Is there any reason to build a higher tier fort than 1?

[gaius valerius]

But I mean, are these things worth 1.5 gold/month during peace and 3 gold/month during war? Because that's what you're paying for them over tier 1.

By the time you reach Tier 2 and above you are arguably running a larger income? They are good strongpoints and slow down the enemies advance, in the interior they might be of use to stall rebels. In any casing, I'd say keeping enemies tied to forts longer and with more troops hopefully suffering attrition is as good a reason as any

 

[beckermt]

To be honest though, even AI attacking your army set in mountains is a rare event though... AI is stupid, but not that stupid, unless they really outnumber you. Or if this is the only chokepoint.

Although, if you're sitting on the fort in mountains, then the AI will be reluctant to attack and can only siege a few provinces, they can't move past the fort without first going through your army.

Yeah, you've used up an army, but you've potentially made an unassailable choke point, unless the AI makes the suicidal drive. Of course, the disadvantage is that if the fort falls (which will take longer because of defensiveness bonuses) now you have to deal with a fort on a mountain (although, not the ZoC).

 

[DavidRoyman]

Why would I build (the strong/main) forts in the mountains? I can park my armies in the mountains fort or no.
I usually build my forts in provinces I can easily attack sieging stacks in to utilize the fact I have unrestricted movement while the aggressor has to siege forts to advance.

• Mountains have huge bonus to the defense, which means slower "ticks" for the progress of the siege, making the siege there last 50% longer.
• Mountains have lower supply, which means more attrition.
  
• Some mountains will also be in a "severe winter" province (Switzerland for example) making the manpower drain even worse.

This in my opinion means that:

• If you're using forts to defend against invaders, best to place them on mountain provinces.
• If you use forts to defend against rebels, place them to cover the map with the last amount of them.

 

[taltamir]

I noticed that by the time I can build a tier 3 fort, tier 1 forts can fall in a single month as if there wasn't a fort at all. (there is still some element of luck there though)

 

[hashinshin]

Up-to-date fully maintained forts will give you army tradition in 1.13 (scaled depending on how many forts you have compared to your total development).

Neat. This is actually a really good change.

 

[Bramborough]

External defense strategy aside (and lots of good points from different perspectives in this thread), I don't really get the side-discussion about forts for rebel defense/control.

Sure if rebels happen to spawn in a fort province, then obviously the fort is useful. But if they don't, then fort ZOC is meaningless. The rebel stack still quickly takes the non-fort province, and you still get the +10 separatism years regardless. I've generally followed the "internal forts throughout territory" model; every province is in a fort ZOC.

I find it easy (as I'm sure everyone else does) to send an army to crush a revolt. But unless I don't have any wars going and have planned ahead to have a sufficient army sitting right where I know they will spawn, I find it difficult to kill the rebel stack quick enough to prevent the extended separatism. And this would be the same situation if I had zero forts.

What am I missing?

 

[Phibs]

things

I think size and terrain matter. While playing in 'dense' places, this might be less of an issue.
But having your army march across the better part of asia (geographically) or large swaths of mountainous terrain as russia or a horde or persia to wipe some rebel stack can take a good while.

 

[Dnote]

I use high level forts on key strategic provinces, some within my country, but mainly in my over-seas provinces where I don't keep large standing armies.

 

[taltamir]

External defense strategy aside (and lots of good points from different perspectives in this thread), I don't really get the side-discussion about forts for rebel defense/control.

Sure if rebels happen to spawn in a fort province, then obviously the fort is useful. But if they don't, then fort ZOC is meaningless. The rebel stack still quickly takes the non-fort province, and you still get the +10 separatism years regardless. I've generally followed the "internal forts throughout territory" model; every province is in a fort ZOC.

I find it easy (as I'm sure everyone else does) to send an army to crush a revolt. But unless I don't have any wars going and have planned ahead to have a sufficient army sitting right where I know they will spawn, I find it difficult to kill the rebel stack quick enough to prevent the extended separatism. And this would be the same situation if I had zero forts.

What am I missing?

You aren't missing anything that argument is nonsense.
Also, rebel regiments can end up clumping up on the fort which will eventually conquer it, but worse, make them into a doomstack instead of many small easily digestible stacks. significantly increasing your losses against them. Attrition is meaningless against rebels too

 

[Strangedane]

What am I missing?

It's not your fault, obviously, because the tooltips still lie, but when rebels snatch a territory within ZOC, you do NOT get +10 years of seperatism, or other bad effects.
The ZoC prevents that.

 

[hjarg]

It's not your fault, obviously, because the tooltips still lie, but when rebels snatch a territory within ZOC, you do NOT get +10 years of seperatism, or other bad effects.
The ZoC prevents that.

True that. If province is within ZoC of the fort, even if rebels take the province, you will not get +10 separatism.

 

[solamyas]

Up-to-date fully maintained forts will give you army tradition in 1.13 (scaled depending on how many forts you have compared to your total development).

How long is ETA? Hours? Days? Weeks?

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Up-to-date fully maintained forts will give you army tradition in 1.13 (scaled depending on how many forts you have compared to your total development).

Well now there's a reason to actually maintain forts outside of wars. Army tradition is much harder to get up than naval, I'll be very happy to see this change.

 

[Lajinn]

I would probably upgrade forts, but that's mostly because money is nothing. After a certain point (the point when you will likely be able to upgrade forts), you're so rich that you could throw your money away and still have enough to beat your enemies into submission with it. As great as being rich is, floating several thousand ducats after upgrading all province buildings doesn't do much for you

 

[net.split]

I was excited for the larger garrisons and a bit disappointed they were cut so deeply. The early numbers were perhaps outrageous but having strong garrisons makes for interesting defensive strategies with sallying. Especially useful since defenders tend to lose (apart from when bugs are present AI calculates wars where they should have superiority before declaring).

Maybe if there were some specific bonuses you could get that made your garrisons larger so it's not the same for every nation. It could piggyback on +Fort Defensiveness I suppose, but I'd rather a separate modifier. Another set of buildings would be great for this so that you could really focus a province on playing defense. Perhaps a minor bonus from military development as well, though that's already a pretty strong development option.

 

[grommile]

Maybe if there were some specific bonuses you could get that made your garrisons larger

Quantity Idea 6: +25% Garrison Size.

 

[Ixal]

Put high level forts in mountains and other low supply provinces (burn them if you can). That way the enemy has to commit a large number of forces to the province while taking huge attrition losses.

 

[taltamir]

Up-to-date fully maintained forts will give you army tradition in 1.13 (scaled depending on how many forts you have compared to your total development).

We are going to need a way to tell the difference between building a new fort and upgrading an existing one.
Actually the ability to skip steps when building means in general it would be nice to have an "upgrade" menu for buildings.

By the time you reach Tier 2 and above you are arguably running a larger income? They are good strongpoints and slow down the enemies advance, in the interior they might be of use to stall rebels. In any casing, I'd say keeping enemies tied to forts longer and with more troops hopefully suffering attrition is as good a reason as any

in europe where the land starts out as highly developed.
In most of the world even as a massive blob your income is not nearly as good until you are able to mass build manufactories which is between forts T3 and T4. And at which point you would want to get a super navy of 50 heavy ships and a bunch of +3 advisors which will eat up a lot of your income.

 

[grommile]

We are going to need a way to tell the difference between building a new fort and upgrading an existing one.

Provinces which already contain a lower building in the same series as the building you've just selected in the macro build interface are a darker shade of green than provinces which don't.

 

[billclintonmask]

Does the AI prioritize sieging low level forts? Could be a good way to lure enemy stacks into open terrain for easy kills or into low supply provinces to maximize attrition.