Area of Control [forts]

[Soronarr]

Only one problem with that - what if the force is still in the area and has not gone past it? The defender is essentially besieged and the attacker has free rein on all mines outside. However, in this case, it doesn't.

To besiege, you'd have to camp at the very fort. And if your army is not holing it's position right at the fort, it's no besieging.
The attacker can't be on two places at once, unless he splits his forces.

There's nothing stopping a few troops from leaving the fort under cover of darkness and taking back the mines.

Forts in Real Life serve as basicly control points for an entire area.

[Meandor]

And if your army is not holing it's position right at the fort, it's no besieging.

I`m sorry, are we going to argue about graphical representation on the map?

[Soronarr]

No, but if you run around without your hero "close" to the fort, you're not really besieging it. You're in the "general area", but the general area in question is VERY large. Remember abstraction and scale? And how much ground your army covers over a day?


If my army is over the mountain, then I'm no position to stop the people in the fort from taking mines, now am I?
Either I sorround the fort or I take. There is no other way to stop the fort from controlling the area.

Being 3-4 hexes (or more) from the fort definately doesn't count. Just like being 2 hexes from the castle doesn't count as attacking.

[Kalah]

Either I sorround the fort or I take. There is no other way to stop the fort from controlling the area.

Correct, and historically accurate.

[MattII]

Either I sorround the fort or I take. There is no other way to stop the fort from controlling the area.

Correct, and historically accurate.

Only in the long-term, and the fort would still have to send its soldiers out to do the actual work, which you don't have to do here.

[Soronarr]

Thank heavens you don't. There's no need to micromanage everything. One can just assume the fort send out some soldier to capture mines once no enemy is near.

[vicheron]

I hope that area control isn't gained instantaneously. It should take time to grow to its maximum size.

[SplinterHoMM]

Basically, i like this feature.I'd like the possibility to leave hero in the fort (not just units, since without hero they are helpless against enemy hero).
But if you can buy army in the fort directly from your town (no time to transport), isn't it to big advantage to defender over attacker?

[Banedon]

Either I sorround the fort or I take. There is no other way to stop the fort from controlling the area.

Correct, and historically accurate.

Why can't you stay in the area, stopping the fort from controlling the area but not actually take or surround the fort? The defending force better stay in the fort or it risks getting collapsed on before it can retreat and wiped out.

Example: Genghis Khan's Mongols.

[Soronarr]

Because it's useless.

If you don't actually soround the fort, enemy soldiers can sneak under cover of night and take the mines back. Sure, your own soldiers take them back the next day, but they can't hold on to them. It would basicely be a cycle of capture/lose. You're kept in the area, without actually making any real progress.

Even worse, in the real world, that would seriously mess up your logistics.

[ThunderTitan]

Because it's useless.

If you don't actually soround the fort, enemy soldiers can sneak under cover of night and take the mines back. Sure, your own soldiers take them back the next day, but they can't hold on to them. It would basicely be a cycle of capture/lose. You're kept in the area, without actually making any real progress.

Even worse, in the real world, that would seriously mess up your logistics.

Unless you know, you protect the mine with some troops, because if the enemy is hiding inside the fort it probably can't take you on on an open bf.

But that's not how it works, people in forts weren't going out of them to just take a mine or something, they where staging areas and defences, and there are examples of people just by passing them in order to suprise attack somewhere else etc.

[Soronarr]

But your hero doesn't leave troops at each mine, now does he?

Just by-passing a fort is a strategicly stupid move. You leave a enemy force behind your back.

[Kalah]

Historically, the only way to effectively besiege a fort would be to surround it; bring enough troops to prevent breakouts from any of the gates. You would also have to have enough provisions to starve the force out, and be able to withstand a third force's attempt to raise the siege. The scattered farms (and mines etc.) in the area could be plundered or destroyed, but not effectively exploited for an expended period of time. The threat of the force inside the fort is overwhelming.

[parcaleste]

I would love if some mobile towers (siege towers? Whats the word in English?) are introduced when you siege a town, also big ladders to climb the walls... Sounds too good to be true, even though I am sure it is possible, esp. now with the info you can put your archers in the main tower.

[ThunderTitan]

But your hero doesn't leave troops at each mine, now does he?

Just by-passing a fort is a strategicly stupid move. You leave a enemy force behind your back.

Sure, but if you take out their capital before they can even react you can take care of them easy after.

Historically, the only way to effectively besiege a fort would be to surround it; bring enough troops to prevent breakouts from any of the gates. You would also have to have enough provisions to starve the force out, and be able to withstand a third force's attempt to raise the siege. The scattered farms (and mines etc.) in the area could be plundered or destroyed, but not effectively exploited for an expended period of time. The threat of the force inside the fort is overwhelming.

And that's what training heroes to take back the mine is about...

To really make it realistic one would have to actually leave some units at every mien to make sure the miners give you what they mined anyway...

Realism is way more complex, it's not like each fort had an actual area of influence, and i bet plenty of them couldn't actually protect all the area they where supposed to.

As a permanent military outpost what they could do is react fast to retake the area etc...

[MattII]

There were also far few forts than you see in the games, and taking one could take days in battle, or weeks on months in a siege. They also took 'years' to build not 'days', so it's impossible to make a claim that one system or another is actually 'real', because the game itself is so far off reality.

[ThunderTitan]

True...

And forts didn't so much grant one faction control of the area as much as denied it to the other faction because of the danger of raids from the fort.

[Gaidal Cain]

Historically, the only way to effectively besiege a fort would be to surround it; bring enough troops to prevent breakouts from any of the gates.

Actually, the most effective way would simply be to bribe the defenders...

[SplinterHoMM]

I would love if some mobile towers (siege towers? Whats the word in English?) are introduced when you siege a town, also big ladders to climb the walls... Sounds too good to be true, even though I am sure it is possible, esp. now with the info you can put your archers in the main tower.

Yes,i would also like to see more siege technics and war machines in general...

[Banedon]

Historically, the only way to effectively besiege a fort would be to surround it; bring enough troops to prevent breakouts from any of the gates. You would also have to have enough provisions to starve the force out, and be able to withstand a third force's attempt to raise the siege. The scattered farms (and mines etc.) in the area could be plundered or destroyed, but not effectively exploited for an expended period of time. The threat of the force inside the fort is overwhelming.

Really?

I was under the impression that you can devastate the countryside and the defenders in the fort can't do anything about it because they can't take you on in an open battlefield. Sure, they can sneak people out if they're daring, but then all you have to do is seal off the retreat and they're dead. They can sneak people out to "take" mines in the middle of the night, but they can't carry any resources back.

Even if the attacking force cannot exploit the resources of the area, the defending force can't exploit the resources either. The threat of the force inside the fort is overwhelming only if that force can win a fight outside the fort, which it usually can't.

Just by-passing a fort is a strategicly stupid move. You leave a enemy force behind your back.

Perhaps, but if you aren't looking for conquest but are rather just raiding, what's wrong with that? During the early stages of Mongol conquests, the Mongols weren't skilled at all with taking fortified areas. They simply bypassed them after it became clear they can't take the cities. That did not stop them from devastating the countryside! You can shut yourself up inside the fort and be safe, but you can't stop the raiders from burning down everything of value outside the fort (everything they can't carry away, anyway).

This system in Heroes 6 makes it such that you can have a hostile force in the vicinity of the fort, strong enough to confine the defenders to the fort but not strong enough to actually take it, and still can't inflict any damage whatsoever on the economy of the defender. If nothing else, the attacker should be able to disable the mines for several days or something.