Defensive Fortifications Concept from History

[Sultan Mubashar]

In medieval times, there were not only towns/cities, but also castles/forts/fortresses built at the strategic locations inside the kingdom territory, like river crossings, passage through hills, mountains and frontiers, which worked as a defensive barriers against enemy march heading towards kingdom's cities and even protected kingdoms from enemy against crossing its borders.

This is very core and critical aspect of medieval warfare which KOH:2 should not leave behind. So, I have basic idea in points how devs can incorporate this feature into the game:

- Every Kingdom should be allowed to build castle like fortifications anywhere (at strategic locations) on the map within its border.

- Every kingdom can only have a limited no. of fortifications built at a time determined by kingdom size.

- Fortifications can be demolished and rebuilt by owners.

- Fortifications should have garrison just like cities. Marshal armies can also be stationed inside.

- Fortifications should not add any kind of economic benefits to the kingdom.

- Fortifications should have upgradeable levels. Leveling up would increase garrison size and siege defense through stronger walls/towers, siege engines, moats etc.... .

- Fortifications should have some maintenance costs determined by its level.

- Fortifications can store extra food from towns (Max Amount determined by its level) and can supply it back during hard times on king's demand.

- Fortifications could have dungeons where captured enemy marshals can be kept imprisoned. It does not make any sense for captured enemy marshals to take slots in royal court. They have nothing to do with this.

- Fortification should block specific passage for the enemy army and should be destroyed first by enemy army before marching further into kingdom territory.

Edited January 25, 2021 by Sultan Mubashar
Composing revision

[Lighthope]

This idea was already covered in this thread:

For the tl;dr - There is a lack of interest in this idea as no one wants to have to fight the main castle plus three or four other "nuisance" castles, or in this threads case "fortifications".

It's historically accurate, but boring gameplay.

[Sultan Mubashar]

My approach here is little different from that. These fortifications will be very expensive to build and to maintain. Only big/rich kingdoms would be able to afford them. This will also do justice to these kingdoms against the argument that smallest kingdom in the game can have same no. of armies as biggest kingdom can.

 

[Lighthope]

38 minutes ago, Sultan Mubashar said:

My approach here is little different from that. These fortifications will be very expensive to build and to maintain.

I appreciate that, but it still is just something else to hack and slash through.

Rich countries have other tools at their disposal to set them apart from the poor ones, including the ability to hire mercenaries and replace losses more quickly.  They don't need yet another advantage.

[Bagatur]

20 hours ago, Lighthope said:

This idea was already covered in this thread:

For the tl;dr - There is a lack of interest in this idea as no one wants to have to fight the main castle plus three or four other "nuisance" castles, or in this threads case "fortifications".

It's historically accurate, but boring gameplay.

Ok. If castles don`t play any role what so ever, then why exist at all. In my opinion, they will have the abillity to make the gameplay ten times better than the first KOH. Each situation will be uniqe. For example, castles could be a major problem for an invader, but only if the attacked kindom, left sufficiant garisons in them. If the haven`t, than they fall automaticly, with the fall of the major city. Ofcourse, soldiers left there will take upkeep, so not every one will be able to aford to gard his castles. And then there are the rebellions. If there are any, they really shoud use the castles, if they are not maned by the invader already. Every conquest will be deferent. Sometimes it will be easy, others it will be hard. Depending on the situation. If castles have no real poprous than we will have the same game, as the original. And will be really more of the same, every time you start a war.  The idea for the player to be able to build fortifications is very interesting, and if it can`t be done, than at least the castles should indeed be placed in stratigic locations. 

[Lighthope]

1 hour ago, Bagatur said:

Ok. If castles don`t play any role what so ever,

I didn't say they don't have a role.  I said it was a boring, repetitive role.

This subject is best kept in the original thread.  That way, the developers can more easily follow player thoughts.

I'm just expressing my own personal thoughts.  Others may think differently and believe Keeps would be a great idea.

[Bagatur]

11 hours ago, Lighthope said:

I didn't say they don't have a role.  I said it was a boring, repetitive role.

This subject is best kept in the original thread.  That way, the developers can more easily follow player thoughts.

I'm just expressing my own personal thoughts.  Others may think differently and believe Keeps would be a great idea.

