"Super Fortress" Status

[morganbj]

Well, since the cat is out of the bag, here's some information.
 
I won't give any more detail than I should, at this point, but there is an easily modified value in any of the scenario files (COG2Provinces.txt) that controls the fact that a city is a superfortress.   That's true in the relese version.  So, see the Modder's Guide for details.  By changing those values, you can make every city a super fortress if you wish.
 
If any value for a city is NOT 1 (or 0, if a sea zone I suppose), the correct graphics will be displayed.  I just gave it a try.
 
So, when the patch comes out, y'all mod away!
 

[barbarossa2]

Well, to really let the cat out of the bag, you would tell us exactly what the difference is between a regular fortress city and a "Super Fortress". 

[Joram]

It's 64 oz.?  Oh wait, that's a Super-Gulp!  [8D]

[barbarossa2]

Gil R.,

Do you mean that you didn't know that any cities ever existed like this?  Or you didn't know that cities like this still exist? 

These examples in the photos above are small.  Of course, the major cities had MUCH larger works.  There is an incredible model of Metz in the Hotel des Invalides in Paris.  I wish I could find a photo of it in the Internet.

Below is the city of Naarden, near Amsterdam. THIS is why the Dutch managed to stay independent after repeated Spanish and French conflicts. You will notice that this qualifies as a "minor" fortress for the purposes of the designers of the Campaigns of Marlborough game above.

-B2

[barbarossa2]

This is Doesburg in the Netherlands. Really, the only interesting thing about this one is that a fortification THIS size, doesn't even get a mention on the Marlborough map above.

[barbarossa2]

One more. Really impressive... Saint Martin de Re. On the western coast of France. It guarded the bay near La Rochelle. Again, I merely want to stress the fact that the number of these fortifications in Picardy, Flanders, Batavia (first tier) and then Champagne, Lorraine, and Luxemburg (second tier) exceeded the numbers in other regions. Although other regions definitely had them of course.

[barbarossa2]

Someone has agreed to take a shot of the full map of Marlborough for me. I will post it when I get it.

[barbarossa2]

This is another great shot of Naarden. That would definitely be worth a one day visit!

[jhdeerslayer]

These are great pic's!

[Gil R.]

ORIGINAL: barbarossa2

Gil R.,

Do you mean that you didn't know that any cities ever existed like this?  Or you didn't know that cities like this still exist? 

I didn't realize they were still around, and looking like that. I would have thought that urban growth would have done away with them by now. Thanks for posting those photos.

[barbarossa2]

Honestly, in my opinion, IDEALLY (though I am not asking for it), the CoG:EE engine would allow the game designer to put up to five cities in each provence (i.e. Picardy, Flanders, and Batavia would probably get 5 if I were designing).  Each of these cities could be individually sieged and assaulted.  The garrisons in any one of these cities could raid enemy supplies moving through the area.  Also, anyone could leave any number of units to "cover" these enemy held fortress cities without needing to assault them, to keep their supply lines open.  Control of the region and its resources would go to whoever controlled the capitol city...but the only way you could make it 100% safe for your supply chain would be to take all of the enemy held fortresses in it or to leave a covering force for each enemy fortress.

Additionally, I would work out some way to actually allow a player to place their depots inside of fortresses--instead of leaving them in the open, but that's another story. 

Of course, CoG:EE is an abstraction of Napoleonic warfare.  I am more of a nuts and bolts guy and love details.  So, CoG:EE has done a great job.  I still thoroughly enjoy it more than any other Napoleonic game I have ever played--as is.

P.S. I am curious, can two enemy armies END their turn in the same region in CoG:EE?  I don't remember it happening.  What if opposing armies have moved into the same space and hit "avoid combat"?

[barbarossa2]

By the way, I found the pictures by scouring various Internet sites.  Some in French (Vauban appreciation society).  Others, I found by scanning the Netherlands in Google Earth.  Still others I found by looking for Vauban on Wikipedia and then looking up star forts.  There is an extensive (but incomplete) list of existing star forts on the Wiki "Star Fort" page.

[barbarossa2]

Here is a pretty crappy shot of the model of Metz in the Hotel des Invalides. I will see if I can get a better shot of it with my own camera this weekend. It is a great chance to see what the fortifications for a decent sized city would have been like.

