Fortresses and Production

[Saxon]

I have some questions about fortresses.

A: If I build a fortress with Admin 40, I understand that I get 40% of the neighbouring provinces resources.

B: I also ensure that the province that I built the fortress in produces 100% of the resources it can produce.

First off, are A and B true?

Now, if I build a fortress next to another province with a fortress, how do they interact?

C: Do they take 40% of each other’s production?

D: If three provinces with fortresses border the same province, how do they divide the production? The province only has 100% production, but three fortresses taking 40% each is 120%

E: Finally, if I had more money than I knew what to do with (this is a fantasy world), wouldn’t it make sense to build a fortress in every single province? That way all of them would produce the maximum. Sure, you might want to try and focus production in one place, but by not building a fortress, you cut your resource production in half in the provinces you ignore.

[Bossemanden]

AFAIK A) and B) are true (at least if I understand B) correctly).

C) They will not takes each others 40%.

D) Multple castles bordering the same "castle-less" province will take multiple times their admin. I dont think that this goes beyond 100% but not really sure. It can go up to 100% though.

E) I think a fortress in all provinces is suboptimal. It will be very hard to take all these fortresses, but they will not have greater production than without. IMO its better to have production-centers (esp. your capital with its special units) and thus less fortresses.

[Arralen]

A) correct


B) You get 100% with fort, but only 50% without !


C) They shoudn't. This has changed in DOM2.


D) They'll divide the 100% by three ...


E) You'll get 100% of your max. total production with a fort in every prov., that's correct.

But you'll get more ressouces in provinces with ressource-heavy troops by building only a few high-admin castles.

A.

[Taqwus]

Building fortresses everywhere would force you to be able to defend them all -- and note that there are a number of items and spells which can be used to breach fortresses far more rapidly than you might guess. Once a fort is captured, it's a production center and supply depot for the enemy.

[sfsuphysics]

E. (since A-D have been answered

You might think a fort in every province is a good idea, but its probably not. As Taqwus said if one of your forts gets captured that's just one more fort you have to fight through to get back too. Plus I like to heavily use the defense option (I'd rather spend money here than on a fort) get it up to 50-100 and you got a nice sizable defense, put a leader (magic user) in that province and your defense increases tremendously, as long as you win the battle your entire defense gets regenerated (for free) the next turn, but if you have a fort all your heros stay inside the fort so the enemy gets to fight each army seperately, usually they'll be able to beat the army that's lead by a couple priests and comprised of cheaper troops, and then storm the castle where my heroes are just waiting to be slaughtered.

Anyways that's how I play, I dont like having huge armies with every hero I have.

[aldin]

Fortress theory also seems to depend on which nation you're using. The only nation I feel really competant with is Ulm. Ulm may be the only nation that can really use fortified cities because the resource requirement of the troops is so high it makes even the considerations of price and time to build pale in comparison.

If you were playing a low resource requirement nation I could see taking the cheap route and then building the 2 turn, 300 Gold wonders in any provinces with interesting troops.

For everyone else I imagine the standard is 30/40 admin, 3/4 turns, 300/450 Gold. Then place them so they're at least one province apart.

~Aldin

[Saxon]

Thanks for all the good answers!

I was thinking about how to maximize resources. On some of the big maps, you tend to get fairly large areas which are “safe” behind your lines. Sure, there as spells and sneaking troops who can sometimes get to them, but they are generally safe. Given that building a castle effectively doubles your production, it seemed logical that you would want to build more. These back areas, where you have total control, seemed like a place to put this into effect

This is theoretical, ignores other concerns and assumes unlimited gold, but it seems to me that building a castle in each province will maximize production. Sure, you will not get one super province, but you get a higher total production. You would recruit in every province and in some you will have to wait multiple turns for the high value units to come, but you will produce more units over all.

Of course, in the real world, this would lead to massive micro managing. Also, if you have that much gold, you have probably won the game or should be looking for other, more aggressive uses for it. As such, I will keep my theoretical maximum in my head and focus on getting the more practical “key production provinces” going in the game.

I agree with sfsuphysics, the money is usually better spent on armies and heroes. They are much more versatile and offer lots of nice bonuses. When I played basketball in high school, the coach always said “Offense wins games, defense wins championships.” In Dominions, I feel it is the other way around. Defense is important, but unless you take the fight to the enemy, you are not going to win. My interest in fortresses is to get the best out of them for unit production. Their defensive value is clear, but I needed some help regarding their link to production and, therefore, offense.

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Bossemanden:
EU2 1.07beta, HOI 1.05c/CORE 0.62, Vicky Beta, New to Doms

you are a man of good tastes.


btw CORE is in 0.64, and you should try superAI as the icing on the cake

The reason offense works well in Dominions because your opponent is always playing catch up while you are expanding.

Plus a standing fact if you can siege a capital or fortress for a few rounds and negate it's production while you are sieging them; and then a few turns after because of unrest even if they set a patrol. Gives you an edge.

[Wendigo]

Somehow I disagree with the general feeling that a newbie might get from this thread that 'forts are a bad investment'.

Raiding warfare is an important part of Dominions, and without forts your temples, gem sources & indep mages recruiting spots will fall to your enemies raiders.

They also protect your forces from surprise attacks: I have many times in Dom I launched a magic assault vs a province full of enemy sages & pretty much cut my opponent's research in half in just one battle. Even with Gateway restricted in Dom II this is still possible in the mid game due to cloud trapeze/teleport/faery trod.

Forts provide supply to nearby armies: they will help the early stages of an offensive campaign without need of supply items.

Forts allow for the recruitment of national mages & commanders, for this reason nations like Pythium & Jotunheim should build many of them to use their strength to the fullest.

Finally, forts add to income: a few forts in 100+ income provinces will do more for your income than having invested in Prod3 & Growth3 in Dom II (this has changed from Dom I)

Defending your forts is less of an issue if you can field a mobile force/pretender. With or without forts you will still need to defend your lands anyway, but it's a better deal if you do not lose your gems & temples in addition to your income when under attack.