Ofcourse every one of us is expressing personal thoughts. And again my opinion is that castles have the potential to eliminate the boring side of every conquest. For exapmple, if you are attacked, there will be an option. You could pull out all avalible forces and form field armies, or you can man the castles and slow down the advance of the enemy. Or you may not have the resorces for any of that, and then you fall. Every situation will be different. And if only taking one town is all that you need to do, how is that not boring and repetitive? You literally do the same think over and over again. Just beat the enemy field army, and than do the same thing, until you take all his lands 🙂  And if you have the abillity to build castles, then you can secure you frontier and then concentrait on outer front. And last. this will make it harder, for a small kindom to swallow entire empires in matter of minites, like often happend in the first part 🙂

[Sultan Mubashar]

Adding fortifications feature into the game will not make gameplay boring by any means but Challenging and Interesting for both AI and Player as it will add New Strategic Elements into the game which will definitely encourage Longer Gameplay Sessions and will extend the Replay Value of the game. 

After reading and watching 14 DEV dairies till so far, KoH2 seems only to be the graphically improved version of the vanilla game with few to none new features. Introducing a feature like fortifications as per my suggestion will add great weight to "What's New in KoH2". I hope DEV will read this post and understand the importance of it in bringing the game to next level.

[Bassilisk]

I think a fortification would be cool actually, one that the player can place anywhere. Limit one per province or one per Capitol. Just a fort that would deter attacks from a specific route or country. Not super strong but strong enough to deter the enemy from attack for a while. Different than castles, they would be positioned by the player, take time to build or destroy,only 1 per province, and have a maximum amount of soldiers, and require upkeep

[Bassilisk]

Reason being is I almost never used the defence stance in Koh, why would anyone attack you direct head on seeing in this stance. Unless they did an ambush stance/unseen. But with this you would have one more "unit" to play with that would need little or no attention. Plus you wouldnt have to fight it to take over province. 

[Sultan Mubashar]

2 hours ago, Bassilisk said:

I think a fortification would be cool actually, one that the player can place anywhere. Limit one per province or one per Capitol. Just a fort that would deter attacks from a specific route or country. Not super strong but strong enough to deter the enemy from attack for a while. Different than castles, they would be positioned by the player, take time to build or destroy,only 1 per province, and have a maximum amount of soldiers, and require upkeep

Yes it will be super cool and add too much fun to the game.

 

Edited January 27, 2021 by Sultan Mubashar
Composing revision

[Lighthope]

Fortifications were used in Medieval 2: Total War and I never used them and I don't recall ever seeing the AI use them except rarely.

6 hours ago, Bagatur said:

And if only taking one town is all that you need to do, how is that not boring and repetitive? You literally do the same think over and over again.

With fortifications, you're literally doing the same thing as taking a town, but now you have to do it multiple times for a single province.

As I said in the other thread: If you want to make taking a province more difficult, make the main castle harder.  Don't make us take out the main castle and three other pest castles, because that is all they are going to be: Pests that are swept aside on the march to the main event.

[Carl Lucas]

I like the idea but I agree with Lighthope that it will get probably pretty boring in the long run. There must be a way to make this into a mechanic though. What about making fortifications decrease rebellions like some sort of middle age police?

[Lighthope]

46 minutes ago, Carl Lucas said:

What about making fortifications decrease rebellions like some sort of middle age police?

I can live with that.  Especially if they have to have troops to support the fortification.

[Bagatur]

That`s fair! If a state hasn`t maned the fortifications, then they shouldn`t play any role. They fall automaticly. And the idea, that thay decreases chance of rebelion is brilliant! 

[Lighthope]

55 minutes ago, Bagatur said:

If a state hasn`t maned the fortifications, then they shouldn`t play any role. They fall automaticly. And the idea, that thay decreases chance of rebelion is brilliant! 

Okay, so how would this work, since the only armies we have are with Knights.  Would they be additional troops that only man the fortifications?  Wouldn't that be too easy?  Build a fort, man it, forget about it?

[Bagatur]

14 hours ago, Lighthope said:

Okay, so how would this work, since the only armies we have are with Knights.  Would they be additional troops that only man the fortifications?  Wouldn't that be too easy?  Build a fort, man it, forget about it?

Well it will be exactly like feaving troops as town garrison. But you will leave it in the castles. This however will strech out your resorses. If you leave them there, castle garrisons can be starved (a castle should have limited quantaty of food), and then you lose your troops. Thats what i ment, when i said that every situation will be defferent. Say you attack my kindom. I have a choise. I can pull all the forces from the castles, to form a feaild army, or leave them, to slow you down. For exapmple, to buy time for recruting! In some cases you will take provences easy, and outer time it will be hard. Depends on the oponent. And the stratigy element is hightent this way 🙂

[Lighthope]

5 hours ago, Bagatur said:

. I can pull all the forces from the castles, to form a feaild army, or leave them, to slow you down.