[dude]

Didn't Metz give Patton a hard time in WWII... when he should of just gone around it?

[barbarossa2]

I am looking at the superfortress placement in the new patch.

According to the reading I am doing, Paris didn't even have walls. They had been dismantled in the late 1600s under Louis XIV when it was realized that updating the fortifications for a city that size would cost too much. Vauban and Louis XIV made the decision that Paris would be defended at the frontiers. It wasn't until the late 1830s that Paris got walls again I believe.

From page 73 of John Lynn's, "The Wars of Louis XIV":

"Not only individual fortresses or citadels took the new pattern (the trace italienne), but entire cities were fortified in this style. However, the size of Paris, the largest Christian city on the European continent, and the great cost of updating and expanding its fortifications to meet current standards convinced Louis XIV to eliminate its existing outdated fortifications and leave it without walls in the 1670s; Paris would be defended at the frontier."

I am not saying giving Paris superfortress status is wrong. Because it is possible it had massive, gleaming bastions and outlying forts from 1790-1820. But if this is the case, I have missed it in my reading. In "The Fall of Paris" (an excellent work about the German siege of Paris in the war of 1870-71), Alistair Horne claims it finally got its walls (or at least its outlying forts) again in the 1840s. Corroborating Alistair Horne's date is a New York Times Article written around the time of the German advance on Paris in WWI, indicating that the walls and the outlying forts were built "by" Louis Philippe. Louis Philippe reigned from 1830-1848.

Article here: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-fr ... 946596D6CF

An NY Times article from 1898 discussing the modernization and urban development of Paris indicates...

"The fortifications, or bastioned zone, encircling the city were constructed between 1840 and 1844, together with the first line of detached forts..."

Article here: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-fr ... 94699ED7CF

If anyone has better information on Paris's walls, I would love to know. It is not just about CoG:EE. But it is merely a matter which fascinates me.

And unfortunately Picardy, Flanders, and Batavia were not given superfortresses in the patch in spite of the fact that these were the most heavily fortified regions in Europe. In addition to being heavily fortified, the high water table in much of these three regions also made taking fortresses in these regions even more difficult because you couldn't mine them. On top of that, the areas surrounding these cities were often flooded by the defenders just to make siege work even more difficult--and sometimes impossible. According to Archer Jones, in his book "The Art of War in the Western World" Napoleon was fortunate that he didn't campaign in the Low Countries, or he too might have had to deal with this. And indeed, in "War of Wars" by Robert Harvey, which details the combat operations of the 1790s in the Austrian Netherlands, many of the fortresses which Vauban built along the French side of the border were besieged and this dragged on for quite some time--possibly saving the French revolution when its armies were disorganized and ineffective.

The addition of Brest as a superfortress in the update (with perhaps two or three fortifications) and not Vauban's double row fortification studded frontier of France from Calais to Lorraine with first class fortresses, as well as Flanders and Batavia, is confusing to me at best. Was Brest added because of attempted (and failed) British landing at Brest in the 1694 in which Vauban handily defeated a 7000 man invasion with galleys and active counter attacks on the beaches? (Incidentally, it was because of this, that Vauban supported defending against the threat of invasions with fortifications and land defenses instead of with expensive fleets which France could no longer afford in the numbers which would have been required to beat the English fleets back). I have nothing against putting Brest on the list. But am befuddled as to the lack of these other regions called out.

Unfortunately, London didn't have walls either.

[Mus]

London had walls of wood and canvas.

[:'(]

Agree with you on the fortifications of Holland. I was looking at that in our PBEM games post patch and thought it odd.

[vaalen]

The French conquered Flanders and Holland during the Revolutionary Wars (Prior to Napoleon taking power). They did not appear to have much trouble with the fortresses, which fell rather easily.

Perhaps this is why these areas are not included as Superfortresses.

Making them super would make it much harder for the French to conquer them in the early scenarios, which would be contrary to the way things actually were.

I understand that the reason the Fortresses fell so easily is that they were not properly garrisoned. The garrisons they did have had low morale and surrendered without much resistance.

