What Options Should be Available for Constructing Defenses?

[Yomamashouse]

I am thinking of forts in particular. In Rome and Medieval 2 you could build those pathetic-looking little wooden circles which would disappear if abandoned for a turn.

I absolutely loved the forts in Empire for several reasons:

1 - They were permanent
2 - They could be upgraded
3 - They had an area of interception which prevented small armies from just showing up behind your lines uncontested
4 - They could recruit units from local region capitals

I feel like this would be the perfect approach for fortifications in RTWII, with a few added elements:

1 - They should have upkeep costs (to prevent people from walling off their lands with forts)
2 - They should spawn generic guard units upon siege
3 - You should be able to tear them down or abandon them (should you want to relieve yourself of the upkeep)

What do you guys think? Is there a historical/gameplay basis to this?

[Timotheus]

Yes it was lovely in the age of musket and white arsenic powder! Alas it is NOT lovely at all in the age of white togas!

Castra
The Romans did build castras when they are not fighting and marching, they built a square walled city of palisades with dry moat and spikes pointed outwards. But it was "BuildForNightAndTearItOnMorrow" doctrine in force! The castra gave the legion protection from ambush and various pos factors i.e. better infrastructure, but it cannot fall in the hands of those wildings so they teared the camp already the day before they moved on!

This picture shows how they built the castra - always had four gates in case of dangerous situations!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

When the legions were in enemy lands they built castra every night and teared it down by morrow!! it shows the amazing military engineering and hard discipline among the legionnaires!


They also used garrisoned forts or sentries along borders to protect from raids or warpaths! But those were mostly manned by auxiliary forces and the legions used them as logistic bases, as great Vegetius explained!

So there should not be permanent forts, only alongside the borders! If according to history!
But, yes the temporary forts should have area of interception as legions sent scouts by day and night!

Sources - Castra

[Yomamashouse]

Thanks for including history, I always enjoy learning about that stuff. It is kinda disappointing that permanent forts (probably) won't make an appearance, but historical accuracy always comes before one's desires.

I still have a sharpened pitchfork waiting to skewer some someone's rear if they don't include area of interception.

[AgentGB]

Yes it was lovely in the age of musket and white arsenic powder! Alas it is NOT lovely at all in the age of white togas!

Castra
The Romans did build castras when they are not fighting and marching, they built a square walled city of palisades with dry moat and spikes pointed outwards. But it was "BuildForNightAndTearItOnMorrow" doctrine in force! The castra gave the legion protection from ambush and various pos factors i.e. better infrastructure, but it cannot fall in the hands of those wildings so they teared the camp already the day before they moved on!

This picture shows how they built the castra - always had four gates in case of dangerous situations!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

When the legions were in enemy lands they built castra every night and teared it down by morrow!! it shows the amazing military engineering and hard discipline among the legionnaires!


They also used garrisoned forts or sentries along borders to protect from raids or warpaths! But those were mostly manned by auxiliary forces and the legions used them as logistic bases, as great Vegetius explained!

So there should not be permanent forts, only alongside the borders! If according to history!
But, yes the temporary forts should have area of interception as legions sent scouts by day and night!

Sources - Castra

Yeah i agree, + rep

Main exception being Hadrian, with his project to build a wall around the empire with fortications at intervals when the empire had reached its limit. So at best you really wouldn't begin to see permanent forts until then. Plus with the current grand scale of seige battles atm, i really don't want my game to turn into a series of micro seige battles, it will start to get old fast

[Agostinos]

At least I would like to see a small fortification around my legion when it is in enemy territory and out of movement points

[check_engine]

Someone posted an idea in another thread I liked concerning this. They stated that legions should trade movement points for security. Basically if you use all your movement points there is no fort if you are attacked. If you save a certain amount of points than if you are attacked the legion would be entrenched in a fort. With a certain upgrade on the tech tree maybe this should be available to the other factions as well. Not entirely historical, but thats the cool thing with Total War games, its a "what-if" scenario as soon as you fire up the first game. Don't limit the "what-if"

-Cheers

[DarthRuanek]

Someone posted an idea in another thread I liked concerning this. They stated that legions should trade movement points for security. Basically if you use all your movement points there is no fort if you are attacked. If you save a certain amount of points than if you are attacked the legion would be entrenched in a fort. With a certain upgrade on the tech tree maybe this should be available to the other factions as well. Not entirely historical, but thats the cool thing with Total War games, its a "what-if" scenario as soon as you fire up the first game. Don't limit the "what-if"

-Cheers

That would make sense. Seems like a good idea to me.

[Timotheus]

I would like to add the battle/siege of Alesia for those interested by how far romans used castra in different situations!

Romans laid siege of Alesia where Vercingetorix (the most successful gaul leader during roman expansion of gaul?!) were trapped inside! Also Romans knew that Vercingetorix's whole army weren't trapped inside Alesia so they built double walls to defend themselves from gaul relief forces!

See this picture

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Read more about the bloody battle that followed with Romans staying inside the thin double walls, with gauls attacking from both inside and outside!
Siege/Battle of Alesia