Now we're going back to the pest castles, which I don't want to do.

[Sultan Mubashar]

Let's make this idea more simple for anyone to understand and easy for developers to implement.

What is this idea?
The idea is to allow kingdoms to place "Fortified Outposts" on the map within their own territory.

 

What are these outposts and how these will work?
Fortified outposts are defensive structures similar to watch towers/keep/bombard towers in Age of Empires series. Each outpost will consist of few archers and a siege engine and will have a radius of action in which it will launch it's missile attack at the encountered enemy armies.

 

What is the main purpose of these outposts?
The main purpose of these outposts is to secure a passage by opposing enemy marshals to march further into one's lands through that passage.

 

Can outposts be demolished, damaged and destroyed?
Yes, these can be demolished by owner, can be damaged by rebels, enemy marshals and spies and can be destroyed by rebels and enemy marshals. Owner will have to repair the damaged outpost.

 

Will outposts of kingdom (A) be visible to other kingdoms (B, C)?
Outpost of kingdom A will not be revealed to kingdom B until:

• B is allied with A (Both can see each other's outposts as long as they remain allies), OR
• A is vassal of B (B can see A's outposts as long as A remains vassal of B), OR
• B's marshal comes across A's outpost (it will remain visible to B as long as outpost is within his marshal's line of sight), OR
• B's spy has been successful in sneaking into A then A's outposts will be revealed to B one by one as time passes while spy is working in A. Time delay for each reveal will be dependent upon the no. of already revealed outposts and role of spy. Time needed for the next reveal will become shorter after each reveal and marshal spy takes less time to reveal an outpost than merchant spy (it will remain visible to B as long as spy is there), OR
• Any rebel army supporting B comes across the A's outpost (it will remain visible to B as long as outpost is within rebel's line of sight).

Any outpost visible to B will also be revealed to C if:

• B and C are Allies, OR
• B and C have signed defensive pact, OR
• B and C signed an invasion plan, OR
• B is the vassal of C
• C has a spy in B. (Optional but very tricky).

Any outpost that became visible to C because of B will also become invisible to C if it becomes invisible to B.

 

Will Outposts be upgradeable?
Yes, Each level will increase their:

1. RADIUS OF ACTION
2. HIT POINTS
3. ATTACK POWER
4. PUSH FACTOR

 

What is PUSH FACTOR of an outpost?
Push factor is the tendency of an outpost to remain resilient against enemy and defend the specific passage effectively by discouraging the encountered enemy marshal to advance further into lands through that passage and forcing him to back off and find another passage.

 

Will outposts require any upkeep?
Yes! these structure will be expensive to build and have maintenance cost in gold. Further there will be repairing costs in case of any damage.

 

Will Marshal Army have any line of sight for detecting these posts?
Yes, Each marshal will have a line of sight for these outposts. To keep things interesting, a typical marshal with no "EAGLE EYE" skill will have very small line of sight even less than primary level outpost. Line of sight of a outpost is equal to its range of action.

 

What is EAGLE EYE skill of a marshal?
It is a supposed name for a marshal skill which will grant a marshal extra line of sight per each level. If LOS of marshal is bigger than the range of an enemy outpost, he can detect outpost without being trapped into its radius of action so he will have an option to avoid the outpost without suffering any casualties and find another way. To keep things interesting, LOS of a marshal with highest level of this skill will be less than range of an highest level outpost.

 

What actions a marshal will have at his disposal when he comes across the enemy outpost?
When a marshal has an encounter with enemy post, he can:

• Continue advancing through the passage without engaging with outpost while suffering a huge amount of casualties, OR
• Start attacking the outpost for the sake of destroying it first, OR
• Back off and try to find another passage possible to invade into enemy territory.

 

How can a marshal damage/destroy an enemy outpost without suffering any casualties?
A marshal can damge/destroy an enemy outpost without suffering any casualties if he has:

• Higher LOS than outpost, AND
• Long-ranged siege engine like Trebuchet at his disposal.

 

How can a spy of one kingdom (B) damage the outposts of other kingdom (A)?
When spy of B starts revealing A's outposts, he can be ordered to damage it but beware it will dramatically increase the chances of spy being detected and captured as A will be put on high alert.
Hint: If your outposts suddenly start getting damage, this will be a clear sign that you have a traitor in your royal court. It's time to track and hunt him down.

