The problem of fort types

[Tyrant]

I agree with Sombre. The big forts are not always a problem, but they mostly are, especially in the early game. I hate having to build a fort in a crappy spot 'cause it's the only cheap option and I'm desperate for that crucial second fort.

Ideally I'd like a big fort/cheap fort option for each terrain type, but i'd settle for Sombre's solution of "bonus" fort being cheaper.

[Wokeye]

I agree 'special' forts should either be cheaper/quicker to build, or confer 'special' bonuses (eg boosted pop growth/resources) - or both.

The factors that set factions apart strategically makes them (and DOM3!) more interesting to play IMO.

+1 for Scouts being able to detect fort construction activities.

[Ironhawk]

Are the fort types for each nation moddable in dom3?

[Endoperez]

You can choose which fort nation builds in spesific terrains, but you can't mod the forts themselves.

[Zeldor]

I would really prefer to see fort types to be more important and useful both in economy and battles.

[Sombre]

So we have general agreement. Does anyone have any other ideas on how this could be improved?

I'm sticking with my idea of a flat rate for all non special forts, discount rate for specials. That way the best option is usually to go with your racial fort, next best is somewhere like a high gold or high income province, then finally you still might build a 'crappy' fort due to location (like to protect a lab and temple on top of a special site). So you'd get variety and fort choices would be more intuitive, with crappy forts being the rarer choice rather than the other way around.

[kasnavada]

Does anyone have any other ideas on how this could be improved?

Sure !
- having some national units only produced by specific types of forts ?
- having a reduction in gold or ressources when producing on a specific type of terrain ?

To give an example, for sauromantia, building in a swamp would lead to a significant reduction in ressources that make it equivalent to the ressources made if the terrain a mountain, but only for them (maybe more or less for balance reasons ?).

[Carkaton]

How about fort upgrades? Take c'tis swamp city for 1200 gold 5 or 6 months build time(can't remember). If they had the option to build the swamp fort initially for 800 and 3 months, with the possibility of upgrading to the city if desired for another 400-600 and more build time.

This would allow nations to eventually make their good forts but keep their competitiveness short term.

[Wauthan]

Sombre said:
So we have general agreement. Does anyone have any other ideas on how this could be improved?

If there would ever be a Dominions 4 then forts and battlefields could use an overhaul. In my opinion 'attacking the breach' is not nearly deadly enough. While the defender has an advantage it feels fairly small, and I'm not sure that the attacker risk losing far more units compared to a standard battle.

I've no suggestions that are simple and realistic enough to be implemented in a patch. Mostly because I don't know how hard it would be to implement bonuses or penalties for just one side. But a "cover" bonus seems approriate, which I guess would work like an airshield but affecting all ranged attacks (including spells). Or the wall could function as extra tiles of distance for the attacker, which means only some attacks can actually reach the defenders, until the enemy unit actually makes it through the gate.