Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

Just curious, never really tried it, was considering it for a nation which IMO would require a lot of capital-only troops requiring high resources and without a great need for indy troops. Marignon standard with a good blessing fits this bill for me. The 5-Turn wait puts me off, but the 50 admin sounds appealing. What is your experience with the fortified city?

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

I have used them with Man-std (bad results with LotT, good KoA production) and Marignon-std (Good results when I had a good starting prov) and Arcoscephale-GE (to help counteract forced sloth in an unsuccessful attempt to make armies of Arco-GE units). Their effectiveness depends on what starting location you draw, but you'll end up with a little bigger army of strong national troops. I would say the only good use for it is squeezing a little extra resources out of your main at the expense of being able to expand your unit production over a large area. You also cannot place them within 2 squares of each other because if they share a square that you want to produce something on (e.g. a sage or something) the two adjacent fortified cities will consume all of the provinces resources. It's a very restrictive castle and I usually just go with the Castle or Fortress if I need a little extra production boost. My brother uses FC with Pythium on occasion to increase his emerald guard production. You have to be very picky about your new fort positions, but they pay off pretty well if you pick a nice mountainy/foresty area.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

I like to use a fortified city for Man (standard) in combination with a big blessing for my wardens. Clear out the provinces immediately around the capitol and watch the resources pour in. Note that I usually play on smaller and/or crowded maps, and my choices (Man, fortified city) reflect this.

Yes, build time is a pain, and like Verjigorm said you do need to be very selective when building a new one. I suspect Ulm could make good use of a fortified city (needs lots of resources, has lots of gold) but I've never tried it myself.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

I have used Ulm several times with a fortified city. It works okay, but a castle is probably better. Fortified cities are definately better than castles, but the extra 300 gold you pay sucks. On a super-small map they might be worth it (because the first one's free!).

I personally think all 300 gold castles should cost like 350, and all 750 gold castles should cost like 650.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

The cost of fortresses is currently 150 * time to build.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

As far as I am concerned there are two castles worth considering on land:

1. The watchtower - cheap in design points, cheap and quick to build, and a
stumbling block to any invader.
2. The castle - slightly inferior to the fortified city, as a castle, but cheaper
and much faster to build.

The wizard tower is a very nice castle, but costs 120 design points. Who can
afford this?! Everything else is crap. It is true that in a game of mine I am
getting frustrated besieging Mountain Citadels with 350 defense, but I cannot
help but think that maybe, if my opponent had taken a better castle, he would not
have had to man his capital's walls three turns after invading my lands. By the
way, Caelum fell, it just took four turns.

It is no wonder that in Multuplayer, you mostly see watchtowers. I would say
that the best players use them exclusively.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

How about Mausoleums? They have walls but Watchtowers don't.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

You know Kristoffer, you should really export this in a text file... I never ever saw somebody playing with a mountain citadel eg. The added defense dont compensate in any way the feeble eco bonus, and the huge cost and build time.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

About the administration. Does 'admin 50' mean that a Fortified city can 'pump over' up to 50 resources from each adjacent province? If yes, then admin 40 is more than enough. Usually I consider myself lucky to get even one adjacent province with a res 40+, and two with resources 30-40, even when I have a strong production scale.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

Nope. That number is a percentage of available resources, so a province with two adjacent Fortified cities (each sucking 50% of its res) has no resorces at its disposal.

Verjigorm already mentioned this in this thread...

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

Hmm, yes. We are currently reworking fortresses in dom3. Not sure how dom2 will be affected. Probably not too much, but perhaps some moddability can be incorporated.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

Hey, neato!


This is interesting.
I tend to disagree, but I suppose that depends on what you mean by "best players" and "mostly watchtowers". I suppose those that feel they belong to the "best players" should post here.
Wizard Tower: I have used it with quite palpable success with Pythium, which gets me both decent income and resources for my principes as well as quick forts all over for lots and lots of cheapo communion slaves. As to who can afford it, well, I felt that Pythium could, and certainly even more so could, for example, Caleum, or any nation with high temp settings. Never tried, though, cause I like a castle. I agree with the Mountain Citadel however, I cant imagine the context in which that could be a real boon.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

Maybe if many "castle plans" could be bought, the Mountain Citadel would be worth buying for those strategically important but economically poor provinces. It might still not be worth buying, but having it in addition to Watchtower/some other cheap castle could provide some interesting possibilities...

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

I am not saying that I am one of the best players, but I will challenge anyone who dares to say that I am not! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I use only watchtowers, but it may be due to the fact that I play only Vanheim. My forces are extremely mobile and mostly undetectable, so I can usually relieve the siege of any castle before it falls... or teleport a welcoming commitee for those who dare storm it.