 

Will there be unlimited no. of outposts available for a kingdom to build at a time?
No. For a fair gameplay, a kingdom will only be allowed to build one or two outposts for each province it holds.

 

What will be the best spot to build these outposts?
To get most out of these outposts, one should look for a narrow passage with the root node.

Edited January 29, 2021 by Sultan Mubashar
Composing revision

[Lighthope]

2 hours ago, Sultan Mubashar said:

The idea is to allow kingdoms to place "Fortified Outposts" on the map within their own territory.

In other words: A pest castle.

I really do appreciate the theory behind it.  Reminds me very much of the fortifications from M2:TW.

Let me tell you what is going to happen:

I am going to march my army either around it or, if I am marshaling two armies, up to it and destroy it, and destroy it quickly because I am going to massively outnumber you.  I probably won't even bother with the map battle.  I'll just do the auto-complete and let the computer count the casualties.  In that case, your province bought themselves no time to call in help, I probably lost only a few attackers, and it was really boring gameplay.

In this kind of game, fortifications aren't going to add any strategic value because they can't add anything that either won't be too easy to kill or too frustrating to fight.  I don't think they can find a middle ground.

Sure, you can build up your fortifications.  Why not build up the main castle instead?  You've added the same defense value, but killed off the pest castle.

Fortifications add nothing to the game but a method to slow down the attacker and add yet another structure they have to stop and kill.  That isn't fun. That's repetitive.

With how many provinces we have to conqueror already, do we need yet more battles to fight?

[Lighthope]

Okay, how about a compromise for fortifications?

They are used solely to block a route.  Slow down the army.  Buy time for reinforcements from allies or your own forces that were elsewhere.

The attacking army can hack and slash the fortification the same way they destroy a farm or a village.  Just a clock.  No actual fighting.  (Unless your forces get there.)

This way fortifications are an obstacle, not another battle.

[Sultan Mubashar]

14 hours ago, Lighthope said:

Okay, how about a compromise for fortifications?

They are used solely to block a route.  Slow down the army.  Buy time for reinforcements from allies or your own forces that were elsewhere.

The attacking army can hack and slash the fortification the same way they destroy a farm or a village.  Just a clock.  No actual fighting.  (Unless your forces get there.)

This way fortifications are an obstacle, not another battle.

Yes dear, my idea is only valid if battle takes place on the global map (not on the battle map) on the fly without the player's intervention. Player doesn't need to command these battles personally.

Marshal armies will destroy the outposts the same way they were used to raid the villages in the vanilla game, but with a little difference.

If marshal have ranged siege engines in his army, he can attack the outpost from a distance equal to his LOS. He will build a temporary siege camp there and his siege engines will start firing at enemy outposts. This is the process which will takes place around a clock. Building siege camp, firing of siege engines at outpost and gradual destruction of outposts in stages should make visible to player through some appealing animations if battle is relavent to player.

If outpost is not at higher level and is wooden made and enemy marshal does not have any ranged siege engine then he can reach near at outpost and will attack outpost with his units (an action similar to village raiding).

Higher level outposts made of stone can only be destroyed by army with siege engines.

If enemy marshal completes the clock while attacking a outpost, then outposts will be destroyed and will be disappeared from map. If attack is lifted before clock completes, it will be considered damaged and lost hp will not be replensihed upon lifting until repaired.

Now there are two approaches DEV can choose how outposts will attack enemy marshals.

1): First approach as I mentioned in the early post, outposts will start launching its missile attack through firing arrows and siege engine as early as enemy marshal enters into radius of action and keep firing as long as marshal is in its range. Animations of outpost firing arrows, siege engine fires etc. at enemy marshals should be shown on global map if this battle is relavent to player ( battle taking place at any outpost which is visible to player on the global map).

OR 

2): Second approach is that instead of outposts firing at the enemy, a small army will sally out from the outpost when enemy marshal enters into it's radius of action and will engage enemy marshal into battle automatically and armies will keep coming after some regualr intervals as long as marshal is in the range of outpost. This concept is similar to the one already present in vanilla game when jihad was called, and small armies popped up from mosques from time to time and used to engage the nearby enemy marshals into battle.

Outposts may engage with more than one enemy marshals within its radius at a time in either of approaches whatever developers chose. I am in the favor of 2nd approach.

