Trying to Understand Forts (Illustrated)

[CNightwing]

I thought I understood how movement worked with the new fort rules, then I played for a while yesterday and observed two behaviours that made no sense to me.

Firstly, imagine this situation:

Red can move to the fort following any black line, but the grey lines indicate movement that is forbidden. Since forts are important, I moved my army to the enemy fort as in this example and began to siege. Then I discovered that I couldn't retreat - not to the province I came from, nor any other province - I was trapped there. Should I have sieged the intermediate province? Wouldn't it just flip straight back to the enemy? That certainly happened to the AI in a province I owned next to a fort I owned.

Second example now, consider that I won the siege:

The enemy army was approaching from the south, but I thought that my newly occupied fort would have Zone of Control over the surrounding provinces (although they didn't flip so hm). I retreated north, hoping that they would be restricted to moving to the fort and sieging, before being able to move around or through it. I was wrong - they moved as the arrow indicates, straight through the fort I occupied and engaged me in battle.

So my questions, summarised:

For determining who controls a territory without a fort, what is the order of priorities? From what I've seen, you can only seize such territories if you own the neighbouring fort, but it only automatically flips if it was also your province and fort to begin with.

Why couldn't I retreat in example 1? Was it because they built a unit there? Was it because I should have seized the territory first (and presumably stationed troops there to prevent flipping)?

Why could the enemy move straight through the fort I seized? Is it again because they owned the territory around it or do occupied forts never exert a Zone of Control?

If I get these questions answered, I promise to make diagrams for the wiki so everyone can understand forts!

 

[ChildeR]

Was there another fort adjacent that would have messed with the zones of control?

 

[CNightwing]

No other forts nor capitals were adjacent - I was Delhi invading Jaunpur if context helps.

 

[ChildeR]

No other forts nor capitals were adjacent - I was Delhi invading Jaunpur if context helps.

Ok, in that case I have no idea about the trapping problem.

However, in the second case, if the destination province was under the enemy's control (i.e. unoccupied), they should be able to move from the fort there. When at an enemy controlled fort you can move: 1) back where you came from and 2) to any adjacent friendly province.

 

[AdAstra]

Suddenly invisible nets are all over your soldiers...they cannot move...they can just siege, and die out of starvation...BUT WAIT! They can be reinforced by airdrops from the future! All that food and soldiers they ever want until 1k regiments are full!

 

[Bragi]

I wish to thank you for your efforts! At the moment, the fort system seems to be .. incompete or inconsistent. And to be honest, the rules are a bit confusing. I am not shure I like the system... I am all for complexity and stuff, but being forced to learn such a ruleset before just moving your army.. I don't know..

 

[CNightwing]

Ok, in that case I have no idea about the trapping problem.

However, in the second case, if the destination province was under the enemy's control (i.e. unoccupied), they should be able to move from the fort there. When at an enemy controlled fort you can move: 1) back where you came from and 2) to any adjacent friendly province.

Ok, so you can't move between two adjacent areas next to the enemy controlled fort, but you can move onto the fort and then off onto another friendly area. Ok. So if I had had time to siege the area to the north, the enemy army would not have been able to follow and squish me?

The trapping issue might be a bug. I'm still unclear on when a fort flips a province with its Zone of Control though.

 

[DrLulz]

Ok, so you can't move between two adjacent areas next to the enemy controlled fort, but you can move onto the fort and then off onto another friendly area. Ok. So if I had had time to siege the area to the north, the enemy army would not have been able to follow and squish me?

The trapping issue might be a bug. I'm still unclear on when a fort flips a province with its Zone of Control though.

I may be wrong, after all we are all new to the expansion, but in my experience the enemy fort will flip an occupied province within its zone of control only if a) there is no stack in the province, b) the fort is not currently under siege. So if you had occupied the province in question, I don't think it would have been flipped by the fort, provided you went straight from occupying the province to besieging the fort - and thus you would have retained a route of escape. Had you, however, moved somewhere else after occupying the province, it would have been flipped.
Again, I may be wrong, but this is how it seemed to work based on my experience with CS so far.

