Everyone knows that forts rules are broken. Everyone also know that the AI has trouble tackling attrition. Removing a fort out of the way requires enough cannons and troops to get past said fort, leading to attrition due to large armies required that the AI has to keep around.
So, how to solve this, then? The idea would require that smaller armies are preferred, running around not in one massive doom stack but in manageable forces, making skirmishes more prevalent than simply seeing who has the better morale bonus. The solution I will propose here is two-fold: one, make it so forts are simple to understand, and that taking them down is not an obligation, but a tactical choice, and two, that the use of smaller forces is promoted .
I - Terrain and army size
First thing first is the new concept to introduce to make sure that a smaller army has an advantage of sort, and in the process make terrain more important: army larger than what the province can accept suffers from diminished combat efficiency. This already exists currently in the form of mountain, hill and forest penalties to the attacker but is reworked to take note of the tactical situation. Instead of a flat out penalty to the attacker in all case, it will now look at the total army size compared to what the terrain can accept, which is already neatly determined by supply limit. For each time you exceed said supply limit, you get a cumulative -1 to combat roll, all the way to a maximum of -3 or -4, replacing the old static -1 or -2. What it does then is putting the advantage of having a high maneuver general in charge to allow a larger army to move around without risking this penalty, since it lowers the army size virtually, regarding said supply limit. Since difficult terrains have lower supply limit, it helps sorting out this problem without modifying existing value on that front. Where the problem lies however, is technology, giving few but massive boost to those values, making them much more powerful. Spreading the supply limit increase a little would avoid this problem. As a bonus, it would make the supply depots you can build from Professionalism a powerful tool for defense since it could allow a vastly larger troop size in a given area without penalties due to the high supply limit.
II - Definition of a defender
Right now, a defender is the army that arrived first in a province. Which is not really that realistic, but also tactically uninteresting. Because progress in your movement isn't lost, you are not penalized for being attacked when you are in a marching order as opposed to being deployed and waiting for your opponent. In fact, this is so ingrained into the game that the AI will march toward the army that attacks it the day movement is locked, to gain a couple days on the pursuit, if it would ever think it can win the fight. Proposed change here, is to make sure that an army counts as defending only if it is not marching. This will have a lot more impact later as you will see but for now, it means that a good defense better be static. Only exception: an army busy besieging a fort never count as defender. The benefit for being the defender is that your penalty due to supply limit is halved, rounded down. Do you can technically park an army that should suffer minimal attrition to defend a province with superior troop quantity so the opponent has to accept the penalty himself, or send smaller forces.
III - Forts for attack and defense
With this, forts can serve a completely different role. No more impassible walls, they would simply apply a speed reduction for enemy in all adjacent provinces, including itself, and at the same time, increases supply limit to the one controlling it. The effects it would have given the changes listed below are as follow:
- Enemy armies spends more time moving inside and outside a province, meaning that they are easier to catch marching instead of standing, making it difficult to the enemy to count as a defender
- Allied armies, meanwhile, have less penalties attacking, as the supply limit for them is imposing less to no penalties, making it a double whammy on an enemy force caught inside the area of a controlled fort
- In peace time, forts located in flatter terrain have the role of "army storage" area, since the increased supply limit will reduce attrition, allowing for drilling a lot more troops with a single general, but also allows for a very large force to defend an area, even if exposed to a similar large opponent. Forts in mountains, meanwhile, ensures that an army trapped on them are pretty much unable to flee incoming retaliation and are at a disadvantage way before getting enough cannons for a full siege bonus, making them a pain to conquer
- Two adjacent forts aren't more vulnerable than if separated by a full province
- Additionally, the speed penalty can be applied to navies near the coast, and disembarking troops, avoiding the need for a separate coastal fort building
IV - Other tactical considerations
I do not claim that this resolves every single problems around, and some thoughts are to be given to the consequences of such a change.
First and foremost, the tactical decision of where to place a fort. On the border, it means that you can carry some of the bonus from it inside enemy territory, allowing you to counter theirs. One province inside, however, covers more of your own territory, and allows you to park troops away from the line of sight of your enemy. Finding which one is best would be an exercise in multiplayer strategies I am not qualified for answering.
Capital fort works differently as a normal one as it doesn't have a Zone of Control in the current rules. Would it also not give the speed and supply limit penalty to neighboring provinces in the proposed ruleset? Probably so for balance reasons, but it at least ensure some defense for an OPM. However, this also means that crossing the HRE early is likely very slow and difficult.
If you're strong enough, ignoring forts seems to be a good solution to accelerate the fall of an empire, as it won't require a year of besieging down said forts to cross. This means that armies should be spread out more, which is the goal. But because of this, you need more generals to cover your armies... should they be reworked? I'd envision a pool similar to advisors, but this is outside the scope of this change.
Speaking of, should forts then changed to only protect their provinces and surrounding ones from being claimed in peace deals? This would mean that the old trick of putting a single fort in Siberia stops working, but then, what about adjacent forts? A simple rule would be that any occupied fort doesn't count during peace deal negotiation to avoid two forts protecting each others.
Could some abilities be created to play with those rules? Maybe horse only troops could be made to ignore forts so to create pillaging forces (for quite the cost and quite vulnerable in combat for anyone but hordes, but that was a valid strategy during the Hundred years war, used by the English side), or make Defensiveness bonus also increase the Supply limit bonus given by forts. Similarly, having an ability that allows marching troops in friendly territories to still count as defender, as per the current rules. Could also be a property of forts, so you can use them to protect your troops around the country.
