Forts: Everything you need to know about permanent, stone and/or buildable forts

[Polycarpe]

Again got several questions regarding PSF. Me and my teammates are struggling about the gameplay itself and one of my partner BLIP99 has proposed those types of PSF

PSF Types:

1. Villages - These are unfortified townships, the most common of all the 'minor settlements'. On their own they make a bit of money through taxes to the crown, but when a 'tax collector' (general/merchant?) is moved into the town the funds increase due to the villages not being able to skimp of their payments. Where the region capital is a fortress, the minor settlements are most likely to be of this type, villages providing for the lord in his citadel, when the region capital is a city however, the number of villages in the region is smaller (due to population movement to cities).

2. Castles - These are heavily fortified, and second most common of the minor settlements. They only make money when the castle is owned by a lord, but it is not much in comparison to villages. Generals can be granted hereditary titles of castles, becoming lords of the surrounding land and its profits. Young men (family members) can be sent to train here and troops can be barracked here for free on the kings behest. These minor settlements are quite common when the region capital is a city, but less common when it is a fortress.

3. Monasteries - These minor settlements are self sufficient religious buildings that are only found in certain areas on the map (catholic diocese') and are subject to the will of the Pope. They give no money to the crown but provide training for the nations clergy and give happiness bonus' to the region. However, if you convert your religion (late era Protestantism etc) than the loyal Catholics here will start to stir up discontent in your regions, unless you pass the 'church act' (a sort of building script maybe? Trying to simulate what Henry VIII did in England, confiscating church lands and their funds to going to the crown etc) which will convert the monasteries to your cause and start producing money for the crown.

4. Fortified Ports - (don't know if they will work yet, still checking it out) These are large mercantile and military ports that are found around Europe, and due to their strategic importance, they are adequately fortified by the sovereign (Im thinking places like Portsmouth, Marseilles, Calais etc) They produce tax for the king from the collectors at the docks, as well as the usual income that the merchants bring in. The importance of this minor settlement is huge however*, especially in regions that rely on their sea imports and exports; for if an enemy were to capture and hold the port, then the region would not gain income from it until it was retaken.

*My idea was to place the normal fort building on top of the port, so that you can 'capture' the port, stealing the enemies income.

Now my questions:
1)For villages, it is possible to give farming output to the "capital" of the region so that would represents the food production from the little villages to the more urban settlement? Let's say London has two villages type and one castle, the two villages give +2 farming output each to London. Losing it will reduce the output.
2)I know we can assign free upkeep and give names to those castles by freezing an agent at the location. Can we make that castle to generate more money if an agent or general is inside?
3) and 4)Is this possible do to so?

Also, the very first and main question: It is possible to add all those different types of PSF in game?

[Toho]

i just wish someone one day makes a mini-mod style tool where i can just put the forts in my mod folder, follow the instructions necessary to integrate to my mod without ruining some preexisting files that i need for the mod to work...oh well maybe one day...

adding stone forts is just too complicated and the AI behaves retardedly when stone forts block a strategic location like a river crossing or mountain pass...

anyways nice job on the tutorial.

[Gigantus]

You have been heard: Creating a World – Stone Forts on the Battlemap - I m busy compiling a complete installer, without all that unpacking and copying.

As for the resources and stuff: you cannot assign a trading resource like capability to a fort. I have however seen some discussing about placing a fort on top of a resource and then spawning a merchant into it, the so called "resource fort" - a known exploit whereby a fort is placed on a resource and filled with merchants

There is no limit to the number of custom type of forts as far as I know.

[Polycarpe]

You have been heard: Creating a World – Stone Forts on the Battlemap - I m busy compiling a complete installer, without all that unpacking and copying.

As for the resources and stuff: you cannot assign a trading resource like capability to a fort. I have however seen some discussing about placing a fort on top of a resource and then spawning a merchant into it, the so called "resource fort" - a known exploit whereby a fort is placed on a resource and filled with merchants

There is no limit to the number of custom type of forts as far as I know.

Good new then! But really the one that I really want to know if it's possible to do is the villages, one of my friend told me that, by making a script, you can reflects the farming capability of those little villages to the capital of the region (like in ETW). May someone can confirm this?

[Taiji]

Fort's fortification levels can't vary as far as I'm aware. If they do then you wind up with the wrong siege equipment.

[Gigantus]

Forts are only available with one size wall height, so it would be wall level two and three I think.

The scripting is a pain in the butt. You will have to test for the presence of a character on that spot (you can't test for ownership of a fort), fire an event and then use the event in the capabilities of that city (for which you will need a hidden_resource, else it will work for ALL settlements - and there are only 64 hidden_resource slots)

[Polycarpe]

Forts are only available with one size wall height, so it would be wall level two and three I think.

