Dom2: Forts question

[Rywill]

What enemy troops do you see when looking into a province with a fort? I am pretty sure that there have been times when a province looked like it had a small force, which I killed, but when I stormed the fort all the sudden there was a much larger army than I expected inside. OTOH, I definitely sometimes see enemy armies in fort provinces. Am I nuts, or is there something that makes it so that sometimes you don't see the entire enemy army if they're in a province with a fort?

[Nick Walter]

What enemy troops do you see when looking into a province with a fort? I am pretty sure that there have been times when a province looked like it had a small force, which I killed, but when I stormed the fort all the sudden there was a much larger army than I expected inside. OTOH, I definitely sometimes see enemy armies in fort provinces. Am I nuts, or is there something that makes it so that sometimes you don't see the entire enemy army if they're in a province with a fort?

One thing that can really throw you off is that enemy armies can move into the fort right before you attack it. Allow me to illustrate. Imagine 3 provinces A,B, and C. The are arranged like so

A <--> B <--> C

Imagine C is friendly, A and B are in the enemies hands. The enemy has an army is in A, C has a friendly army. B holds an enemy fortress. If both the enemy army in A and the friendly army in C are ordered to move into B on the same turn, then the enemy army will go into the fortress and then the friendly army will start sieging the fortress with the enemy army inside. The two armies won't meet and do battle unless the enemy army was set to "move and patrol" instead of "move".

Also, if the enemy castle contains a lab, all bets are off on what's in that castle. Via summons, teleports, gateways, etc a lot of reinforcements can arrive.

[Rywill]

That makes sense. But other than that, I can see an enemy army just as well in a fort province as a non-fort one?

[Ch. Hasslbauer]

Based on my experience I'd give you a definite "yes".

[Clark]

Most of the time, you get no intel on who is inside defending a fort under seige. So if you see, "We have no reports of enemy forces," just assume that there is an army inside, and you are not getting intel.

So when do you get intel on army size defending a castle? I used to think it was just dominion, i.e. if the castle was in your dominion you got intel. But I now think that is wrong, or at least not always right. It is also possible that spies give you intel, but they don't seem to always do so. Maybe they need to be in the porvince before you lay the seige to be able to continue reporting - akin to the ability of spies to instill unrest in a province you are seiging only if they were instilling unrest before you seiged.

If anyone has this figured out please post.

[Mike Hussey]

I'm still a Dom2 n00b (only got the game 10 days ago) but I seem to remember reading somewhere that a spy will give details of the garrisoned units, but a scout won't. I could be mis-remembering though.

[Jasper]

You can see unstealthing/unglamoured units in adjacent provinces, regardless of the presence of a fort. If you're beseiging the fort, you either need a spy, to send a scout to attack the fort, or to use something like Astral Window. Spies also give more accurate reports than scouts (barring a probing attack), and allow you to see Sites.

In general you don't see military reports for areas your dominion simply covers -- unless you're Arcoscephale. Your dominion does allow you to see a provinces income/resources however, and the presence of adjacent enemy dominion.