I think they would have done much better had they been properly garrisoned with quality troops.

I do not know if the system is flexible enough to make a superfortress easy to take if it has a poor garrison.

As for Paris, I do not remember its fortifications being an issue during the Napoleonic Wars.

Perhaps the fortifications were made super to account for the AI's tendency to make a beeline for Paris, which did not happen during the Napoleonic Wars until 1814.

[barbarossa2]

I agree with you Vaalen. On all of these points, I too read about this conquest of Holland. Generally, taking a fortress (even a major one) was a 1 or 2 week episode if it 1) didn't have a major garrison, 2) was demoralized by recent battles in the enemy's favor in the region, 3) wasn't lead by a determined general, 4) didn't have much of a chance of relief. Indeed, with "investments" in which all four of these factors were operating, a capitualtion could be had with the mere approach of a recently victorious enemy army.

Vaalen, you are right about the difficulty in duplicating these issues in CoG:EE as it currently stands. However, what would have happened if the French would have taken the region and fortified it with excellent units and leaders? Something wholly different than the defeat of the outnumbered and outgunned, demoralized Dutch Republic and allied armes which resulted in the fall of the Dutch fleet to the French invaders when it was frozen into the ice and taken by a cavalry charge (according to the book, "War of Wars" at least).

The abortive 1809 Walcheren expedition by the British however, gives an example of how even one fort (Flushing) held by French troops (even poor ones -- as was the case here) could virutally abort the largest invasion ever assembled by Britain. Even though Flushing held out for 10 days at the most, it was one little fortification in a sea of forts. It bought the French enough time to concentrate on Antwerp and make any further advance by the British an impossibility (though admitedly, the British were also dealing with a massive malaria outbreak which coloured their decision as well).

If a decent, modern fortress had 1) a decent sized garrison (say, over 3000-5000), 2) had a decent morale, 3) was lead by a determined general who was under specific orders to hold it, and 4) had a chance of relief, things could drag on a bit. The siege of Lille by Marlborough and Eugene was one example of this from another time.

On a more relevant note, the French siege of Mantua in 1796 was initiated on June 3 (when the fortress was invested). "By requisitioning cannon from all over northern Italy, Bonaparte assembled a siege train of 179 heavy guns. Siege parallels were opened on 4 July and General of Division Jean Sérurier put in command of operations. Feldmarschal-Leutnant (FML) Josef Canto de Irles commanded the 14,000-man Austrian garrison." After Austrian forces raised the siege on at least two occasions (capturing Napoleon's heavy artillery in the process), it was finally invested by the French again and fell on February 2. Interestingly (and perhaps as was standard in warfare of the time), the rest of the Austrian Mantua garrison surrendered within two weeks of the heavy defeat of a nearby field army tasked to relieve it. The majority of the 1796-February 1797 Italian campaign seems to have revolved around the siege/relief of Mantua.

Can anyone find me a date for the final, uninterrupted investment of Mantua by the French before the capitulation?

The Austrian siege of Mantua in 1799 lasted 4 months by one reckoning, but in my opinion, it really only lasted one month, when one takes the beginning of serious operations in July into account (it fell at the end of July).

With my previously posted comments, I am merely pointing out the fact that I don't understand why Paris has been given the superfortress status, and these regions (Artois, Flanders, Batavia) have not.

Interesting note here: During the Prussian campaign (1806–1807), the Bavarians fielded three divisions under generals DeRoy, Wrede, and Ysenberg. Their siege operations captured the towns of Plassenburg, Grossglogau, Breslau, Brieg, Kosel, Glatz, and Neisse. Is anyone here an expert in these sieges? I would like to know a lot more about them. Can someone give me a good reference on them?

P.S. By the way, the United Provinces were also virtually overrun in by the French in the Franco-Dutch War. Finally, just before the French were about ready to take Amsterdam, the Dutch flooded the province, making all additional operations virtually impossible. A turn in the fortunes of war by the next year had the French withdrawing to cover other fronts. And that was the end of that. If it hadn't been for Louis XIV's unreasonable surrender terms, he might have gotten a lot out of it. But he overplayed his hand and the resulting peace wasn't nearly as satisfying.