Fortifications

[Cat Lord]

From the enlightened one (Peter Ebbesen, may his name be blessed by generations of EU" players):

(during civil wars) besiege the hell out of potential revolters immediately. Yet another good reason for not wasting money on fortifications past L2. (If even that)

That's interesting.

My general behaviour was to fortify certain strategic provinces up to level 3 or 4: province w/ manufactories, province being vital Line Of Supply, remote province without army to be raised in the vicinity, etc, etc

For example, being France, I begin colonising the siberian corridor up to the gold provinces. The russian appears just after me in the vicinity. As very few province could raise armies in the area, and as armies are suffering horribly high rates of attritions in winter down there (and those are marshes too), I was fortifying provinces w/ gold or being the LoS there.

Yet this strategy backfired during civil war: I lost two of them which rebels and eventually go to Russia. Rebellion did not spread though as the rebel armies created immediately disappeared as expected (being eaten by Baba Yaga probably, it is a bit to north and flat to be the act of the yetis).

Nevertheless these provinces are probably lost for ever for the very same reason, sending a sufficiently strong army there to besiege lvl 4 town is probably suicidal (and would mean DoW my beloved Russian ally).

Are other players using fortifications and how ?

Cat
Yet :

 

[chegitz guevara]

I fortify border provinces as much as I can. When playing as Russia, I didn't bother to fortify Siberia at all, except the gold provinces. Unless you are constantly expanding, it's worth the money, as it cuts off the enemy armies as they head into your interior.

 

[unmerged(7996)]

I fortify my colonies...especially when playing a Catholic nation...to keep Spain and Portugal out. I fortify islands as much as possible. I usually don't do too much fortifying in provinces with a land connection to my capitol as I can muster the troops to retake those easily. The only exception to that is if there is a particular province that the ai seems to always seige...and...it has high attrition (snow). Then I fortify it and watch as the AI wastes troops.


A question on forts in colonies. If the colony population is 1500, does building a level 2 fort provide any benefit over a level 1 fort? When you siege a level 2 fort, the garrison is still set at whatever the colony population is IIRC?

 

[unmerged(7300)]

I will always fortify everyone (including colonies-turned-cities-in -the-middle-of-siberia) up to level 1. But never beyond that, unless I'm very wee, and may find myself with every province beseiged.

Of course, I always, always, always, assault, as soon as it's available, so my advice may be taken with a grain of salt.

Dyr

 

[Cat Lord]

A question on forts in colonies. If the colony population is 1500, does building a level 2 fort provide any benefit over a level 1 fort? When you siege a level 2 fort, the garrison is still set at whatever the colony population is IIRC?

AFAIK, there is no correlation between population/fort troops.

This is why it was suggested that w/ 1500 people on an island and 5000 troops to defend when sieged, the troops were probably mostly composed of sheeps and chickens

Cat

 

[unmerged(7996)]

I could have sworn that when I sieged Quatara in North Africa, they had a level 1 fort and only 2500 men in the garrison? Is my memory playing tricks on me?

 

[BiB]

Fortress numbers get halved when the population is too small. But that's the only connection

 

[unmerged(7996)]

Originally posted by BiB
Fortress numbers get halved when the population is too small. But that's the only connection

So...it is more susceptible to assualt...but...will still stand as long as any other fort (of the same level) under ordinary siege conditions despite the small garrison?

 

[unmerged(5664)]

Except in very particular circumstances, fortifications are a waste of money.

Once you reach a certain level of power you should never allow enemy armies into your own country - always take the battle to him/her. Fortifications can only slow you down in taking provinces from rebels.

BarristerBoy

 

[Castellon]

Originally posted by BarristerBoy
Except in very particular circumstances, fortifications are a waste of money.

Once you reach a certain level of power you should never allow enemy armies into your own country - always take the battle to him/her. Fortifications can only slow you down in taking provinces from rebels.

BarristerBoy

You do not even build level 1 forts?

 

[Carolus Rex]

If I'm going to play a warmonger game, never bigger than lvl2.

If I'm peaceful, the bigger the better.

 

[unmerged(749)]

I always, fortify cities I've founded with a level 1 fort and upgrade on a case-by case basis.

When lands are annexed from another power, I don't upgrade any forts until the default revolt risk goes down to zero. It's just too common for rebels to seize the province and then you have to retake them - the bigger the fort the bigger the pain.

 

[unmerged(6925)]

I never fortify provinces which have revolt risk. I do, however, fortify provinces which are in "strategic" positions

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Unless I am playing a very nice and peaceful game (a rare occurrence), my assumption is that I will have to retake any province I own at least once during game play, and usually several times.

And usually I am proved right.

And it is always the damn rebels, not my enemies, who are the problem, and the rebels can instantly capture the fortification, no matter what the level.

So the major result of paying hard earned ducats to upgrade fortifications, is to have to pay even more to retake them sometime in the future with the attendant danger of revolting nations forming because you spent too long time besieging.

So every province is upgraded to level 1, or level 2 if it is on the border or important, and I am feeling rich and have nasty enemies, since the level 1 fortresses fall very fast to a determined AI.

A very few other provinces may be fortified higher because of an absurdly low supply limit in a province I will keep marching troops through, but that's a rare occurrence.

Put your faith in troops and not in static defenses.

(Ok, I admit it. I often fortify my capital all the way up to maximum, for style. A complete waste of money just like the Fine Arts Academy I build in the capital, but it looks nice and suits the "HAH! Nobody will take me alive, do you hear me! NOBODY!" mentality so well-loved by deranged monarchs through history.)

 

[unmerged(5664)]

Originally posted by Castelion


You do not even build level 1 forts?

It's usually not an issue except for colonies. There, I will often build up to level 1. Your enemies will often have only very small armies in colonies, so a level one fort does protect against losing the province to 1000 men.

Otherwise not really, unless there are particular circumstances. I will build a level 1 fort in, say, Kola (which doeesn't start with a fort), just because of the chance of decimating enemy troops through attrition.

BarristerBoy

 

[Baron Jukaga]

Off on a tangent here....

It bugs me the way the AI builds up massive forts in every province it has, as soon as it can. Mobile warfare seems to die out in my games as soon as everyone and their dog starts building level 4 forts. How can you seige a province that can support only 10k of your troops when you need at least 25000 to seige, or 50000 to assault. The attritrion deaths reach insane levels in these late games. Verdun, 200 years early. Perhaps one should only be able to built fortifications in that high for cities that can support them. IE at least a 20000 pop before a level 2 fort, 50000 pop before a level 4.

 

[Castellon]

Historically a lot of the big forts were not in high pop provences. This has been discussed at length before with a few suggestions being offered but since Paradox has said only bug fixes from now on we will not see any changes to this.

 

[Baron Jukaga]

I know, but it still buggers up the late game when almost all warfare in Europe is reduced to stunting gaps of expansion and contraction... lucky if one province changes hands now and again. Oh well, off to rape Asia.

 

[sirbruce]

Originally posted by Baron Jukaga
I know, but it still buggers up the late game when almost all warfare in Europe is reduced to stunting gaps of expansion and contraction... lucky if one province changes hands now and again.

Napolean aside, isn't that fairly accurate historically?

Bruce

 

[unmerged(5664)]

Indeed. As history went on exchanges of territory became smaller and smaller (with the exception of Napoleon).

And it isn't that difficult to take higher fortifications. You just need to assault more liberally, whereas sieging would carry the day earlier on.

BarristerBoy