Fans of Shadiversity?

[TheMangaGod]

When i mean underground i mean to be unconspicious, the best fortress is the one you don't know

True but that's only if the purpose is to keep it's occupants safe which is only half of it's job, it's also supposed to protect it's surroundings such as cities and precious resources. And if said fortress is a city itself then it has to be in a central area for trading. Hiding underground is great for protection but fails on a lot of other important things that fortresses are good for. It's a mix of both protection and usefulness. That being said if the only goal is to keep said fortress safe that is the best option.

 

[TheMangaGod]

When i mean underground i mean to be unconspicious, the best fortress is the one you don't know

Oh and I just thought of something else. The cost is also a factor cause not every lord or king is gonna have the money to go over the top with protection and most times good enough is okay.

 

[pyrak]

His fantasy re-armed series is definitely great. Thanks to that, I've already planned out a scene where an army of fairies drop flachets on an army of human soldiers and then fly away after their completely one-sided attack to which the humans have no response due to the fact the fairies are completely out of range.

How big (and numerous) are the fairies? They would need to be able to drop so much flechette (<-correct spelling) of at least enough size to puncture through armor and skull from very high up after carrying them however far (endurance issues) that it would largely be likely not particularly effective and at best maybe moral dropping if they manage to do some damage, but without modern production means, that also means the flechette has to be produced one at a time (notably by the fairy's or their allies blacksmiths, and that's a lot of metal that could be going into much more productive areas).

It would be better to have the faeries act as skirmish units and pull off hit and run tactics as well as saboteurs. Their small size, unless they glow, make them much harder to spot, and give them an oversized razer blade (shad covered this for them even) and they can sneak up, cut throats and disappear before being noticed. All it would take for a saboteur would be a little poison in the enemy's water supplies, fires started in their dry goods (such as fodder for their animals if they have fodder, and if not their dry foods then) or a few commandos who go into the enemy camp and kill a bunch of soldiers in their sleep. The faeries even have multiple ways of sneaking in (overhead or from the sides.

Actually going back, rather than dropping flechette on them, waiting until the enemy has set up camp, then dropping fire pots on them (it would probably take more coordnation, like teams of fairies working together to carry them and light them before dropping them) would be way more damaging for moral (also making the flechette attack during the night would be better, especially if they simply hit obvious command tents).

 

[AdLeto]

Oh and I just thought of something else. The cost is also a factor cause not every lord or king is gonna have the money to go over the top with protection and most times good enough is okay.

But they also don't need to gallantly show to everyone in a 10 miles radius "hehe this i where i live" it's just a show of authority and opressiveness

 

[TheMangaGod]

How big (and numerous) are the fairies? They would need to be able to drop so much flechette (<-correct spelling) of at least enough size to puncture through armor and skull from very high up after carrying them however far (endurance issues) that it would largely be likely not particularly effective and at best maybe moral dropping if they manage to do some damage, but without modern production means, that also means the flechette has to be produced one at a time (notably by the fairy's or their allies blacksmiths, and that's a lot of metal that could be going into much more productive areas).

It would be better to have the faeries act as skirmish units and pull off hit and run tactics as well as saboteurs. Their small size, unless they glow, make them much harder to spot, and give them an oversized razer blade (shad covered this for them even) and they can sneak up, cut throats and disappear before being noticed. All it would take for a saboteur would be a little poison in the enemy's water supplies, fires started in their dry goods (such as fodder for their animals if they have fodder, and if not their dry foods then) or a few commandos who go into the enemy camp and kill a bunch of soldiers in their sleep. The faeries even have multiple ways of sneaking in (overhead or from the sides.

Actually going back, rather than dropping flechette on them, waiting until the enemy has set up camp, then dropping fire pots on them (it would probably take more coordnation, like teams of fairies working together to carry them and light them before dropping them) would be way more damaging for moral (also making the flechette attack during the night would be better, especially if they simply hit obvious command tents).

That would be terrifying, never knowing where or how they'll strike and not really having a way to stop them without having allies with similar abilities...

 

[TheMangaGod]

But they also don't need to gallantly show to everyone in a 10 miles radius "hehe this i where i live" it's just a show of authority and opressiveness

Showing off a visually impressive fortress can keep most attackers from even wasting their time. Also medieval is kind of all authority and oppressiveness... lol I mean normally the castle was the primary residence of someone fairly powerful so they want to show off their power and wealth visibly...

