Only be able to conquer province once all enemies are defeated IF enemies are allied to one another.

The basis for my idea is to allow allied players to use each others' fortresses and get the bonuses that they provide like hiding troop count and type and of course the defensive bonus. I think it is very clear that this is necessary and I will illustrate why.

I am in a current 50-50 event game on the one hundred player map playing as Norway. I decided to send a bunch of troops into Europe to help my team. Scotland sent a big army to capitalize on their turmoil and began to take the French provinces which Germany controlled.

His army eventually started marching towards Italy. Italy had sent all of his men into Africa and Spain and had no defenders. He has a level two fortress in a province he controlled in France. Scotland was going for it and, since Italy had no defenders, I decided to hold that position to help. I knew that in a level two fortress, my army of 42 would win against his army of 57.

So Scotland's men get closer and closer to my guys in the fortress. To be clear, mine was the only country's army in the fortress. I had never been in this situation before, so I was explicitly sure to be smack-dab in the middle of the fortress. Not off to the side or anything, but right in the province just as if it was a brand new unit that was just recruited there.

Scotland took the province from me and immediately had control of a level two and a half fortress and my men were in combat with his forted units. I was furious.

Needless to say, I lost the battle. But it begs a few questions from me:

1. Did Italy lock the fortress before my guys got there? Did he not leave my guys the key?

2. Did my men not see the Scottish troops mounting ladders and climbing into the empty fortress? Why didn't my men attack the Scots before he took the fortress?

3. If they saw them, then why would my guys let them take over the fortress, only to rush the fortress and die en masse? Senseless.

4. Isn't in counter-intuitive to be able to use allied railroads, aerodromes and harbors easily, but when you try to use an allied fortress it doesn't work as you might expect, if at all?

Now all of these questions are rhetorical. And I don't mean to be sarcastic. I contacted the bug report guys and the message I received back confirmed it was intentional. He told me that I was supposed to attack the Scottish before they got to the fort. Now, that isn't good enough for me. I love this game and I want it to be the best it can be.

And how am I meant to figure that out? I would never do that if an army was attacking my own fortress. I would wait there and if I wanted an additional attack round then I would issue an attack order only after the enemy army was in combat in the province center -contacting the fort-.

And as it stands, I don't know if you get a fort bonus from an ally at all. In another game, I am Greenland with a right of way with ai Finland. I was in his fort during the situation in the 50 50 game, so I decided to check it with the fortress bonus indicator at the bottom. It said I had 0% defensive bonus. But would I have a bonus if it were a coalition member? I don't think I would. Would I have a bonus if it were a player? I don't think I would.

So, in short, please help me get Bytro to add allied fortress bonuses to the game so this insane situation which is totally non intuitive in the aspect of Supremacy 1914's gameplay and totally unrealistic in terms of actual warfare never happens to another player whether they assumed that their guys would get a bonus or whether they knew they wouldn't but wanted to help a defensive situation anyway.

And, even if, for some reason, getting an allied fortress bonus was impossible or unwanted by Bytro, there is absolutely no excuse for an enemy army to walk right past your army on an allied province and take over that fortress. In other words; capturing the province should be secondary in programming order to fighting any enemy troops in that province's capture point. This is the part that incensed me the most: just unrealistic and counter-intuitive.

What are your thoughts or experiences with this bad mechanic?

Quote from NarmerTheLion

When you have share map you should have allied fortress bonus.

On the attacking part this is how that mechanic is designed your units will only fight against enemies not against neutrals as your units don't know whether or not those are enemies or friends of your ally. So what happens is that the scottisch basically told your troops hey we're friends we come to help you guys out, go drink a coffee int he city, and then opened fire.

(sorry was a bit of a joke there) I do kinda agree if your allied with a nation your units would need to be able to defend the city before it's taken. This is however programming wise harder to do. In real life there would indeed be few cases where an allied force says "Hey I'm here dont come in ... Ooh you're here too... okay welcome here you have all the guns now we're going to sit outsite and you can shoot us" There should be a check when the city "Falls" and you have no allied relation to the nation taking it you should declare war and as such defend the city before it falls

Quote from Sckopen

Yep, as Narmer says you need shared map with the ally to get the defensive bonus and you should declare war if you want to fight. Also, there has to be some italian troops to defend the province, you can fight the enemy and have the defensive bonus, but once the troops of the city (the italians in this case) die, he will conquer the province even if you still have troops fighting. So actually, you aren't really defending the province, only he can do that.

Haha. I swear you guys are wrong. I even read the FAQ the other day written by, I think, you Narmer. And it specifically states than the fortress bonus is not available to allies yet.

Like I said, I had another game as Greenland where I had right of way with the ai and I tested to see if I had a fortress bonus in their province and I did not get it. So I would need share map but right of way does not work? I dunno...

And this game with the Scottish situation that provoked me to write this was the 50v50 game. I don't know if you guys are running that event but, in it, you automatically have share map with your allies and are at war with your enemies from the very beginning. And, not to talk any trash about the Scotland player, but he is not good enough at the game to have any high-tier exploitation knowledge. I'm almost sure of that. But hey, apparently I am not either.

So I was certainly at war with Scotland and I was certainly in a share map with Italy. And I was for sure in the absolute center of the city. If Scotland did put his troops to peace with mine then I would still be in a condition of war with him, thus provoking my own troops to fire at his regardless of his personal relation with me when they came in range. Unless I am not understanding something here.

I know you guys know the ins and outs of this game. I read your posts on here all the time. But, man, I swear you are wrong on this. I am actually in an allied fortress right now in that game. Lemme check and I'll edit here if I have the fortress bonus with a screenshot.

Edit: Yea damn you guys are correct! I can't put the screenshot in, too stoopid. But it very clearly states here that my guys have a 67% fortress bonus from my allied fort. It all makes sense to me now.

So the missing feature I claimed is actually an included feature. BUT that doesn't mean nothing should be changed.

I think it should be made so that the enemy only takes over the province if there are no more enemy troops inside the city in the fight. As soon as the last enemy is defeated, then they should take over the city. I changed the thread title.

Yes sir. It is in 3.4.7 - Forts.

[INDEX] Frequently Asked Questions

Quote from NarmerTheLion

At the moment you will only get bonuses from forts in province you control and only when your army is in the garrison or very close to it.

I'm glad you stand in agreement with me. It means a lot. Is Bytro even doing missing features anymore? When was the last one done? Because, man, this needs to change yesterday. The game has too much of a focus on alliances right now to have such a exploitative element. It used to not be so bad because coalitions weren't in the game.