and I decide to do the strategically right thing of fortificating my Northern border for the possible Russian invasion, I am actually doing game-play wise the wrong decision. I, as Korea, can not afford to have large armies sitting around, and most of my army relies on mobilization. That being said and acknowledging that Russians don`t DOW months before they come, it is most propable that before I can get my defences up, they have already entered my Northern provinces with the forts. So now if I counter-attack to the province that is still 80% in my hands, I get a malus for my attack, as the Russians are ... "Defending"... That makes very little... Actually is makes no sense at all.

The Russians hopped to the forts, turned the trenches and guns 180 degrees around, learned the maps and logistic plans inside out and had time to set their own mines, traps, artillery positions and aim sets in place... All this is three days?

Actually, it makes perfect sense. Imagine you're the Russian general invading Korea. You cross the border, and you see a fortress just sitting there, unmanned. Not a single defender in sight. What do you do? First, you thank God that your opponents are morons and didn't man their border forts in time of war; second, you man those forts with your troops ASAP. You don't wait for your troops to establish control over the province, railways, communication networks, administration centers - you man the fortress first, then you go about occupying the province. Especially if you know that enemy forces are coming to counterattack.

As for learning plans, maps? They came with their own maps when invading, every army does. Planting mines doesn't take that long, and there's no need to turn trenches around. It's just a long ditch in the ground, all you have to do is have your troops face the other way.



Idealist, if you're not able to keep your border forts manned, don't build border forts. It's as simple as that. If you let the enemy capture them without a fight then you're essentially shooting yourself in the foot by building them. But if you do fortify, keep a division in each fort at all times if you're expecting a war. I'm sure that Korea, with its 50 million population, can afford to maintain a 3-5 division standing army On the Korean border, in a province with mountains/forests/fortifications, a well-dug in single division can easily hold off 10 or 15 enemy ones.

 

[Lotus Lo]

forts work fine for me

forts should be the defender, not attacker. regardless of the color of the prov. attrition may affect allies, but no you directly, only others.

 

[Yaiko]

Yeah, don't plan to build forts if you can't man them properly. If your enemy has 5-8 full strength divisions facing your fort, and you have only one defended with reduced army size during peace, you're gonna get thrashed. As Korea, there should be another province down that can also hold the frontier as one province. Build your forts there, keep a few divisions dug in heavy there, and a few on the border to hold up the enemy and discourage attacks. Should work until reserves are up.

 

[King of Men]

Well, I suspect this will never be implemented, but perhaps it should at least take longer to take control of a province with a fort? Diehard defenders in the tunnels, style of thing.

 

[Golden_Deliciou]

As for learning plans, maps? They came with their own maps when invading, every army does.

This is variable. Both the French and Germans had good invasion maps in 1870. However when the fighting turned out all to be in France they were at a disadvantage- the French had no maps of their own country.

Planting mines doesn't take that long, and there's no need to turn trenches around. It's just a long ditch in the ground, all you have to do is have your troops face the other way.

Not quite. A trench has a very definite front, with a rampart and a firing step, and a back with a dugout and communications trenches running back to the rear.

 

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btw only trenches cause attrition.
and all people should be able to use trenches, if they capture them, the thing is, how often do armies capture trenches against a good enemy, it must be a -50% on the attackers just for fortifications, when coupled with digging in, and artillery, the enemy should have about 1% fighting efficency.
meaning 1 group of soldiers should be able to hold 20-40 divisions.
thanks,
dessa

 

[Golden_Deliciou]

btw only trenches cause attrition.
and all people should be able to use trenches, if they capture them, the thing is, how often do armies capture trenches against a good enemy, it must be a -50% on the attackers just for fortifications, when coupled with digging in, and artillery, the enemy should have about 1% fighting efficency.
meaning 1 group of soldiers should be able to hold 20-40 divisions.
thanks,
dessa

Well, typically the AI retreats if it's outnumbered 10-1 or more. And there's morale.

 

[Mattias]

Not quite. A trench has a very definite front, with a rampart and a firing step, and a back with a dugout and communications trenches running back to the rear.

Actually peace-time fortifications always have to be made to withstand attacks from the rear as well as from the front because they are only fairly local strongholds, absolutely not covering an entire province. Their main function is to force the enemy to surround them with large forces (to avoid counter attacks) and to deny him the unhindered use of strategically important places like harbours, river crossings, mountain passes etc. Don't mix peace-time forts with war time field fortifications manned by your entire army (=dug in in game terms). As mentioned by others forts are of no use if unmanned, then they are just a lump of stone and concrete. /M

 

[unmerged(25612)]

For anyone interested, here is my Swiss game in a zip file:

Here. 1.1Mb


Just mobilize the entire army, and put one soldier on every province. All provinces are lvl 4 and will soon be lvl 5.

Some armies suffer from attrition, but some don`t... I don`t get it. The armies that are in the border of another country do, but the other countries don`t have forts!!!

Anyone care to explain... The armies landlocked in the middle do not suffer from attrition.

9 provinces, one division in each:

Situation after the first month:

Provinces that suffered from no attrition: Zürich, Luzern, Bellizona and Neuchâtel.
Provinces that suffered attrition sorted by the losses: Basel 400, Bern and Geneve 300, Sitten and Chur 100.


What causes this? Okay Basel is obvious with the German fort in Mülhausen, but what about Bern! 300 men surrounded by own forts!?!?!? (I have lvl 5 railroads in each province also full land tech and medicine innovations).

And why are not Luzern or Bellizona losing anything, being adjancent to enemy territory and units, at least compared to Geneve and Sitten and Chur?!?!?!


(My game seems to crash a couple of months into the game, and I don`t know why, but if someone can finish the half a year wait and mobilize the army and wait for the month to pass to see the results with lvl 5 forts)

 

[Lotus Lo]

cant d/l

 

[Nightcap]

I believe this is [the correct address]

 

[ConcordantNexus]

I can't download it either...

however - a thought occured to me: could you have assigned a leader that has an attrition PENALTY?

corrupt - org -5%, att +2%, rel -5
unfit - sp -5%, att +2%
unqualified - sp -10% att +5%

hellbent - sp +40%, att +10%