The problem of fort types

[sector24]

Well as long as we're wishing...

Seems like national forts should have battlefield enchantments like the cave fort's darkness effect. C'tis might have a mud effect outside the castle walls in their swamp forts. A 10-20% air shield surrounding the castle for another nation, etc. So they'd still be more expensive, but that expense would translate into a far more defensible castle.

Back in the real world, it does seem counter-intuitive that the "better" castles are less desirable. I think the problem is that if the enemy has an army that can take a crappy fort, they can take a good fort just as easily. Therefore my only fort considerations are indy units like elephants or sites like the Glowing Hill, construction time/cost, and very rarely resources if the nation has excellent national troops.

[Saulot]

I think we should stick to things that could actually happen.

So...
1. Altering the admin effect to be +admin% gold income, instead of admin/2.
2. Improving the tower weapons on the stronger forts significantly... as at this point they're essentially a moot point in consideration of construction and attacking. Specifically the higher cost / higher defense forts to have a lot more.

Maybe 3. Battlefield enchantments on sieging battles. Nothing crazy, just spells like Mist or Quagmire are a good power level, but there's probably not enough variety in battlefield enchantments to properly attach to the right castles/nations, so this isn't really feasible.

[Sombre]

Eh,... those would help, but I don't see how they're more likely to happen than changes to the gold/time costs. If the restricted 'bonus' forts were cheaper and quicker to build, people would build them.

[Ewierl]

Personally, I think the two proposed solutions that're actually viable are the following.

1) Alter the fort data so that forts differ less steeply in cost/admin/etc.
2) Give players some control over their fort type when building, either from a short terrain-specific list (e.g., Man in Forests gets a "big" and "small" option), or even in a terrain-nonspecific fashion.
3) Create new fort types that allow nations to build forts that're both big and cheap, in certain thematic terrains. This could also work in combination with either of the first two ideas.

None of these are moddable, but I think they would make the fort system become something aligned with the way forts are used in practice.

[fantasma]

I thought that having cheap fortresses or expensive is part of the nation's setup like what they have in PD. So it's sort of a pro or con for the nation, mostly based on thematic reasons.

Are there any numbers on how many towers a fort has? Or how many arrows/sling stones/whatever else are in the air? High defense forts should have more. And they should have a longer narrow passage, I think.

[Edi]

Fort defense weapons are not determined by fort type but by which nation occupies the fort. At least it used to be that way in Dom2. Abysia has ballistas. Most nations have short bows. Some have longbows etc etc.

The number of towers times number of shots per tower is total shots per round, so some nations are more painful to siege when the time to storm the castle comes.

[Zeldor]

Hmm... do you have that info in database? I didn't take manual with me to China and I wonder what MA TC and MA Abysia have...

[Endoperez]

Manual lists the type of tower weapons used. Most nations have something like 6-8 shortbows to composite bows, but e.g. Jotunheim varies wildly in different eras. Early and Late have 3xBoulder, while MA has 16 shortbows... Those Vaetti must be the ultimate castle defenders!