The scripting is a pain in the butt. You will have to test for the presence of a character on that spot (you can't test for ownership of a fort), fire an event and then use the event in the capabilities of that city (for which you will need a hidden_resource, else it will work for ALL settlements - and there are only 64 hidden_resource slots)

It's okay if it's a pain or not, at least I've got my answer and it's possible to do that farming system. Now I'll rework completely my way on development.

[Gigantus]

Let me know when you re-appear from that vale of tears, would be interesting to see how you tackled it.

[David93]

ok,
so current plan is to spawn a character in each fort, then when they die spawn another character on the same spot. Use merchants for simplicity (so they can generate the money to)
so then i can then check for the character on that spot or in the region.

now this is were im not sure, do you mean an event_counter gigantus or a historic event?
and how would you incorperate that into the farming output?
thanks

[Gigantus]

In the script you can generate an event_counter ( set_event_counter [event_name_here] 1) instead of triggering a historic_event. Then you can use that event as a requirement in the EDB:

[capability_name] requires factions { [faction_name], } and event_counter [event_name_here] 1

Using the farming_level capability is a bit tricky as it would require two entries - one for the regular circumstances and one for the new circumstances. Easier and as effective would be the "population_growth_bonus bonus [numerical value]" entry combined with the event_counter requirement.

[Polycarpe]

In the script you can generate an event_counter ( set_event_counter [event_name_here] 1) instead of triggering a historic_event. Then you can use that event as a requirement in the EDB:

[capability_name] requires factions { [faction_name], } and event_counter [event_name_here] 1

Using the farming_level capability is a bit tricky as it would require two entries - one for the regular circumstances and one for the new circumstances. Easier and as effective would be the "population_growth_bonus bonus [numerical value]" entry combined with the event_counter requirement.

A suggestion to mimic that would be

• Public_health_bonus bonus 2
• Trade_Level Bonus 2

Since farming output gives population growth and income from farming but it's more complicated with farming_level? I don't understand correctly

[Gigantus]

farming_level doesn't stack like the 'bonus' capabilities. Hence you would have to 'switch off' the lower farming_level when activating the higher one with an event_counter.

[Polycarpe]

Got a question. Is there any way by script to identify the owner of a PSF?

[Gigantus]

There is that near_tile (something like that) condition. You set the area to zero and define the coordinates and faction. No direct way possible.

[Iforgot]

I've been curious about making small settlements lately...am i right in thinking the simplest way so far is to pre-place the fort/settlements over resources and put merchants in them to generate income? Probably put an upkeep slot plus a unit to keep other factions merchants out? Could one either make new immortal "administration staff" agents or completely re-purpose the merchants and just make certain that their "character death" messages have big red letters or something so the player doesn't forget to send out new agents... Would the AI stacking agents be a problem or do they not think to do that? Am I crazy or would this be a better use of agents than walking them all over the map? Isn't international trade pretty much simulated enough by the regular old system with the boats and wagons traveling the shipping lanes and roads, and controlling the towns would still help trade, right? Also could make wars a bit more varied for the player at least, you fight limited wars to try to gain terrain with out really going after the whole region, they could centers of resistance that need to be stomped out to complete your conquest of a region...

[Gigantus]

You are proposing a 'merchant fort' - a known exploit of the game mechanics, most mods have put an entry in descr_campaign_db to avoid that.
You cannot create new agents or assign new ability to them.
The purpose of a merchant is to multiply the regular income from a resource. The further the first resource of a kind is from your capital the higher the income multiplier. This is then combined with the 'experience' of the merchant and the number of that resource in the region. As you will have to own the merchant fort you will most likely lose the benefit of that.
Centers of resistance in a region could actually be garrisoned forts. It would however require preplacement of units and free upkeep as the AI doesn't make good use of forts.

[RollingWave]

Can someone write a tutorial on the "invisible agent to name forts" thing ? (it could be used for more than that but that is one good use.)

Also Polycarpe: I disscussed a it elsewhere (here)that it's possibe to have triggers to monitor something to what you might want to accomplish, though the work would be rather painstaking.

for example monitor end of turn for each faction and...

if I_CharacterTypeNearTile milan named_character 0 101, 171
add_money milan 500
end_if

Add in a fake trait (doesn't actually add anything through trait just the description) and your set, with this sort of methology you can set different income to different position which would be able to at least sort of reach the idea you want to achieve for different type of forts.

And of course, utilizing free upkeep slots for forts would also work to some extend, sort of representing each of them as a fief.. so if a charactor is there he's in his fief and thus free upkeep.

[Gigantus]

Change texture of agent (use alpha channel only), freeze agent's faction, name agent, place agent, enable character names to show - end of tutorial.

[RollingWave]

Change texture of agent (use alpha channel only), freeze agent's faction, name agent, place agent, enable character names to show - end of tutorial.

So it would require the use of a faction slot right? could I use say... for example Papal States? aka freeze Papal States so it never do anything active (it can still fight when attacked right?, just won't go out and attack other people?)

[Gigantus]

Freeze is solid = nothing happens, see the Aztecs in vanilla.
And yes, it will require a faction slot.