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

[Pellucid]

How long is ETA? Hours? Days? Weeks?

I'd wager about a week or two. If I were in charge of a dev team, I'd schedule everyone to work extra hours on patch day to hotfix things, but then give them a bit of a break in scheduled hours afterward to keep morale up. I imagine something like this is why we see really fast hotfixes but then a relatively slower next release.

 

[xAsura]

Playing as a colonial power like Canada or the U.S they can be useful for fighting the European great powers. Build them along the coast and you wont have to worry about being besieged due to the fact that they never have enough transports to bring a large enough army across to fully siege. Can be helpful if you don't want to keep constantly watching for enemy fleets trying to land near your coast. Thats what I did in my last game as Canada as it was too annoying siege all of Central America and South America well watching the Atlantic for transports. Although by the end of the game I was paying like 90 ducats a month for these forts as I had built a line of them across the entire coast of North America. Most weren't lvl 4 though mostly lvl 3.

 

[Nirmara]

Most of the time, it's way cheaper to pay the upkeep of your fort (even higher level forts) than paying for the maintenance of your army. It can also enable you to fight wars with huge numerical inferiority due to the difficulty they will have to join their army. All you have to do then is concentrate your army on a front and wipe them out before turning to the other and repeating the process until you can peace out or go on the offensive.

Also, you can always mothball forts in region your not actually fighting when you have to pay the full maintenance for your army. For example, when I fight in India as a European power, I mothball my forts in Europe due to the fact that my army there is at full morale.

Playing as a colonial power like Canada or the U.S they can be useful for fighting the European great powers. Build them along the coast and you wont have to worry about being besieged due to the fact that they never have enough transports to bring a large enough army across to fully siege.

I'm not sure this is optimal. Most nation tend to have very few transports and therefore can't land huge army at the same time. You would probably have been better off keeping a navy enough to destroy theirs or an army or two large enough to fend of the stack they land. As long as you kill their army before they land an other one, you should always have numerical superiority.

 

[xAsura]

I'm not sure this is optimal. Most nation tend to have very few transports and therefore can't land huge army at the same time. You would probably have been better off keeping a navy enough to destroy theirs or an army or two large enough to fend of the stack they land. As long as you kill their army before they land an other one, you should always have numerical superiority.

I'll concede that it is probably better to do it your way and my example was a bit extreme. Only reason I did it this way was I found it to be to much micro managing to constantly watch for transports along the entire east coast of North America while fighting my wars in Central and South America. Besides I was making 400 plus ducats a month and could pay off those forts with my gold provinces alone so. Also I did have the largest fleet in the world at the time and usually would destroy the enemy transports after I saw them land some troops and knew where they were but by doing what I did i kept the enemy army trapped there sieging a province they could never take so there was that.

 

[xAsura]

Honestly I just see high level forts as manpower drains against enemy nations or my example above trapping an army in a single province. It forces the a.i to keep a sizable portion of their army besieging a single province and in turn drains much more of their manpower then a small fort would do.

 

[ywxiao]

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.

This is a valid point. Building forts in mountains means taking heavy losses when you try to relieve the fort.

IMO there should be a penalty for armies in a siege, maybe a tactics penalty because you are facing a two front battle.

 

[salmanbabri]

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 lower supply limit & they provide fort extra defence (something like 25% defensiveness). Another advantage is that since mountain provinces are poor, you can scorch earth them for little income loss and increase the defensiveness & attrition even more.

 

[Phibs]

This is a valid point. Building forts in mountains means taking heavy losses when you try to relieve the fort.

IMO there should be a penalty for armies in a siege, maybe a tactics penalty because you are facing a two front battle.

What are the rules if one were to sally (sortie) from the fort a day before the relieving army arrives? Would that circumvent the problem?

 

[gaius valerius]

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.

As in: an exploit

 

[Valynor]

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).

I don't like this way of buying army tradition. I can wage war for two third of my time staying at 15% AT, but keeping men inside a fortress teach me how to fight?
Of course the actual numbers are important, but the philosophy looks like off to me.

Anyway, nobody likes the countries I play, so what do I know?

 

[Swami]

High level forts are better if you are fighting a two front war, it can be the difference between winning or losing a war. If you have enough time to force one side out of the war before turning upon the other side that's a huge advantage. Also being able to put you army on the lowest maintenance because you know you'll have plenty of time recovering moral when attacked, will probably save you more money then those few forts cost. Especially in late game you will need your army always on full moral with only lvl 1 forts to protect you. On the other hand, when playing colonial you'll always need your entire army maintenance up, because you can't 'mothball' armies. It should have an option: 'Keep this army always at full suply' or something. So that your two regiments in your colony don't get wiped out by natives...

 

[gaius valerius]

I don't like this way of buying army tradition. I can wage war for two third of my time staying at 15% AT, but keeping men inside a fortress teach me how to fight?
Of course the actual numbers are important, but the philosophy looks like off to me.

Anyway, nobody likes the countries I play, so what do I know?

Not necessarily true, I imagine AT being the sum of your entire military effort. In practice that means having men under arms, this can be either in garrison duty or on active campaign. Training - the hallmark of the modern army - is no less important than actual fighting. In that light there is nothing weird about forts giving AT. They are a significant military investment.