Fortress

This is the symbol of your power, as well as defending place for your military. Without a fortress, you have no way to order your people to perform certain tasks. After losing your last fortress, you must start everything from the ashes.

Forts also give a bonus to your unit's HP while defending only.

Forts add to your power, but those above 2.5% do not! (since may 2008)

Fort HP bonus is different for sieges and regulars, and rises linearly. A minimum of 0.67% forts is needed:

• Minimum:
  • 0.67% of forts gives 10%/20% HP bonus during regulars and sieges respectively.
• Maximum:
  • 2.5% of forts gives 37.5%/75% HP bonus during regulars and sieges respectively.

Forts also provide a residential max increase of 500 pop (Residence only, no food)

A recommended ratio is 1% of your land in forts, as maxing out forts at 2.5% will make you look much stronger than you really are.

Upkeep

The upkeep of forts differs from that of other buildings in that each additional fort built has a higher upkeep than the last one. This means that building a large amount of forts can very quickly cause a significant increase in geld upkeep.

The upkeep U_n of the nth fort is:

U_n = 240 + 60n

It follows from this that the total upkeep U(n) for n forts is:

U(n) = 240n + 30n(n+1)

Past Usage

Following changes to oversummoning, Fort Halling was a decent way to gain power and rank during Armageddon. This is no longer the case because the Forts above 2.5% do not increase your power design change.