Why would I even consider another castle? My troops needs little in the way of ressources, I fight mostly with mages, I like to build a castle in every province, and I don't rely on walls, tower archers and PD for defense.

In my present game, there are four races that look like possible winners. One is an underwater nation, the other three use watchtowers.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

Hmm. I thought admin drew resources from the _unused_ 50% that a province doesn't use for itself, no?

I use Fortified Cities when I want high admin and don't plan of building lots of forts. I think it's a decent choice for Ulm.

I never use watchtowers. I think they are for weenies. If many winning players use watchtowers it is perhaps more a sign of the kind of mentality of player who chooses watchtowers, and who focuses on trying to win even if it means using weenie tactics. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

PvK

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

I use castles for Ulm. Ulm's primary units can be recruited at any fortress as can their mages. The castle allows for greater overall production than the FC...you can build castles faster and closer together without restricting unit production in provinces with 2 adjacent castles. The only reason I would use an FC for Ulm is in the manner I use them with the other Capitol-only unit nations--to pump out Black Templar in Iron Faith, but I dislike Iron Faith....

As for Watchtowers being a "weenie" tactic, I disagree. I take the watchtower when I want to focus on magic--I can hire more commander units with a watchtower because I can build them right next to each other. Why should a player who has no intention of pumping out huge armies of troops have to take a "non-weenie" castle? If I take Sloth-3 for some reason, a bigger fortress is simply a waste of design points. What about the Mausoleum? Is it for weenies or does the 40 design point cost allow you to play like a weenie. Watchtowers are VERY easy to besiege. Teleporting armies can be a problem, but you shouldn't step unless you can represent http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

I usually use 3 types of forts:
- Castle - for smaller maps or for nations that don't have too many troops or mages I'd like to buy later. Also for nations that have good resource-intensive troops for early game
- Mausoleum - in other cases when the nation needs walls (lots of casters and few big troops to block the gate)
- Watch Tower - for the nations who will rely on masses of undead (for those, the walls is rather a drawback)

All 3 cases seem to work...

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

I was mostly joking about the weenie comment. I might make the same joking remark about players who have "no intention of pumping out huge armies of troops" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif unless they have some other plan to field suitably butch forces. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Real men use armies and strong forts. Perhaps real wizards don't care about machismo. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Perhaps weeniehood is in the eye of the beholder. Really, there are many different playstyles in Dominions, which are more or less good for different purposes. I brought up the weenie comment as an ironic joking contrast to some players who try to minimax and find the most successful techniques, and dismiss other options as "useless".

PvK

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

Heheh, bravo!

I like the feeling of a castle, and of higher admin too.
Nobody mentioned the admin bonus to gold, by the way, just to resources -- but forts in the right places can give a tasty gold income bonus as well. I rely on it sometimes.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

As Ctis the Hill fortress is fun too imo .
If you block the gate a bit with Mech men or similiar your 4 or 5 poison slinger towers do nice damage to almost all troops http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .
Then only the SCs are left and die maybe to your 2 or 3 skeleton spamming cheapo mages http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

Ha! Only weenies hide behind walls. Real men use watchtowers, and even that
is only because they want to make sure that everyone can make it to the battle
in time. Can you imagine how Vanjarls would feel if they miss out on the
bloodletting, or how legionaries would feel about barbarians being slaughtered
without a Theurg's blessing?

The day I let walls do my fighting for me is the day I make a brick my prophet.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

I wonder why every nation only gets one castle it is allowed to build. Imho it would be nice of you could choose as many of the given castles as you like, as long as you have the points to spend.

Fortified City for capitol, watch towers for border provinces. Sounds like real world, eh?

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

You might be one of the best players, and you might not. But how can you even remotely claim to be one of the best players and yet play only a single race? What happened to BF Ulm, which you used to play occasionally?

As for the castle selection, only the watchtower is a good selection for ANY race. Perhaps the others can be a good choice in selected situations, like the Hill Fort for Miasmi C'tis or the Fortified City for Tuatha Man or the castle for certain other playing styles, but no other choice can be used in any pretender design for any race.

If national troops were viable in the late game, then perhaps higher admin choices would be more useful. Or if MP games had victory conditions which prevented them from going on and on for so long, then other type castles would DEFINITELY be useful.

Perhaps the reason Petar says that the best players only use the watch tower is because it is difficult to win a long game unless you have a castle in every province. This means a cheap one that can be built quickly, like the watch tower. I have definitely noticed that the watch tower matches the playing style of most of the top players, which I am not among.

In fact, I am trying to recall if I have ever played a long MP game (>80 turns) where the winning player selected something besides the watch tower. And I cannot think of any such game right now...

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

I'm beginning to think that many of the so-called "balance" issues in dom2 multiplayer are because of the prevalence of "all against all" games. In those games, it is in each player's best interest to avoid war with the other players while working on his overwhelming tech.