Edited January 29, 2021 by Sultan Mubashar
Composing revision

[WestAnt]

Hello there,

 

@Sultan Mubashar I see you are very passionate about those fortifications and I am quite curious now why is that, I'd like to hear the story, because by how far this topic has gone, I don't think it is only about GamePlay.

 

Here are my concerns about these fortifications:

1. What will happen to the outpost when the province falls, but the outpost is not taken?

2. Can outpost attack enemy Castles or outposts?

3. In the vanilla version every marshall and castle had food limit which determins to the large part the moral of the troops (and even their existence) - how will these garrisons be fed?

4. What is your idea about the range of the outposts and how far it can be upgraded? - I think there actualy is no way to balance this, as it will be either super easy to go around or super annoyingly overpowered

5. Placement - What is deterring people to just place their 2 outposts other site of the castle and towering themselves every time? (I took a look at the original KoH map, and there seem to be not that many choke points - it seems to me only the mountain ranges in Southern Europe and maybe the map ends)

6. Vision ?

  a) When a marshall enters an enemy province, he sees everything in it (castle, rebels, armies and so on) - do you plan something like a stelth mode for outposts not in range? Because that is a new mechanic!

  b) Your marshalls army cannot be attacked from outside the province he is in - what happens if he is in range of an enemy outpost.? If he is to be attacked by the outpost, that is a new mechanic!

  c) You talked about a new skill "Eagle Eye" - do you mean that a marshal can see outside the province he is in and into enemy provinces? Because this has the possibility to be a new mechanic!

  d) Will the outopst be allowed to attack ships? - in the vanilla version nothing can shoot at the ships in the sea and this will be a new mechanic!

Just to add an outpost mechanic we are adding a bunch of other machanics that just complicate the game in a manner, which is adding a smaller tactical element to conquering a province.

 

You have an interesting idea, but without building a bunch of roads to the whole map and saying "hey guys, you can only go on these roads", I don't see outposts or any strategic fortifications on the map having any real effect.

 

Furthermore, I really like what the DEV teams is going for - that it is not that hard to conquer a province, but governing it and maintaining its population happy and obedient is the tricky part. I think this has the potential to deter wormongerers more, than just another small castle(outpost) to destroy along the way.

[Lighthope]

On 1/29/2021 at 9:42 AM, Sultan Mubashar said:

Yes dear, my idea is only valid if battle takes place on the global map (not on the battle map) on the fly without the player's intervention. Player doesn't need to command these battles personally.

Don't we already have this mechanic in the game?  Your Marshall can be talented to become a fort, firing off arrows at an approaching army.

So this sounds like an end run around the Marshall limit.  I could get on board with that, presuming the proper requirements and you can't just spam and forget them.  (An artificial limit of one per province doesn't make sense.)

[Michael Gladius]

Since my "minor castles" post was referenced, I'd like to chime in:

 

Minor castles/fortifications should be included because they allow smaller numbers of troops to win against larger forces. We see this in the crusades, when the Crusaders had few knights and small garrisons. Tiny kingdoms would thus be able to leverage them against attackers.

 

The first benefit can be a trade-off: truly conquering a province after military victory is a cultural matter. This will hopefully be costly. Yet if one takes the minor castles, this could grant a discount to the final cost of conquering the province. So if one likes sieges, he can spend lots of time on them and enjoy a lower culture-conquest cost at the end. If he hates sieges, he can dump his efforts into one battle and then spend more time on maxxing out his cultural advantages.

 

The second trade-off can be siege attrition. Leaving small castles in the rear of a besieging army was incredibly dangerous IRL because they could launch raids against the besiegers. Leaving them unmolested could increase attrition to the attackers, and taking them could decrease this added-on attrition.

 

The third advantage of small castles is they can serve as supply depots and give vision/intelligence into an enemy province. If my army is not in the province, there is fog of war over it. If I take a small castle, though, I would be able to see a portion of the province, and stockpile supplies there for a longer campaign. Shorter supply lines and greater intelligence (should be tied into spies as well) make campaigning easier.

 

A fourth advantage of small castles is the rebel/resistance mechanic suggested above. I proposed forts as a way for loyalists to rally in rebellion, but using them to suppress rebellions is also a good idea. It should work both ways.

 

Fifth, I'd also suggest making non-military province features fortify-able. Monasteries, villages, and farms could gain towers/blockhouses, pallisades, and garrisons. Not as strong as a castle, but definitely something to defend.