Star Forts

[Engrish]

And forts in general. Does anybody find any use for them?

[cloud88]

yes while taking over the americas as britain i had erected a couple of forts on the boundaries between me and france (i built them near to river crossings and chokepoints). this really helped once i took over New France. the big French armies melted away at my forts, which left the paths open to easily take out the French territories in NA.
They also helped me to defend Gibraltar against massive Spanish onsluaghts

[OzWolf]

Forts are good for border security. Manned with a respectable army, their area of influence will give you good intercept ability on any enemy armies entering your territories.

And building/occupying a fort in the middle of enemy territory annoys the AI wonderfully

[italiano]

The basic forts, yes. Star forts, no. I've found I can defend the small ones far more effectively since there's less wall space to cover, and therefore I can properly man the walls. It's even more effective with increased units sizes (I use 400 for an infantry unit), as it takes less units to man the walls. One of the first changes I'll make is to remove star forts from the game.

[Ataraxie]

The area of influence thing is real useful for building a "Maginot Line" as the French, and the forts themselves are excellent offensive weapons fighting the natives in the Americas. Stuck facing a pile of close-combat natives ? Build a fort full of free guns and a blockhouse....

[kungtotte]

Forts and artillery forts are nice, star forts are way too bugged for me to want to use them. Early on in this campaign I've got going, I built several forts and upgraded them to star forts. That was before I fought a couple of battles in them.

It takes forever to get units to scale the walls, and trying to position them atop the walls to effectively fire down or man the cannons is an exercise in futility. If you're assaulting and get your men up on the walls, have fun trying to get them to go down in the courtyard. I had one battle where I scaled the walls with six units (light infantry, grenadiers, line infantry) but only managed to get one light infantry and one line infantry to go down in the courtyard to attack the enemy.

It's just lucky that the enemy is affected with the same problems, or I would've lost all siege battles involving star forts.

[Engrish]

I've seen a few star forts crop up in enemy territory before, but it seems by the time you are capable of swallowing the sticker shock, you are often wealthy enough to afford some decent armies anyway. I've only ever assaulted forts so I'm not sure yet what it's like to defend them, although I'll give that a shot sometime to judge their usefulness.

[J. Fishman]

I'm not even entirely sure how forts work in Empire yet. In Medieval and Rome, I found forts were useful for stalling an enemy advance when garrisoned with a single crappy unit, as the mere presence of the fort blocking a chokepoint or bridge/ford was enough to force an enemy to either siege or stall from the ZOC effects. Since in Empire, nothing prevents an enemy from storming on the same turn, unlike in M/R, it seems like forts are not as useful.

[Ginger Yellow]

The AI doesn't seem to be able to handle forts all that well. I managed to hold out against with four infantry and a couple of cannons outside the fort against a massively overpowered AI, simply because they didn't storm effectively. They broke down the wall on my right hand side quickly, but their efforts to storm the fort were bizarrely half-hearted. Most of the time they just milled around outside while my armed citizens on the walls and one remaining unit of line infantry in the courtyard massacred them.

[aeoleron9]

How do you build star forts? Is there some kind of prerequisite?

[v0rtex]

How do you build star forts? Is there some kind of prerequisite?

You can upgrade them to arillery forts, then star forts

[TeutonicKnight]

I love forts. On defense, if the enemy doesn't have artillery, you can murder them all on the walls. On offense, I love how you have the majority of your enemy all boxed up like a Christmas present.

Defending a fort with the built-in cannons works pretty well too, but my favorite is using howitzer artillery to use ricochet fire on side walls of a hostile fort to clear off the bad guys.

[The Kahn]

Sometimes, it doesn't let me build forts, like the fort button is greyed out... i even have a general in the army.

[bat]

Sometimes, it doesn't let me build forts, like the fort button is greyed out... i even have a general in the army.

Do you need some type of technology to develop fortifications? Or maybe certain points on the campaign map are "no build" zones.

[VonTed]

How do you get the men on to the walls to defend them? (yeap... I am new to this). But that last battle i tried to defend fort niagra, and none of the troops would deploy n top of the walls..... I lost.

[Brocktree]

Sometimes, it doesn't let me build forts, like the fort button is greyed out... i even have a general in the army.

Maybe because you havent enough money?

[sabaku_no_gaara]

How do you get the men on to the walls to defend them? (yeap... I am new to this). But that last battle i tried to defend fort niagra, and none of the troops would deploy n top of the walls..... I lost.

They are suposed to do it automaticly, but it doesn't always happen for some reason

[Hebrew_Hero]

i've never defended a star fort but i took one, it was lightly defended. Also the enemy (martha confederacy) decided they were attack the cannon shooting their walls. My VOC infantry ripped em apart and my Light dragoons ran em off the field. when i got to the walls, the general was shot to pieces by the rifle barrages from the rank shot ability thats passively obtained in the (third tier?) of the infantry coloumn

[Valantine]

How do you get the men on to the walls to defend them? (yeap... I am new to this). But that last battle i tried to defend fort niagra, and none of the troops would deploy n top of the walls..... I lost.

I;ve found pikemen and other melee units wont deploy on them. Its also a lot harder to "line them up" on the walls unlike MTW2, instead you get the units on the walls looking quite chaotic, once the enemy approaches they man the cannons and get into fireing positions automatically - MOST of the time.
Getting men stuck in the gates and therefore leaving them open is still a problem though!
V

[guerra]

Yeah I've survived a full stack of hurons with only 3 militia and some light cavalry. It was a miracle. That fort saved my life.