[Updated] Forts for beginners

[wonshot]

Hello,

Since there is not really a guide out there to explain how fortresses function for newcomers or players who dont have the time to read patchnote changes eachweek ill try to cover the basics here to give a quick understanding of what fortresses are, and their current mechanics.

Updated 12. aug. 2021

1) How do you enter a fortress? Forts have a contribution based entry system where the end-zone prior to the Fortress-zone you need to get a reservation in order to enter. This is done by killing, running or destroying supply boxes, take part in the keep-sieges and killing keep-lord. After the endzone locks your reservation will last 5minuts where you need to move to the zoneborder leading into the fortress zone.
Example: Destruction is locking Kadrin Valley Dwarf vs Greenskin End-zone and the fight is pushed into the Stonewatch Fortress, moving north pass the Order warcamp will take you into the fortressZone.
Tip: Use State of the Realm, addon. To see how many players are inside an active fort, and how many are in queue.

2) Stages in a fortress.
Forts have 3 stages total. Stage1 is where the attackers and defenders wait for the 3 outerdoors going down automatically. Use this to form well rounded warbands of 2-2-2!
Stage1: This is a preparation periode where you get to fill your groups & warbands, or run to the fortress if you have a reservation. This periode is 5minuts long. Reservations fade after 4min30sec.
Stage2: The three outer gates are now automatically destroyed and the 5 nerutral objective points around the inner keep are open for capture. Usually the defenders have spread out and cap these first while the attackers move inside the outer gate. The attacking forces need to control most of the five Battleopjectives in order for the inner fortress door to go down. Every 30seconds depending on defenders/attackers controled flags the door will go up or down, or up in case of defenders controling all 4-5!
Stage3: The inner door has been breached if the attackers won stage2. The defenders can NO LONGER RESPAWN! or they will be put in jail outside of the outergates and need a realm-mate to pull the lever to perform a jailbreak for them and all captured allies. Attackers need to flood inside the inner keep, organize themselves for pushing any laststand the defenders have put up while controling the Lord and the fortress specific lord-mechanics. This stage and the fort is won if the attackers kill the lord, or the defenders defend the lord.
Mechanical updates: The jail-lever has a roughly 1min. internal cooldown before it can be pulled again.
While inside jail there is a low chance a scroll will spawn in your inventory, useing it will make you get teleported out of jail to somewere quiet and you can try to run back and jail-break your realmmates.

3) Lord mechanics worth paying attention to
Reikwald[O] & Fell Landing [D]: Reikwald last stand of the Empire has a Cauldron mechanic spawning middle of the lordroom in Stage3, after the lord has been in combat with the same player for 10seconds in a row. The same mechanic is in Fell Landing Darkelf fortress for Destruction. The cauldron is attackable and while it is up and active will it pulse 1.000 morale damage out realmwide inside the lord's room, quickly destroy it!
The Maw[O] & Butcher's Pass[D]: For tanking and controling the lord some of the lords have previous grudges and hate run deep in them. For example Orc lords might find it very irresistable not focusing on the dwarfs attacking him even when surrounded by Highelves and Empire folk.
Stonewatch[O] & Butcher's Pass[D] These two fortresses have a multi-level mechanic. While the lord is being engaged in lord's room an object will spawn at the bottomfloor, either being a Banner or a Keg. The attackers must destroy this keg or the Lord will only take Dot+Morale damage intake. While also doing a Rippost attack to anyone attacking him while being protected and immune to damage from attackers. This makes for a very important focus from Attacking realm to hold and secure the jail, so bottomfloor is not getting lost and forces being split over too many fronts having to deal with Lord, Bottomfloor, AND the Enemies trying to push into lord's room or Bottomfloor. These forts are imho the only Jail-break important fortresses out of the six.

4) Contribution
The players on the servers dont know the exact formular or values for contribution, but we do know during stage2 if we stand on top of a flag being captured we get contribution eventhough we are not the ones captureing it. Killing enemy players give minor contribution and seems to be group/warband wide so form strong parties and stick together! During stage3 with no flags, killing contribution has higher value than it has in stage2 but also assisting in killing the lord as attackers or performing jailbreaks as defenders will net you contribution aswel.
My personal advice and rule of thumb for reaching "minimum" contribution required for invader tokens & Renown tick at the end of a fortress, is to be part of minimim 2-3 flagcaptures in stage2 and some killing (10-100 kills)

5) Skaven brew!
Just like the Reikwald or Felllanding has a poisoncauldron, a Skaven brew has been left & forgotten inside all fortresses. While stage2 is ongoing a little barrel can spawn on the battleobjectives around the five flags. Picking this item up will make it last 30minuts in your inventory and it can be used during stage3 to apply realm-wide aoe poison inside the lordroom for any realm holding control over it!
This is not a bug, this is a feature to help break a strong funnel hold. Obtaining this item and its spawn location is random it seems, and is a mechanic to help put more value on controling the flags in stage2 and not just relying on a stage3 lordroom defence alone.

6) Rewards In order to get invader rewards from a fortress zone ending you need to be RR 50+.
Career level 40 gives you a higher chance to get a fort reservation over sub 40s. But they can still get reservations if they do enough contribution in the end-zone.
Fortress bags will by defaul yield Invaders if you are rr50. If you have the Invader TomeUnlock (all invader armor but not the weapon nor jewel needed) you start getting Royal crest options from Fortress bags.