 

[Rinso]

I think that if red team lay siege on fort from example 1 it need to receive free movement in adjacent provinces (grey lines) for their OTHER armies. Because if fort is blockaded how it can prevent enemy armies movement? It was widely spread strategy in history: leave some army to siege the fort while other part is going next. With some attriction penalty mechanic for attacker if he break the siege it could add more depth in war mechanic.

 

[springel]

I think that if red team lay siege on fort from example 1 it need to receive free movement in adjacent provinces (grey lines) for their OTHER armies. Because if fort is blockaded how it can prevent enemy armies movement? It was widely spread strategy in history: leave some army to siege the fort while other part is going next. With some attriction penalty mechanic for attacker if he break the siege it could add more depth in war mechanic.

Forts usually controlled strategic transport routes, so even when soldiers might have moved on, they couldn't be supplied.

Fortresses did often stop the advance of an army, see all that 18th century warfare in Southern Netherlands and Northern France for the forts, or the stalemate in the 80 Years War.

It took 10 years to take Groningen around 1590 because of a network of forts and choke points through marshes. A single fort in the game may actually represent a network of redoubts.

 

[LittleFido]

I have not been able of reproducing this particular event. (Does seem like a bug to me at first glance).
Generally Forts would stop you from advancing deeper into enemy territory, however they would not block you from going back toward your own country, unless there is another Fort on the way back that would block your path. In which case this fort would block you from being able of returning to your home country. (If you let your enemy disrupt your lines that is your own fault)
You would not happen to have a save available?

 

[Dnote]

ZOC is only on the same controlled territory as far as I can tell, but I have noticed odd instances where the AI has been able to move through a fort zone without issues.

I think it would be better if ZOC applied to all allied provinces as well, not just the same nation as the fort belongs to. I find it a little strange that I can go through a fort in Switzerland into their allies territory, but can't move through the fort to another Swiss province, even though I'm at war with both of them.

 

[CNightwing]

I have not been able of reproducing this particular event. (Does seem like a bug to me at first glance).
Generally Forts would stop you from advancing deeper into enemy territory, however they would not block you from going back toward your own country, unless there is another Fort on the way back that would block your path. In which case this fort would block you from being able of returning to your home country. (If you let your enemy disrupt your lines that is your own fault)
You would not happen to have a save available?

I don't have a save from the war, I was playing on Ironman, but I will try to reproduce the problem tonight and post it here if I can. There were no other forts around, the only thing that I thought might be blocking my retreat was an enemy stack of 1 unit that had just been built - somehow that made the game forget that I came from that province and I was then stuck on the fort.

 

[LittleFido]

I did poke around a bit in the region and did observe some rather odd behavior when it comes to blocking movement.
However, a deeper investigation is needed before we can tell with any certainty exactly what the problem is.

 

[mattpilot]

on the subject of forts ..... when loading a savegame, all my mothballed forts are re-activated. They start at the 0 garrison, but slowly build up because they have their checkmark again.

 

[in heaven]

What about enemies moving through your castles? I was playing Hansa, joined Sweden war against Denmark who had ally Poland. Polish army came into my country and simply walked through my fort (through Lubeck) into Denmark..

 

[Incompetent]

Is it explained anywhere exactly what the *intended behaviour* of forts is, so we know what to report as a bug? The development diaries are not reliable because clearly the design intention has changed since then (forts can't occupy land on their own, they can only liberate land). In particular, the intended rules for occupied forts and forts adjacent to land occupied by the fort's controller are still a mystery to me.

 

[Liquid Ghost]

Visible ZoCs in Fort-view pls.

 

[Chief Iacid]

Is it explained anywhere exactly what the *intended behaviour* of forts is, so we know what to report as a bug? The development diaries are not reliable because clearly the design intention has changed since then (forts can't occupy land on their own, they can only liberate land). In particular, the intended rules for occupied forts and forts adjacent to land occupied by the fort's controller are still a mystery to me.

I don't know of such place, except for the diaries as you mention. I really think the subject is worthy a sticky thread by the devs, fully explaining the mechanics of forts.

 

[MaXimillion]

If you split and re-merge your sieging regiments so that they are now a new army, they forget which province they entered from and can no longer retreat.