Guide to fort battles by Pyjamas

Posted in Circus Fort forum by Pyjamas:

I've been getting a lot of mail in my other worlds asking about the basics of fort battles so I thought I'd write a little starting guide for those that are new to them.

Feedback is always welcome


You have to be at the fort to register and compete in the battle. Once you have registered you can leave, but you must be back at the fort before the start of the battle or you'll miss it.

1: Attack or Defend: When you arrive at the fort, click the icon at the bottom right corner of the screen and choose to either attack or defend the fort. Once this choice has been made you cannot change it.

2: Select starting position: Click anywhere on the fort map to designate your starting position. Defenders choose anywhere inside the fort, attackers in the areas outside. You'll be shown as a yellow icon. Blue icons indicate friendly players, and red indicate the enemy. You will not be able to see the locations of the opposing team until the battle has begun. You can change your starting position at any time before the fight starts by clicking on your icon and dragging it to the new starting point.

3: Select Target Position: Now click anywhere on the map again and red crosshairs will appear. Once the battle begins your character will automatically start advancing towards the crosshairs. This is mainly helpful for players attacking a fort when they are offline for the battle (to march towards the flag in the middle of the fort).
If you are defending the fort, it's better to set youself up in a tower or on a wall, and set the crosshairs on your starting position. This way you will hold your ground and automatically start shooting when the round begins. To move the crosshairs to a different position, just click and drag.

That's all you need to do to set up the battle.

Once the battle begins you can either sit back and watch the action letting the computer choose your targets, or you can take control and choose your own target by clicking on the attacker. You can also choose to move to a specific area by clicking where you'd like to advance to. If enemies are in range I strongly suggest staying where you are. You make an easier target while moving and don't do as much damage on attacks.

Battle Gear
First of all you'll need a fort 'Gun' They can be found in your gunsmith. You can participate in the battle without one, but you'll be 'throwing pebbles' according to West staff. Probably best to spend the money on a gun

The mechanics involved in fort fighting is very different than dueling.The only skills involved in fort battles are the following:

Attacking - Aim, Dodge, Stamina
Defending - Aim, Dodging, Leadership, Hiding.

And of course a bonus to your health is always welcome as well. Vigor, Shooting, Appearance and Tactics do not factor into the equation. So choose your clothing wisely*

If you have any further questions or comments feel free to contact me.

Pyjamas

*I have a listing of best attack/defend clothing sets but can't access them at the moment. I'll send them as soon as I can.

That is just the right amount of information that people need to know at this stage in fort battles.

A couple things are a little off I realize now that I've been in a couple more battles.

Mainly that moving around is very important. If you haven't figured out yet how to move (it took me awhile) you have to double-click (sometimes triple-click) on your characters icon till it turns green. Then you can click your mouse on any area you wish to set it to move.

While hovering over different areas (before selecting destination) it will show you the line of site from that position (ie: where you can fire at and be fired at from). This helps a great deal in deciding if that is an agreeable site to be located. Once you've decide simply click on the desired location and the black arrow will turn to a larger red arrow indicating that your character will begin moving there once the next round begins.

Note that you will be able to take a shot at an enemy first before movement starts (unless you are scaling a wall, in which case you don't - I haven't confirmed this but it seems to be the way).

All fighters automatically fire at the best target available, so if you find yourself in a position where you are the closest person to 30 enemies, it's in your best interest to move away and find some cover. I learned this the hard way: 27 players shooting at me at the same time. Only about 6 of them hit, but that was enough

It all seems a bit confusing at first I admit, but after a couple battles you'll see it's not all that complicated.

I'm still trying to figure out what the little green dots on some players indicates and why some player icons are square and others are round. If you hear anything please let me know

Check the help tab in your west browser as they've added a whole section on forts now. Not sure how accurate it all is but it's there.

I'm not sure what the dots mean but I can solve the mystery of the different shapes. The rounded icons are players who belong to the town which owns the fort (for defenders) or to the town which initiated the attack (for attackers). The square icons are people who just rolled up looking for a fight.

It may be the other way around - but that's the reasoning behind them at least.

Anyway, I had a plan of action for attacking forts before last night's attack on SETH. I didn't entirely take my own advice but after watching the battle I'm convinced it's the way to go. Given what I saw from pyjamas' move from the east side around to the north west tower, I'm probably not going to post anything he hasn't thought of.

If you're all on one side then the defenders on the far wall can't hit you because the near wall is in the way. So, all the attackers can shoot at the defenders on the near wall - but only a small number of defenders can shoot back.

I got impatient last night and rushed into the fort - hoping to get into cover behind one of the inner buildings. I got there but about 10 defenders all had a line on me so I retreated quickly, full of holes. Not quickly enough though.

I'm convinced that the best plan is to stay outside the fort and pick off the defenders on the walls - starting on one side and all moving around the fort in a pre-arranged direction. Then, once the walls are clear, mass near the gates where you have a small similarly restricted line of sight and can pick off defenders without them all hitting you.

As soon as you get up on the walls you can be shot at by virtually ever defender - so you need to take out as many defenders as you can before going over the top.

The problem with this strategy is that it needs people to be online and co-ordinated...

A little thing that I learned from the SETH battle:
If you move your little player once the battle has started, the computer assumes you have taken control of its movement and will no longer move you. It does, of course, still aim and shoot for you.

This video was mentioned on the dev blog.



It's a battle where the attackers are using the kind of strategy I was talking about. Obviously, the result might just be down to numbers but it's pretty comprehensive. Either way, it's an impressive bit of co-ordination!

Notice how, at the start, every attacker who jumps up onto the walls becomes the closest enemy for a whole bunch of defenders and bites the dust straight away.

Ya turns out these vids were made from battles in beta where players only had 30 mins or so to sign up. You'll notice all the attackers are online. If we could get that many out for our battles we'd be laughing.