Let\'s Change Forts
 

Wow, I'd agreed with the general principle in the last post on the matter, but I didn't really appreciate the true knuckle-gnawing frustration of it until now.

Nations are very much punished by having "good" fort types in terrain that they're SUPPOSED to be well-suited to.

Really the main purpose of a fort is for the buying of caommanders, usually mages. When you charge a nation 1200!!!! gold pieces to construct one in a forest (as Pangaea) when the normal price is 800, and 5 turns to build instead of 3... that is UNQUESTIONABLY a disadvantage.

This definitely, definitely needs a change.

Re: Let\'s Change Forts
 

To me, the fort system is basically broken. You're rewarded for building your forts in the most abysmal locations possible because they cost less and build faster, especially for nations that have sucky troops and sloth.

Personally I would like to see a tiered system where you could pick from a number of forts for a given province type, all with different construction times, defense values, and costs.

I'd also like to see the fort's defense value mean more than just the amount of time a defender has to take ripping down the walls. Seriously, if I'm going to sink 1.2k and 5 turns into a fortress, it should be shooting FLAMING BAT'LETHS OF DOOM.

Jazzepi

Re: Let\'s Change Forts
 

At the least, forts should come with their own PD chaff when they're stormed.

Re: Let\'s Change Forts
 

Another option would be to raise the tax bonus from admin (admin value instead of admin value/2 %, so fortified cities would be really interesting to build on rich farmlands).

It wouldn't solve the problem of hard to build forts with low admin and hard defense.

To give them an utility, I would find logical if supply availables for besiegers were reduced a lot instead of increased by the presence of ennemy forts. When provinces are attacked, peasants should logically take refuge in the fortress, especially if it looks hard to take, instead of helping the invaders, giving them food and gold. Diminishing ennemy supplies and province income by base defense value of the fort /10 (so -70% on a province with mountain fortress) would be a good idea IMO (but may advantage too much undead or nosupply units nations).

Re: Let\'s Change Forts
 

I think the cash is .. well a think you should accept.. you get some benefits for it after all.

I do think all forts should just be build in 3 turns, maybe the cheapest in 2.

Or... and this might be better.. make the weaker forts much weaker than they are now in admin and supply etc.

Re: Let\'s Change Forts
 

Peasants do not refuge in a fort because that would be worthless mouths to feed during a siege. Castles are reserved for fighting men and those with useful trades, like blacksmiths and coopers and such.

Re: Let\'s Change Forts
 

The main reason forts are as they are was to avoid to see everyone building the cheapest/fastest to build forts everywhere, something which ruined many dom2 games.

If all forts are changed to have the same build time or cost I think it should be high ones, 5 or 6 turns, 1000+ gold. Or if a choice is made possible, fast to build forts should be more expensive than others.

Re: Let\'s Change Forts
 

Currently building time and cost are directly related. The faster to build, the cheaper. It could be changed, of course, but is way, way less likely than fortress modding commands.

Re: Let\'s Change Forts
 

I don't think the devs are likely to ever change this. But if they were I'd like to see forts return to the pretender design screens, but this time not as a simple choice but rather as follows:

Give default nation "thematic" fort types for different terrains. Then allow player to change those values, so that the factors of how fast it takes to build a castle, its admin and defense all count towards making it more expensive.

Re: Let\'s Change Forts
 

Personally I would think that people should have to "buy down" all the bad qualities of a fort like build time, and "buy up" all the good qualities in the pretender design screen like defense value, supply value, administration.

I think what might happen though would be that people would pick 0 for supply 0 for defense and as much administration as possible with as little cost and build time as possible. To me all this means is that supply and defense should be made more interesting and useful, currently they're neither.

Jazzepi