Stategic Fortifications?

[Gurewicz]

Can someone explain to me exactly how strategic fortifications work? I think I get the general idea but i'm not really sure under which conditions I should build them.

Should I always build them everywhere? Does it only help with roads? Is there a point in a location such as the Belares or Sardinia?

[bisthebis]

Economically speaking, it may or not be worth it : if a province is highly valuable for traing reasons and/or has a lot of corruptions, law bonus + trade bonus may be better than agricultural malus (especially since most agricultural maluses don't affect your economy because they stack so much that the minimum agricultural level is often reached).
Aside from that, they are required to build Mines & Industry buildings (which often outweight the economic penalties from the foritifications) and :
- Ptolemaioi/Seleukids/Nabateans have access to a third level called "jewish garrison" which allows them to recruit Jews everywhere if they control Ioudaia or Babylon
- Romans in Marian era can have access to a third level called "Veteran Colony" to recruit Evocatii
- It is required to build Carthginian Settler colonies (not trade colonies though !), Roman Colonies, Hellenistic & Eastern ("native") colonies.

So in most cases it's useful, especially if you play a faction with colonization. There are little cases where you'd rather not build it (province without corruption, no potential mine, very high agricultural ouput and low trade) but otherwise it's almost always beneficial.
But in isolated islands, building them is a low-priority task, unless you plan to colonize or have troubles with public order. But if you have too much cash, it's probably good to build it

[Gurewicz]

Thanks for the quick reply.

That's all very useful information, thanks a lot.

Is there an easy way to gauge the agricultural potential of a given province?

[QuintusSertorius]

Their primary utility is that they're a pre-requisite for most colonies; in order to settle lands you need to have patrolled them properly.

[bisthebis]

As far as I know, agricultures almost always disappear in end-game because many late buildings give maluses. But the provinces with high agricultural potential are those with "grain" hidden resource IIRC. If you want to check that, look at the description of a farm in that province :
- If it's description of level one farm, you have a bonus shown if it has grain, otherwise not
- If it's an higher level, provinces with grain have TWO bonuses, e.g. farm 3 has "+3 always, with +1 additionnal if there is grain"

By the way, @QuintusSertorius, if it planned to fix the "issue" that there are so many buildings giving penalties to agriculture that even provinces like Alexandria end up with almost no agricultural income (it's the kind of issues that make using non-landreform late farms is plain dumb) ? And same questions with industry : if you have an industry building, you gain no income because of temples/strategic fortifications eating it. And since the sum can't be negative, if you have a temple costing 200/turn, industry giving 100 or giving 200 is the same, so upgrade is pointless (except for the trade bonus)

[Kull]

And same questions with industry : if you have an industry building, you gain no income because of temples/strategic fortifications eating it. And since the sum can't be negative, if you have a temple costing 200/turn, industry giving 100 or giving 200 is the same, so upgrade is pointless (except for the trade bonus)

This is completely untrue. Industry buildings give a straight income bonus AND a trade bonus at each level, with only a small happiness malus at the upper levels. Ports and River Ports GAIN extra trade income if there is Industry present. And specifically to your point, there are ZERO Temples or Strategic Fortifications of any level or type which apply a malus to ANYTHING based on the presence of an Industry building.

Edit: As to the Farming maluses, we're taking a comprehensive look at those right now. There will probably be some adjustments.

[Kull]

By the way, @QuintusSertorius, if it planned to fix the "issue" that there are so many buildings giving penalties to agriculture that even provinces like Alexandria end up with almost no agricultural income?

We performed a comprehensive review, and did make some changes. In general, the idea was to make sure that there's a common rationale at work. For example, colony/migration buildings that provide free upkeep will generally require -1 farm income for each +1 of free upkeep. The idea is that you are paying and feeding those guys using local agricultural resources. The road and port garrisons incur farm income maluses for much the same reason, but in each case we dropped the max outlay (if you had both structures in a single settlement, at full development they previously cost -6, and now it's -3). Governments weren't touched because they already have their own rationales (and can provide either a bonus or a malus). One or two others were also reduced (granaries/food imports were untouched because that's free food to reduce famine - the connection is obvious).

