Spamming forts.... OP and boring?

[Kilvan]

What's the downside?

You get more gold
You get less ressources per fort but the total number available is still the same
It pays for itself
Game last forever

I wish there was LESS forts but they were MORE strong (AKA cant move army past it without heavy supply penality for exampl)

[Draken]

It take 1k gold for each basic fort. Then another what? 600 for each upgrade?

That's basically half an army or two of your best mages right there.

So it's a big investment that takes multiple turns to pay off. If you can afford that, great.

Otherwise the enemy might just roll over and take the forts from you after you payed for them.

Also you might get less cap only troops that need resources if you build forts in your cap circle.

[way2co0l_2003]

There's actually a cutoff point where adding more forts doesn't in fact pay for itself and can not only be a pure expense but also introduce other issues for where you can recruit as well.

From how I've learned to understand it, every province starts with only half of their natural resources available and the other half are locked. Building a fort there immediately unlocks all of those resources and also allows for it to draw from the resources of it's neighboring provinces, starting with the locked resources but if enough forts are built it'll dip into the unlocked ones as well potentially taking all of them if there are enough forts around that province. It ultimately depends on the admin rating of the forts in question. If they're low admin ratings like 15, then you can have 5 forts around a province to fully tap into it's potential, though you'll be starting to sap their unlocked resources at that point as well. If the forts instead have 30% then 2 adjacent forts will be enough to take it all and then some.

So building forts everywhere isn't actually worthwhile. There does come a cutoff point where adding another fort means you're spending more money on it without actually unlocking any new earnings from it which makes it wasted money. Finding the best way to space them out to fully unlock as many as possible does seem like the best way of going about it, at least in terms of maximizing your incomes and such. The downside of course is that your fort territories will start sapping from the already unlocked resources of their neighboring territories, ultimately restricting you to building only in fort territories.

But if you find the right balance you can get maximum province earnings, and still be able to locally build everywhere to a reasonable extent.

[Draken]

Originally posted by way2co0l_2003:

There's actually a cutoff point where adding more forts doesn't in fact pay for itself and can not only be a pure expense but also introduce other issues for where you can recruit as well.

From how I've learned to understand it, every province starts with only half of their natural earnings (income/resources) available and the other half are locked. Building a fort there immediately unlocks all of those earnings and also allows for it to draw from the earnings of it's neighboring provinces, starting with the locked earnings but if enough forts are built it'll dip into the unlocked ones as well potentially taking all of them if there are enough forts around that province. It ultimately depends on the admin rating of the forts in question. If they're low admin ratings like 15, then you can have 5 forts around a province to fully tap into it's potential, though you'll be starting to sap their unlocked resources at that point as well. If the forts instead have 30% then 2 adjacent forts will be enough to take it all and then some.

So building forts everywhere isn't actually worthwhile. There does come a cutoff point where adding another fort means you're spending more money on it without actually unlocking any new earnings from it which makes it wasted money. Finding the best way to space them out to fully unlock as many as possible does seem like the best way of going about it, at least in terms of maximizing your incomes and such. The downside of course is that your fort territories will start sapping from the already unlocked resources of their neighboring territories, ultimately restricting you to building only in fort territories.

But if you find the right balance you can get maximum province earnings, and still be able to locally build everywhere to a reasonable extent.

You should replace "earnings" with "resources" or people think you are talking about gold.
Gold does not work that way.

[way2co0l_2003]

Originally posted by Draken:

You should replace "earnings" with "resources" or people think you are talking about gold.
Gold does not work that way.

It doesn't work the same with gold as well? I must have misread it then. Still new and learning and that was just how I understood it. haha

[Tanaka]

Originally posted by Draken:

It take 1k gold for each basic fort. Then another what? 600 for each upgrade?

That's basically half an army or two of your best mages right there.

So it's a big investment that takes multiple turns to pay off. If you can afford that, great.

Otherwise the enemy might just roll over and take the forts from you after you payed for them.

Also you might get less cap only troops that need resources if you build forts in your cap circle.

Yes forts cost more but you get tons of money with the new economy now. So really you still get the same fort spam. I agree with the OP.

[Tanaka]

Originally posted by Kilvan:

What's the downside?

You get more gold
You get less ressources per fort but the total number available is still the same
It pays for itself
Game last forever

I wish there was LESS forts but they were MORE strong (AKA cant move army past it without heavy supply penality for exampl)

Completely agree. Reduce fort spam.

[Imperialus]

Well... In SP I suppose I could see it. In MP sounds like a fantastic way to hemorrhage gold while any nation with access to stealthy units or magic phase movement ganks commanders standing around with their pants around their ankles while stacking rocks on top of each other. I mean you've got 5 months to track down forts that are under construction.