 

[TheMangaGod]

How big (and numerous) are the fairies? They would need to be able to drop so much flechette (<-correct spelling) of at least enough size to puncture through armor and skull from very high up after carrying them however far (endurance issues) that it would largely be likely not particularly effective and at best maybe moral dropping if they manage to do some damage, but without modern production means, that also means the flechette has to be produced one at a time (notably by the fairy's or their allies blacksmiths, and that's a lot of metal that could be going into much more productive areas).

It would be better to have the faeries act as skirmish units and pull off hit and run tactics as well as saboteurs. Their small size, unless they glow, make them much harder to spot, and give them an oversized razer blade (shad covered this for them even) and they can sneak up, cut throats and disappear before being noticed. All it would take for a saboteur would be a little poison in the enemy's water supplies, fires started in their dry goods (such as fodder for their animals if they have fodder, and if not their dry foods then) or a few commandos who go into the enemy camp and kill a bunch of soldiers in their sleep. The faeries even have multiple ways of sneaking in (overhead or from the sides.

Actually going back, rather than dropping flechette on them, waiting until the enemy has set up camp, then dropping fire pots on them (it would probably take more coordnation, like teams of fairies working together to carry them and light them before dropping them) would be way more damaging for moral (also making the flechette attack during the night would be better, especially if they simply hit obvious command tents).

This is the one you mention I believe...

 

[AdLeto]

Showing off a visually impressive fortress can keep most attackers from even wasting their time. Also medieval is kind of all authority and oppressiveness... lol I mean normally the castle was the primary residence of someone fairly powerful so they want to show off their power and wealth visibly...

Impressive fortresses are also a show of wealthy, this also serves a way to atract people, too much attention on you is not a good thing, if an lord stands highly against their peers can mostly puts him on a bad position

 

[pyrak]

That would be terrifying, never knowing where or how they'll strike and not really having a way to stop them without having allies with similar abilities...

Without magic, the best counter tactic would be find their homebase as fast as possible and destroy it, have twice the watch out and even more torches, and possibly using animals, such as dogs which would be able to detect them much sooner. Not holding important meetings and people in important looking tents, and developing tactics involving shielding your heads would become a priority. If you're prepeared for them, nets, and balistas firing nets might be useful, and if you're just wanting to kill them, starting a forest fire to burn them out would be a very tactical decision. In all likelihood their main weakness would be a lack of endurance, but their capability as ambushers could easily out weigh that (especially if they're on the defense).

With magic however, lots of dectection / protection spells, and spells designed to kill "small stuff" (which also in turn becomes great rodent deterrent) becomes a very good use against them, and pretty much any AoE spell becomes much more effective than anything else against fairies trying to bomb your army.

It largely depends on how physically good you make the fairies (and when magic is involved, what sort of magic they have).

 

[pyrak]

Impressive fortresses are also a show of wealthy, this also serves a way to attract people, too much attention on you is not a good thing, if an lord stands highly against their peers can mostly puts him on a bad position

Yeah generally you want a balance of display of wealth and defensive capability, castles typically were primarily defensive features built to hold off an attacker for years if need be (and many did) and made to be every bit deadly as possible when it came to defenses, but that didn't mean that the lord wouldn't have a lavish halls decorated in tapestries and gold made to impress (largely this depended on geopolitical status).

 

[TheMangaGod]

Without magic, the best counter tactic would be find their homebase as fast as possible and destroy it, have twice the watch out and even more torches, and possibly using animals, such as dogs which would be able to detect them much sooner. Not holding important meetings and people in important looking tents, and developing tactics involving shielding your heads would become a priority. If you're prepeared for them, nets, and balistas firing nets might be useful, and if you're just wanting to kill them, starting a forest fire to burn them out would be a very tactical decision. In all likelihood their main weakness would be a lack of endurance, but their capability as ambushers could easily out weigh that (especially if they're on the defense).

With magic however, lots of dectection / protection spells, and spells designed to kill "small stuff" (which also in turn becomes great rodent deterrent) becomes a very good use against them, and pretty much any AoE spell becomes much more effective than anything else against fairies trying to bomb your army.

It largely depends on how physically good you make the fairies (and when magic is involved, what sort of magic they have).