[myarta]

By the way, you can use the building browser ahead of time to look at what the mining output of a province will be, so you can decide if you want to rush a strategic fortification in order to get that sweet, sweet mineral income. Just go find the 'mine' entry and right click the lower entry to see.

I do this every time I conquer a province (except in regions I've recently played in, where I keep a little list of valuable mining provinces) just to make sure I'm not missing out on +1k or something due to not being in a hurry to build the stratfor.

[Colos1987]

Also from another point of view: there are several provinces that can have mines, but their max output is like 100 Minai or so... totally not worth it, imho, as they also give public order penalty, insanely expensove to build and cannot be destroyed later on.

So, yes, you should check ahead

[bisthebis]

What I meant was that Temples/Strategic fortificatins have a flat, unconditionnal malus which counters industry buildings. So the industry doesn't look like it works as expected, since only the trade bonus is gained, unless we decide not to have any temples, because flat income sum isn't negative.

Unless the flat income sum of a city can actually be negative (with the city costing money), while the settlement preview is unreliable ?
(If you look at the settlement preview, flat income is either non-existent or positive)

[Poppis]

And specifically to your point, there are ZERO Temples or Strategic Fortifications of any level or type which apply a malus to ANYTHING based on the presence of an Industry building.

About the industry buildings, I think he's actually right. Industry buildings use the "income_bonus bonus X" which is the same as all building upkeeps which just have a negative number there. The game shows this income in the "corruption and others" section of the financial screen. The problem is that similar to law/happiness, this number can never be negative so if your city has one building with -50 upkeep, you aren't actually losing anything. If you then build a lvl 1 industry building(which gives +200 income) you would have a total of +150 income.

Also this is city specific, so if you have one city with -50 building and another city with +200 building, you would have a total of +200 income.

I reported this bug some time ago in here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...=#post15043640

[Kull]

Also this is city specific, so if you have one city with -50 building and another city with +200 building, you would have a total of +200 income.

I reported this bug some time ago in here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...=#post15043640

Thanks, I was not aware of this bug. Not to split hairs, but what you are talking about isn't a problem with the Industry buildings per se, but rather the Income plus/minus mechanism as a whole. Anyway, that's interesting - we'll have to think about whether anything would work as an effective counter.

[bisthebis]

Good to know, I 100% agree with the rationale. But are these changes enough to make agricultural improvements actually improve income ? (At the moment, a fully developped province will have the bare minimum income, one "tile" in settlement preview, worth about 100, no matter how high is farm building, so using non-reformed agriculture is always a bad idea because you have the Public Order penalty without additionnal income)

[Ivir Baggins]

Good to know, I 100% agree with the rationale. But are these changes enough to make agricultural improvements actually improve income ? (At the moment, a fully developped province will have the bare minimum income, one "tile" in settlement preview, worth about 100, no matter how high is farm building, so using non-reformed agriculture is always a bad idea because you have the Public Order penalty without additionnal income)

The improved farms will give extra pop growth however. That's always useful.

[Kull]

Good to know, I 100% agree with the rationale. But are these changes enough to make agricultural improvements actually improve income ? (At the moment, a fully developped province will have the bare minimum income, one "tile" in settlement preview, worth about 100, no matter how high is farm building, so using non-reformed agriculture is always a bad idea because you have the Public Order penalty without additionnal income)

It all depends. If you max out every structure type there is, it will probably be close to a wash with top level farms (prior to this change you would be looking at -5). Of course, it all depends on IF you max out every structure. Locations with grain will probably always be in the "plus", however. It also depends on your faction and what their max levels of each building type are and the size of the settlement and colony levels etc. The point is, you won't rapidly plunge into the minus, and you should be able to have a building plan that keeps things positive - that wasn't really possible before.