Pointless forts?And where is a city?

[SirPeacemaker]

I dont know. As for me, this game is a big dissapointment. Forts are completely pointless, because using it´s walls is futile. My soldiers just spit from the walls (that´s the only explanation why the enemy soldiers dont fall) and much better tactic is just wait for them on main square. And what about cities? In MTW II you could see big difference beetwen city and fort (castle). You coud actually see real buildings in your city, or castle. And what about Empire? You have only 3 or 4 absurd buildings in your city when you defend the city. It looks like my prophecy became true. They concentrated too much on naval battles (and naval battles is an excellent job, no question about that) and rest of the game they just fudged.

[MrMT]

It does seem that forts in general are very poorly done in this game... certainly the weakest link in the games I have experienced.

The AI gets very confused; firing from the walls is very hit and miss. etc etc

[DMC-Ice]

Yeah I usually put 1 regiment on the wall to shoot a couple of enemies and focus my defense on the square and buildings.

[Alkarin]

thats why i only have about 6 units of line at most in my cities/forts

put them all in town square and occupy the buildings. and just wait for the enemy to get up on the walls so they can open the gates.

forts are uselss imo. i only build city fortifications for their happiness bonus

[Yojimbo]

forts are useless ornaments in my campaigns they never get used for anything. Total waste of hard drive sectors.

[Aradius]

Star forts look impressive on the campaign map.

That's just about all they're worth, though.

[Tiberius Tosi]

I dont know. As for me, this game is a big dissapointment. Forts are completely pointless, because using it´s walls is futile. My soldiers just spit from the walls (that´s the only explanation why the enemy soldiers dont fall) and much better tactic is just wait for them on main square. And what about cities? In MTW II you could see big difference beetwen city and fort (castle). You coud actually see real buildings in your city, or castle. And what about Empire? You have only 3 or 4 absurd buildings in your city when you defend the city. It looks like my prophecy became true. They concentrated too much on naval battles (and naval battles is an excellent job, no question about that) and rest of the game they just fudged.

Just to clear things up, those buildings inside your fort are not supposed to be your "city". At this time period most cities did not bother having walls around them, so forts were put on the outskirts (and inside) of cities to fight. The fort fighting simulates that, and unfortunately therefore leaves cities as only something you can sometimes see in the horizon during the battle.

I guess they wanted to prevent street fighting, which from my knowledge, barely happened during this time period. Why they put troops marching down the street in the preview is idiotic but it looks cool I guess.

[SirPeacemaker]

Hey Tiberius. You must be kidding me man. No walls around cities? Are you serious? Take a look on this picture of Berlin from year 1710 for example
http://courses.umass.edu/latour/2008...erlin_1710.jpg

And that is only one picture from many

Or here. Cassovia: /Kosice/
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_EdtSm1CwIP...0-h/kosice.jpg

Amsterdam,or Brussel, just click on city you like:
http://www.heritageantiquemaps.com/m..._city_maps.htm

[zoleman]

Hey Tiberius. You must be kidding me man. No walls around cities? Are you serious? Take a look on this picture of Berlin from year 1710 for example
http://courses.umass.edu/latour/2008...erlin_1710.jpg

And that is only one picture from many

Or here. Cassovia: /Kosice/
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_EdtSm1CwIP...0-h/kosice.jpg

Amsterdam,or Brussel, just click on city you like:
http://www.heritageantiquemaps.com/m..._city_maps.htm

If you observe those pics you posted bud you will notice that the walls are not actually around the cities, more like the cities are around the walls. Cities had citadells in their strategic point, and that citadell housed the majority of the garrison, and provided means of resisting enemy occupation of the town. Yes, there were street fights, but those were just skirmishes around choke-points, while the bulk of the army encircled the fort and the actual siege begun.
I don't wnt walls around cities, it's dumb and so not 18th century, but i do wish to see city fortifications as parts of a city (either on the utskirts or the dead center of the city, i don't care) and not just the same as a simple fort out in the jungle.
Aside from that, fix sieges plx. Seriously.... fix it please.

[Aradius]

If you observe those pics you posted bud you will notice that the walls are not actually around the cities, more like the cities are around the walls. Cities had citadells in their strategic point, and that citadell housed the majority of the garrison, and provided means of resisting enemy occupation of the town. Yes, there were street fights, but those were just skirmishes around choke-points, while the bulk of the army encircled the fort and the actual siege begun.
I don't wnt walls around cities, it's dumb and so not 18th century, but i do wish to see city fortifications as parts of a city (either on the utskirts or the dead center of the city, i don't care) and not just the same as a simple fort out in the jungle.
Aside from that, fix sieges plx. Seriously.... fix it please.

