Castle conversion

[will skeat]

Hi there should any city be able to convert to a castle and vice versa?The reason I ask is I'm playing as England in vanilla and wish to push my miltary making to the edges of my empire and only some of the cities are allowing me to convert.
Cheers

[Silent Assassin]

Hi there should any city be able to convert to a castle and vice versa?The reason I ask is I'm playing as England in vanilla and wish to push my miltary making to the edges of my empire and only some of the cities are allowing me to convert.
Cheers

When you are at the 3rd Level of a city or castle you can't convert it back

[will skeat]

Thanks Rebel.
What constitutes 3rd level though?

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Any castle can be converted in to a city. Once a large town has become a minor city (with a stone wall) it can't be converted into a castle.

[will skeat]

Much obliged.
Final question,if the town I want to convert cannot and it's quite away from my nearest castle (ie more than 1 turns march)what's the best way of refreshing and retraining troops without keep getting waylayed enroute?

[Tsarevna]

Much obliged.
Final question,if the town I want to convert cannot and it's quite away from my nearest castle (ie more than 1 turns march)what's the best way of refreshing and retraining troops without keep getting waylayed enroute?

Get a spy to travel with them; they'll see an ambushing force and stop in front of it, rather than going straight into battle mode because of an ambush.

When you see a crouched-down army unit, that means they are in ambush-mode, it's what they tried to do, but it won't happen now.
If you choose to attack it, it turns into a regular battle where you can position your troops as you like pre-battle.

[Silent Assassin]

Thanks Rebel.
What constitutes 3rd level though?

The 3rd level is like castle's

1- You have the Mott
2- Regular castle
3- and the citadel

PS I'm not sure for the names of each but Citadel is definetly the last level of Castle's

[Arcinatus]

Motte and Bailey
Wooden Castle
Stone Castle
Fortress
Citadel

[Silent Assassin]

Motte and Bailey
Wooden Castle
Stone Castle
Fortress
Citadel

Thx for specifying

[Arcinatus]

anytime bro

[Angrychris]

fortress and citael are da bomb

[Grimmy]

If you don't have a castle within one march of a city you can place your siege relief force in a field constructed fort near the city. A field constructed fort prevents units from going rebel if there's no leader with them and it eliminates the bad effects of having a stack of units foraging in your own farm areas.

Any general can build a field fort for 500 coin. And, with some practice, you can figure where to place a single stack of siege relief forces within a single march of multiple cities.

You can also place field forts at choke points to either prevent invasions from that route if heavily manned, or slow down an invasion if lightly manned.

[Angrychris]

do field forts negate troop upkeep like a city or castle?

[Grimmy]

do field forts negate troop upkeep like a city or castle?

Not that I remember. Been forever and a day since I've used field forts though, so not sure.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

do field forts negate troop upkeep like a city or castle?

No. Only militia units have free upkeep in a city that is able to train them.

[will skeat]

Thanks for the advice guys.I've tried the fort idea and it's great I can use it as a dropping off point for 5 towns and refresh from my main castle.

[Grimmy]

will:

There's an economic advantage to using the forts. If you have one centralized siege relief force that can support several cities, then you don't have to keep any costly units in each of those cities. Just keep enough free upkeep militia to keep the town folk happy.

Also, don't forget that forts can be useful in closing off choke points to limit enemy access to your lands.

And, if you want to keep a fort live, dont abandon it. leave one cheapy unit in it when you move your army out or the fort goes poof the next turn.

Almost forgot, on the choke point thing...
You don't always need to keep fully stacked armies in such forts. Often enough, just a couple cheap militia in a fort at a river crossing or in a mountain pass is enough to make the enemy hesitate. And, if the enemy does attack, you gain time to organize your area defenses, even if you lose that fort and cheap units.

[will skeat]

Cheers Grimmy thanks for that.Forgive the stupid question,do you not pay army upkeep if your troops are out of a settlement and are there any dissadvantages of having troops in the field for a long period.

[Grimmy]

Upkeep basics.
Only specific types of units get free upkeep and only a specific maximum number of such units get free upkeep depending on settlement size.
You can see which troops, if any, in a settlement are getting free upkeep by the color of their unit cards in the garrison (recruiting) view of the settlement. Free upkeep units will have a bluish color to them.

In vanilla, there is not field cost for units. There are mods that have a "field script" that levies a cost to you when you have troops out and about though.

So, yes you pay the upkeep for units in a fort. But, you'd probably be paying upkeep for them if they were in a settlement, unless you're building your army out of all cheap militia.

Field forts provide you two specific benifits when you build them in your own territory.
1. Your troops dont forage your lands when in a field fort. That saves you coin by keeping your troops from scavanging your farms.
2. Your troops wont go rebel on you if you dont have a general with them while they're in a field fort.

[will skeat]

Thanks Grimmy much obliged