Using the Fortify Action

Select the Fortify action by pressing the "Fortify" button under the game map. When the Fortify action is selected, clicking the mouse on the game map in a land area occupied by your nation will cause your forces to build defensive fortifications in that land area. Each time you fortify a land area, one of your nation's fortification points is spent. You may only fortify an area if your nation has one or more fortification points to spend.

The Fortify action button.

Fortification Points

Your nation starts out with no fortification points. You can obtain fortification points by purchasing a technology or ability, such as "Arboreal Platforms", which increases your Immediate Fortification. This means that the fortification points you receive by purchasing such a technology are gone once they're used. You can also attain fortification points by purchasing or developing technologies, such as "Walls", that increase your nation's Permanent Fortification. A nation's Permanent Fortification is the number of fortification points that the nation may spend each day, that will be automatically renewed the following day. For instance, if your nation's Permanent Fortification is 10, then your nation can fortify 10 land areas per day, without spending any of the nation's Immediate Fortification points.

Fortification info displayed in the Nation Panel.

You can find out how many fortification points your nation has at any time by checking the Nation Panel. The number of fortification points is displayed beneath your nation's area. You can also find out exactly how many permanent and temporary fortification points you have, by checking the Technology Summary panel.

The uses of Fortification

If a land area is fortified, a successful attack against that area will only decrease its number of fortifications by one. The attacking nation cannot succeed in occupying the area until it is no longer fortified at all. Since a single land area may be fortified many times, you can make it very difficult and time consuming for an attacker to penetrate your defenses. This is especially useful when you are able to fortify a few land areas across a narrow pass that is the only path to an area you wish to defend.

There are some powerful weapons in War of Conquest that allow a nation to actually swap ownership of one land area with another. If you succeed in your attack against an enemy nation using such a weapon, you will end up occupying the land area that you attacked, and your enemy will in turn end up occupying a neighboring land area that you had previously occupied. Fortification is effective in thwarting this kind of attack. A fortified land area cannot be "swapped" in this manner.

Supporting your Fortifications

Your fortifications need to be supportable by your nation, or they will fall into disrepair and decay. The number of fortifications that your nation can support is determined by your nation's area and level; the greater the area your nation controls, and the higher its level, the more fortifications it can support. The number of fortifications that your nation currently has, as well as the maximum number it can support, are displayed in the Nation Panel, below your nation's number of fortification points.

Your nation can build more fortifications than it is able to support, and sometimes in the heat of a battle it is important to do so. However, with every passing hour each of your nation's fortified land areas will lose one fortification, until your nation's number of forts no longer exceeds the number that it can support.

The Appearance of Fortified Land Areas

If a land area is fortified, a picture of a stone tower is displayed on that area. If the area has an object in it, such as a prize orb or a resource, then the fortification tower will appear smaller and toward the left side of the area. The more that an area is fortified, the taller this tower will grow. As the fortifications are chipped away by successful attacks, the tower will shrink and finally disappear.

A nation that has fortified several of its land areas to different degrees, including Fresh Water and an Orb of Destiny.

Repeat Fortifying

Often you may want to fortify a land area several times in a row, so that your enemies will find it more difficult to take from you. You can do this automatically by checking the "Repeat" checkbox in the lower left corner of the progress screen that appears while your land area is being fortified.

The Fortify progress screen, with the Repeat checkbox checked.

While the Repeat checkbox is checked, your nation will continue to fortify that same land area until either you stop it by unchecking the Repeat checkbox, or it has spent all of its fortification points. Note that a single land area can be fortified no more than 50 times.

Fortifying During Battle

A land area cannot be fortified for one full minute after it's been successfully attacked by an enemy. This makes fortifying your holdings during battle tricky; you will need to drive the enemy away from the areas that you wish to fortify and hold them off before you'll be able to reinforce your fortifications.

•To learn more about the game map, click here.

•To learn more about Permanent and Temporary Fortification, click here.