[Ibis]

That's a non-issue and was already discussed in this post:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2511500/discussions/0/5715697730995895781/

TLDR If you find your games have too many forts in them, play more aggressivly.

[Energist]

Originally posted by Kilvan:

What's the downside?

You get more gold
You get less ressources per fort but the total number available is still the same
It pays for itself
Game last forever

I wish there was LESS forts but they were MORE strong (AKA cant move army past it without heavy supply penality for exampl)

Technically, yes, the 5 provinces, each with their own fort, is producing the same resources, but they are not centralized. This has a huge time cost because it would take significantly longer to actually build units when each province is responsible for making units separately.

Let's say I have 5 provinces, all exactly the same.

I fort the middle province, That province now has 100 % of its resources + 50% of the adjacent. This means it produces equivalent to 6 unforted provinces.

If I make a unit there, it will finish 6x faster than an adjacent province will finish the same unit.

Now, if I fort every province, The single fort method will still make units 3x faster, and it won't require more time to merge the units into the central fort. If one of the 5 forts is under siege, you lose 1/5 your production, whereas in the previous example, if one province is taken, I'm only losing 1/6th my production.

The time cost is HUGE. If it takes 10 turns to build a 100 man army with the single fort method, it will take 30 turns minimum to make that same army in the muiltiple fort method. That doesn't include the cost of making commanders in the surrounding forts to pull the units together, or the time cost of moving from fort to fort collecting the garrison.

Forts don't add value, they just extract and direct value. This is important though.

Deciding to build a wall of forts is a meaningful decision because it will hamper your production massively.

[Divvu]

I was about to write the same. OP and boring strat in single player? Dominions has plenty of those and trying to fix each and every instance is moot. Also beside the point of the game itself.
If we're talking MP, why, in the name of all that is holy, are you allowing them to complete those forts? Does he slowly encroach and protect each province with an army? Because that's hardly OP or fast (as you'd have to take the upkeep of the idling army into account) and if the enemy is popping up unprotected forts everywhere, where are your thugs and harassment forces? Supposing you're playing one of the very few nations that can access none of it, can't you ask for some diplomatic intervention? Everyone is fine with someone popping forts left and right?

Because in the very few games I played, everyone that wasn't gearing dat new economy towards troops/mages and tried being too greedy fell miserably. Increased ecenomy also means you'll get much more forces in the short term, if you invest into your army.

[ncarr99]

I'm not sure what your level of experience is, but in MP at least you need every coin you can get. Spending thousands of gold on extraneous forts is a good way to run out of money and then get in trouble when the neighbors come knocking. That's not to say having more forts is bad, just that you do need to be more careful with them and can't afford to just throw them up everywhere heedless of consequences.

[Sombre]

Well the question really is:

1. How long does it take for the fort to pay off its own cost?
2. How much did it actually cost you to put all that money into the fort when you did? Remember that gold early is worth more than gold later.

This is, effectively, an age old question of investment. If you are choosing to invest your gold in forts rather than simply not use the gold at all, it's a no brainer. If on the other hand you are choosing to invest in forts rather than invest in, say, mages to research, armies to take provinces, well you may not be making the right investment at all.

[Kilvan]

Originally posted by Sombre:

Well the question really is:

1. How long does it take for the fort to pay off its own cost?
2. How much did it actually cost you to put all that money into the fort when you did? Remember that gold early is worth more than gold later.

This is, effectively, an age old question of investment. If you are choosing to invest your gold in forts rather than simply not use the gold at all, it's a no brainer. If on the other hand you are choosing to invest in forts rather than invest in, say, mages to research, armies to take provinces, well you may not be making the right investment at all.

Well first i am playing SP and i am not part of the "elite" club of players who understand the game 100%. So just a casual

I get about 100 gc bonus with a fort, costing 1000gc to make. So 10 turns is not bad for a guaranteed return.

You can take AI province, but then his armies just come and it's swap back and forth.

Forts also protect your temples.

Spamming forts will give you a LOT of gc near turn 50. I never stop producing mages also so i dont see what i am losing with this dumb stats

[1337Dude]

If you're playing SP, then you basically forfeit your right to complain. The game is *not* mechanically designed around SP. The A.I. doesn't comprehend the game's strategy.

The SP is exclusively a sandbox to experiment with strategies. If you're having fun with it, that's great, but I wouldn't make any suggestions about the game based off playing the SP. The A.I. simply doesn't work well enough IMO.

[Draken]

I agree with that you don't have a right to complain if you don't like how you play your game.
No one is forcing you to use your gold to invest in forts to get your money back in investments 10 turns later, while you could have probably hired an army that takes another povince for the same gold and get it done sooner.

Though I completely disgree that the SP is just a sandbox and that the AI isn't working well enough to provide a fun challenge.