[Berzar]

Nice post Bomb!

[Dwanex]

Nice writeup. Can you do the same for City Sieges? I have only participated in one so far and had no clue what's going on

[leckz]

Nice

[Rekoom]

Is the skaven brew still a thing? I've never seen/heard anyone call for it...

[wargrimnir]

Is the skaven brew still a thing? I've never seen/heard anyone call for it...

It is still a thing. The decay timer on it was broken, so there were probably a lot of people that had it permanently which is why you had more calls in the past. Last patch the decay timer was fixed. Players will need to pay attention to see when they receive it, as intended.

[wonshot]

Is the skaven brew still a thing? I've never seen/heard anyone call for it...

It is still a thing. The decay timer on it was broken, so there were probably a lot of people that had it permanently which is why you had more calls in the past. Last patch the decay timer was fixed. Players will need to pay attention to see when they receive it, as intended.

I see this was made sticky, as i have been heavily out of the update loop for months now and Forts are constantly overgoing changes, if this guide is no longer accurate feel free to remove the sticky in case it is misinformation.

[zij83]

Spoiler:

Hello,

Since there is not really a guide out there to explain how fortresses function for newcomers or players who dont have the time to read patchnote changes eachweek ill try to cover the basics here to give a quick understanding of what fortresses are, and their current mechanics.

Updated 26th feb. 2020

1) How do you enter a fortress? Forts have a contribution based entry system where the end-zone prior to the Fortress-zone you need to get a reservation in order to enter. This is done by killing, running or destroying supply boxes, take part in the keep-sieges and killing keep-lord. After the endzone locks your reservation will last 5minuts where you need to move to the zoneborder leading into the fortress zone.
Example: Destruction is locking Kadrin Valley Dwarf vs Greenskin End-zone and the fight is pushed into the Stonewatch Fortress, moving north pass the Order warcamp will take you into the fortressZone.

2) Stages in a fortress.
Forts have 3 stages total. Stage1 is where the attackers and defenders wait for the 3 outerdoors going down automatically.
Stage1: This is a preparation periode where you get to fill your groups & warbands, or run to the fortress if you have a reservation. This periode is 5minuts long.
Stage2: The three outer gates are now automatically destroyed and the 5 nerutral objective points around the inner keep are open for capture. Usually the defenders have spread out and cap these first while the attackers move inside the outer gate. The attacking forces need to control most of the five Battleopjectives in order for the inner fortress door to go down. Every 30seconds depending on defenders/attackers controled flags the door will go up or down!
Stage3: The inner door has been breached if the attackers won stage2. The defenders can NO LONGER RESPAWN! or they will be put in jail outside of the outergates and need a realm-mate to pull the lever to perform a jailbreak for them and all captured allies. Attackers need to flood inside the inner keep, organize themselves for pushing any laststand the defenders have put up while controling the Lord and the fortress specific lord-mechanics. This stage and the fort is won if the attackers kill the lord, or the defenders defend the lord.

3) Lord mechanics worth paying attention to
Cauldron forts: Reikwald last stand of the Empire has a Cauldron mechanic spawning middle of the lordroom in Stage3, after the lord has been in combat with the same player for 10seconds in a row. The same mechanic is in Fell Landing Darkelf fortress for Destruction. The cauldron is attackable and while it is up and active will it pulse 1.000 morale damage out realmwide inside the lord's room, quickly destroy it!
Racial aggrotables. For tanking and controling the lord some of the lords have previous grudges and hate run deep in them. For example Orc lords might find it very irresistable not focusing on the dwarfs attacking him even when surrounded by Highelves and Empire folk.
Banner mechanic: In the Dwarf and Orc forts a lord-mechanic is every 30-60sec a banner will spawn on the bottom floor buffing to the point where he becomes crazy though. And the attackers need to assign a portion of their attacking force to control the bottom floor and destroy this objective to assist their realmmates inside the lordroom who are battling the lord itself.

4) Contribution
The players on the servers dont know the exact formular or values for contribution, but we do know during stage2 if we stand on top of a flag being captured we get contribution eventhough we are not the ones captureing it. Killing enemy players give minor contribution and seems to be group/warband wide so form strong parties and stick together! During stage3 with no flags, killing contribution has higher value than it has in stage2 but also assisting in killing the lord as attackers or performing jailbreaks as defenders will net you contribution aswel.
My personal advice and rule of thumb for reaching "minimum" contribution required for 4invader tokens & Renown tick at the end of a fortress, is to be part of minimim 2-3 flagcaptures in stage2 and some killing (10-100 kills)

5) Skaven brew!
Just like the Reikwald or Felllanding has a poisoncauldron, a Skaven brew has been left & forgotten inside all fortresses. While stage2 is ongoing a little barrel can spawn on the battleobjectives around the five flags. Picking this item up will make it last 30minuts in your inventory and it can be used during stage3 to apply realm-wide aoe poison inside the lordroom for any realm holding control over it!
This is not a bug, this is a feature to help break a strong funnel hold. Obtaining this item and its spawn location is random it seems, and is a mechanic to help put more value on controling the flags in stage2 and not just relying on a stage3 lordroom defence alone.

Nice to see someone trying to be helpful and educate.

[wonshot]

Updated some minor incorrect changes that has happend since the creation of this guide. Also changed the wording and did some editing.