Naturally, this leads to that overwhelming tech being "over-balanced" when the end game comes.

One approach is to change the stats in order to make alternative strategies remain competitive even at the end of very long games. Another approach is to play games such as "one team vs. one other team" or "pentagram style", where prosecuting a war earlier in the game is a worthwhile strategy.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

High admin isn't giving much advantage in the late game, but if you used high admin's advantage in the early game and squashed couple of opponents, you'd already realized the advantage of your castle and had more provinces, gem income, summoned troops etc for the late game

I'm not sure how true this statement is, but there's no rule forcing you to get into the long game. Those with watch towers may have advantage in the long game, but they need to survive to reach it. Many times I've attacked mad-castling watch tower player around turn 20-40 only to discover that he has nothing to defend them with. In aggressive games mad-castling is like baiting an opponents to attack you - everybody wants some infrastructure for free. Before somebody else has grabbed it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



I can only remember one game that has not been decided before turn 80, and in that game all watch-tower players were dead by that time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Here I must mention that I'm staying away from the games on maps large than Craddle. That's just too much micromanagement for my taste.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

I think there are really two issues here:

1. People building cheap castles in every province.

I don't think this is a big issue, it is only a real option in long games, and it is only powerfull if the player can back it up with strong armies/SCs.

2. Only a few of the forts are worth the design points.

This is the real problem in my opinion. The watch tower costs no points, while remaining cheap in game (and quick to build), and providing most of the defensive power of other forts. If each of the citadels cost zero points, they would have still in most cases be inferior to the watch tower. The rest of the forts fall somewhere between, but I don't think anyone belives citadels are a good choice as they exist now.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

Perhaps one way to make other forms of forts more useful in the end game would be to make them moddable into constructable magic sites - e.g., make it so a Wizard's Tower produces 1 Astral Pearl per turn (or perhaps 1 Air Gem), a Mountain Fortress produces 1 Earth Gem per turn, a Dark Citadel produces 1 Blood Slave per turn, a Mausoleum produces 1 Death Gem per turn, et cetera, and then leave the watch tower doing nothing useful other than it's no-point spammability.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

I agree that #2 is the real issue. I only find watch tower, mausoleum and castle to be useful. In some very rare cases, fortified city may be practical. But I can't see why I'd want one of the other forts. The main reason is that the defensive bonus doesn't worth much. In the early game you don't have neither gold nor time to build those expensive forts and in the later game, their defenses don't make much difference. If the fortification would be able to increase their might as the game advances, that would be interesting, but it's already hard to storm castles in the late game as it is. So I see the only way to make them more attractive - let them cost design points, but reduce their construction costs to be on par with watch tower.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

I would add the fortress to the usable castles. It´s almost as good as the castle, but costs 20 design points less.

I agree that the others are pretty useless. So how much should they cost, so that you would choose them?

I would see every castle as viable, if these changes to design point costs were made:
watchtower,mausoleum,fortress,castle,wizardtower unchanged.
hillfortress: -20 points
fortified city: 40 points
citadel: 40 points
dark citadel: -40 points
mountain citadel: -60 points

I´d probably still go with watchtowers in most games, but I might choose the negative point castles if you just need those few extra design points.
The citadel or fortified city would be a real alternative to the castle/fortress, if you want to have an high admin castles.

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

> But how can you even remotely claim to be one of the best players and yet play only a single race?

The same way that the best shot I know uses only Cheh-Zeh pistols. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I did not say that I was unfamiliar with the other races, or that I could not play them. Some people, *cough* *cough* feel they need to prove something, so right now they are playing Abysia despite loving air nations. Me, I play for fun, and for me, fun in Dominions II is winning with Vanheim.

On the other hand, I am about to start a team game with randomized races, so I guess I will have to play something else. It will still be an air nation, even if I have to play the Marignon theme on a map that has no seas whatsoever.

> What happened to BF Ulm, which you used to play occasionally?

I realized how limited it was. I used to play Man too... and I dropped it for a completely different reason. I'm studying to be a Powergamer *cue pompous music*

Re: Anyone use a Fortified City?
 

That's why I proposed in a parallel thread to just add a "move and storm" command (opposite to "move and patrol"), which just works when defense is exceeded twice by the attackers.

Then big numbers of national troops would have an advantage, since attacking armies would not be delayed by weakly defended watchtowers anymore; while temples would still be protected from ghostriders, teleporters, lone raiding-SCs or mere skirmishing armies. On the other hand, having a siege strength of more than e.g. 320 to immediately storm a 150 defense castle protected by 10 militia without 1 turn delay is not an easy feat as it should be, making high-defense castles more interesting to choose: You can take still take a cheap watchtower, but it would not delay big armies anymore...