So, how to solve this, then? The idea would require that smaller armies are preferred, running around not in one massive doom stack but in manageable forces, making skirmishes more prevalent than simply seeing who has the better morale bonus. The solution I will propose here is two-fold: one, make it so forts are simple to understand, and that taking them down is not an obligation, but a tactical choice, and two, that the use of smaller forces is promoted .
I - Terrain and army size
First thing first is the new concept to introduce to make sure that a smaller army has an advantage of sort, and in the process make terrain more important: army larger than what the province can accept suffers from diminished combat efficiency. This already exists currently in the form of mountain, hill and forest penalties to the attacker but is reworked to take note of the tactical situation. Instead of a flat out penalty to the attacker in all case, it will now look at the total army size compared to what the terrain can accept, which is already neatly determined by supply limit. For each time you exceed said supply limit, you get a cumulative -1 to combat roll, all the way to a maximum of -3 or -4, replacing the old static -1 or -2. What it does then is putting the advantage of having a high maneuver general in charge to allow a larger army to move around without risking this penalty, since it lowers the army size virtually, regarding said supply limit. Since difficult terrains have lower supply limit, it helps sorting out this problem without modifying existing value on that front. Where the problem lies however, is technology, giving few but massive boost to those values, making them much more powerful. Spreading the supply limit increase a little would avoid this problem. As a bonus, it would make the supply depots you can build from Professionalism a powerful tool for defense since it could allow a vastly larger troop size in a given area without penalties due to the high supply limit.
II - Definition of a defender
Right now, a defender is the army that arrived first in a province. Which is not really that realistic, but also tactically uninteresting. Because progress in your movement isn't lost, you are not penalized for being attacked when you are in a marching order as opposed to being deployed and waiting for your opponent. In fact, this is so ingrained into the game that the AI will march toward the army that attacks it the day movement is locked, to gain a couple days on the pursuit, if it would ever think it can win the fight. Proposed change here, is to make sure that an army counts as defending only if it is not marching. This will have a lot more impact later as you will see but for now, it means that a good defense better be static. Only exception: an army busy besieging a fort never count as defender. The benefit for being the defender is that your penalty due to supply limit is halved, rounded down. Do you can technically park an army that should suffer minimal attrition to defend a province with superior troop quantity so the opponent has to accept the penalty himself, or send smaller forces.
III - Forts for attack and defense
With this, forts can serve a completely different role. No more impassible walls, they would simply apply a speed reduction for enemy in all adjacent provinces, including itself, and at the same time, increases supply limit to the one controlling it. The effects it would have given the changes listed below are as follow:
- Enemy armies spends more time moving inside and outside a province, meaning that they are easier to catch marching instead of standing, making it difficult to the enemy to count as a defender
- Allied armies, meanwhile, have less penalties attacking, as the supply limit for them is imposing less to no penalties, making it a double whammy on an enemy force caught inside the area of a controlled fort
- In peace time, forts located in flatter terrain have the role of "army storage" area, since the increased supply limit will reduce attrition, allowing for drilling a lot more troops with a single general, but also allows for a very large force to defend an area, even if exposed to a similar large opponent. Forts in mountains, meanwhile, ensures that an army trapped on them are pretty much unable to flee incoming retaliation and are at a disadvantage way before getting enough cannons for a full siege bonus, making them a pain to conquer
- Two adjacent forts aren't more vulnerable than if separated by a full province
- Additionally, the speed penalty can be applied to navies near the coast, and disembarking troops, avoiding the need for a separate coastal fort building
IV - Other tactical considerations
I do not claim that this resolves every single problems around, and some thoughts are to be given to the consequences of such a change.
First and foremost, the tactical decision of where to place a fort. On the border, it means that you can carry some of the bonus from it inside enemy territory, allowing you to counter theirs. One province inside, however, covers more of your own territory, and allows you to park troops away from the line of sight of your enemy. Finding which one is best would be an exercise in multiplayer strategies I am not qualified for answering.
Capital fort works differently as a normal one as it doesn't have a Zone of Control in the current rules. Would it also not give the speed and supply limit penalty to neighboring provinces in the proposed ruleset? Probably so for balance reasons, but it at least ensure some defense for an OPM. However, this also means that crossing the HRE early is likely very slow and difficult.
If you're strong enough, ignoring forts seems to be a good solution to accelerate the fall of an empire, as it won't require a year of besieging down said forts to cross. This means that armies should be spread out more, which is the goal. But because of this, you need more generals to cover your armies... should they be reworked? I'd envision a pool similar to advisors, but this is outside the scope of this change.
Speaking of, should forts then changed to only protect their provinces and surrounding ones from being claimed in peace deals? This would mean that the old trick of putting a single fort in Siberia stops working, but then, what about adjacent forts? A simple rule would be that any occupied fort doesn't count during peace deal negotiation to avoid two forts protecting each others.
Could some abilities be created to play with those rules? Maybe horse only troops could be made to ignore forts so to create pillaging forces (for quite the cost and quite vulnerable in combat for anyone but hordes, but that was a valid strategy during the Hundred years war, used by the English side), or make Defensiveness bonus also increase the Supply limit bonus given by forts. Similarly, having an ability that allows marching troops in friendly territories to still count as defender, as per the current rules. Could also be a property of forts, so you can use them to protect your troops around the country.
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