The reason why there are parts of the city outside the walls is that the city has grown after the walls were built. Either it actually grew in that time, or they re-used the existing medieval walls and modified them according to the needs of the 18th century (i.e. cannon safe, with protruding bastions etc.)
In this map of Berlin, the entire old city centre is within the walls. Only "recently" built quarters are outside.
When the Ottomans laid siege to Vienna in 1683, they also encountered city fortifications, not just a fort in the city centre or on the outskirts.

How to implement that into the game is another story, though. The fort models are not large enough to enclose even a substantial part of a city, the AI has difficulties with buildings even now, and then there's frame rate... With lots of buildings on screen every time you conquer a city, minimum hardware requirements would have to be much higher than now.

Every time the same old fort *is* boring, though - I very much agree with that.

[nibiski]

Just to clear things up, those buildings inside your fort are not supposed to be your "city". At this time period most cities did not bother having walls around them, so forts were put on the outskirts (and inside) of cities to fight. The fort fighting simulates that, and unfortunately therefore leaves cities as only something you can sometimes see in the horizon during the battle.

I guess they wanted to prevent street fighting, which from my knowledge, barely happened during this time period. Why they put troops marching down the street in the preview is idiotic but it looks cool I guess.

I think he meant that the cities you should be seizing doesn't exactly remind you of a city.

[PGeo36]

*sigh* forts battles are not suppose to be fought like the siege battles in previous games, what you need to do is use the fort to your advantage put a couple units on the walls and put the rest of your army on the outside of it that way you have the soldiers on top providing a good base of small arms and cannon fire.

[SimonB1er]

I would I loved to play siege battle. Image sieging tournai, wouldn't it be awesome?

[MehemtAli_Pasha]

I would I loved to play siege battle. Image sieging tournai, wouldn't it be awesome?

i think it would..only u need like nano age technology to make such a game, and also to have a computer that can handle it.

i had better proposal before they released the game..just show the strategic part of the city instead of showing all buildings. that way, u see the city..it looks real, playable, and fun. simple as that. or else, it's not logical to have 18 century capitals in one battle map!

[Tiberius Tosi]

Notice I said most. Some cities still had medeival walls and such in place (most had taken them down by this point) that had been modified and such and many cities had fortified areas. But as for a single wall circling the entire city, that was rare and usually pointless.

Even that picture you posted, from what I can see, it does not appear those are walls circling the entire city, but rather a fortified area in the middle of the city.

[SirPeacemaker]

Take a look on my last link. You can choose city you like and you can see city walls everywhere around entire city.

[gord96]

lol. thats not your city in the fort! cities in those era's didnt have walls. they had rings of forts protecting the perimeter.

[SirPeacemaker]

lol. thats not your city in the fort! cities in those era's didnt have walls. they had rings of forts protecting the perimeter.

Oh really? And what about the Amsterdam? Berlin? Pressburg? Brussel? Walls everywhere. What you mean is a fort. Fort like Leopoldov for example:
http://www.ubytujsa.sk/pamiatky/leop...eopoldov_2.jpg
But that´s a BIG difference mate
Leopoldov (Leopoldstatt) was the most sophisticated fort in Europe against Ottoman´s empire. As you can see on this picture, even FORT had a small city inside.

[Owain Glyndŵr]

I don't get where all your complaints are coming from... I've found forts pretty useful for blocking off rivers and chokepoints and my troops tend to do a good job of shooting from the walls.

If you're having trouble, I'd recommend the following:
-Keep a mortar team or two in your fort to thin their numbers and combat artillery.
-Make clever use of cavalry. Sneak them out and have them hide in the woods(if possible) at the beginning of an engagement. When the enemy infantry starts to scale the walls, wait until about half of them have begun climbing the ropes... then charge the remaining men on the ground with your cavalry. This will generally rout them as they break their defensive formation in order to start climbing. At the very worst, you've cut the number of aggressors your infantry are faced with in half.

[SirPeacemaker]

@Zoleman
What pictures are you looking at? Look at pictures of the cities from around year 1700 (on that list). Because that´s the game year. And dont tell me, you cant see the city walls around the city.