After rewatching that Shad episode I now want to put a forest of deadly fairies in my main novel...

 

[TheMangaGod]

Yeah generally you want a balance of display of wealth and defensive capability, castles typically were primarily defensive features built to hold off an attacker for years if need be (and many did) and made to be every bit deadly as possible when it came to defenses, but that didn't mean that the lord wouldn't have a lavish halls decorated in tapestries and gold made to impress (largely this depended on geopolitical status).

And the defenses need to make sense for the purpose. Such as ballistae for flying creatures.

 

[Daitengu]

At a minimum, the fortress walls both delay, and offer the high ground, allowing for farther range. Making attacking forces eat attacks until in range. Might not work on a dragon, but if the opposing army had to get one to win, your walls did a superb job. At that point they aren't fighting to take your stuff, but for belief and/or land.

 

[TheMangaGod]

At a minimum, the fortress walls both delay, and offer the high ground, allowing for farther range. Making attacking forces eat attacks until in range. Might not work on a dragon, but if the opposing army had to get one to win, your walls did a superb job. At that point they aren't fighting to take your stuff, but for belief and/or land.

True if the opposing army comes equipped with a dragon then you should be proud of how well you castle is doing... won't do much to protect you against said dragon but surrender is generally an option in that case...

 

[pyrak]

To be fair it also depends on the dragons your talking about, are we talking about something like Smoug (or worse, possibly far far worse), which in that case you're probably done for, or are you talking about something on the level of a smaller Dragon Riders of Pern dragon? That's much better chances for the defenders (of course if you're using one of those dragons to siege a castle, you're using them entirely incorrectly).

 

[Freesia.Cutepearl]

The answer is simple.

Just build your Fortress
inside of a Mountain~!

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

A good thing to mention here is we no longer use castle's in our modern day because our offensive weaponry has advanced so far past our defensive weaponry that they are completely useless.

I cited modern examples only as you made this statement. I could even add the recent fightings in Karabakh to prove my point that defensive works still retain their worth.

But on a more serious note, what is defensive weaponry? Never heard of that term before.

 

[pyrak]

I cited modern examples only as you made this statement. I could even add the recent fightings in Karabakh to prove my point that defensive works still retain their worth.

But on a more serious note, what is defensive weaponry? Never heard of that term before.

There's a reason we still keep making (and advancing) ballistic vests.

Pretty sure defensive weaponry fall under the category of any fixed weapon placements that make it so that an enemy first hast come under punitive firepower before they can begin hitting you back. Notable examples would be coastal fortifications (which sadly have fallen out of use since WW2) and anti-aircraft emplacements. For better or for worse there are no real means of offensicely defending against nuclear strikes via ICBMs and thus the only defense is really having (or having allies) who have enough nukes to make it an extremely bad idea to use them against you (and without any actual effective means of defending against them, they will likely never actually be fully removed, only developed further into more effective weapons).

 

[pyrak]

The answer is simple.

Just build your Fortress
inside of a Mountain~!

Inside? Why would you do that when you can just make the entire mountain your fortress?

However fortresses are there to protect key strategic locations, and you might not have a mountain to really rely on in that location (in which case the answer is to build a mountain sized fortress).

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

There's a reason we still keep making (and advancing) ballistic vests.

Pretty sure defensive weaponry fall under the category of any fixed weapon placements that make it so that an enemy first hast come under punitive firepower before they can begin hitting you back. Notable examples would be coastal fortifications (which sadly have fallen out of use since WW2) and anti-aircraft emplacements. For better or for worse there are no real means of offensicely defending against nuclear strikes via ICBMs and thus the only defense is really having (or having allies) who have enough nukes to make it an extremely bad idea to use them against you (and without any actual effective means of defending against them, they will likely never actually be fully removed, only developed further into more effective weapons)

The term defensive weaponry is nonsense. You mistake tactical use for technical specifications. You can clearly use a weapon (not weaponry) in a defensive role, but such is true for all weapons. If you hull down a tank, does this suddenly make the tank a "defensive weapon"? Certainly not.

The defensiveness is not inherent to weapon itself, but how it is employed by its user.

As for MAD. MAD is clearly offensive in nature. You don't defend in the sense you try to counteract your enemy, but you respond with your own second strike capabilities. You "defend" with offensive capabilities, not with defensive ones.