Fortress

Forts are the symbol of an archmage's power, as well as the defensive bastions of his military. When a kingdom's last fortress is destroyed, its ruler is slain and will need to reincarnate a new soul from Hell to return to Terra.

Forts above a certain level also give a bonus to the health points of all units in a defending army. A base HP bonus of 10% on regular attacks and 20% on siege attacks always applies. Having more than 0.67% of kingdom land in forts makes the bonus increase linearly until a maximum bonus of 37.5% on regulars, and 75% on sieges, is reached at 2.5% of kingdom land.

Forts add to your net power, but only the first 2.5% of your land. (since May 2008)

Each fort also provides residential space for 500 people.

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)

Hint

As a rule of thumb, keeping 1% forts is usually a good idea. It provides a useful defensive bonus and security in the event of hostility, without costing large amounts of geld to upkeep, or raising the kingdom net power so much that mages with a much bigger army will be in range to attack.

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.