Let's have a look at Star Forts (and other unusual concepts)

So, I've tinkered and tailored a bit more often with ME during the last few weeks. As diagonal blocks became a thing of reality, I came to ponder upon the feasibility of creating a star fortress. I scoured the vast lands of the interwebs, trough the treacherous wastelands of the interblags and the putrid hive of villany that is YouTube and its notorious "Comments Section".
At long last I came to the conclusion that my subject of intrest and Medieval Engineers have not been introduced to eachoter in a proper way... Yet.

For those of us whom are unfamiliar with the concept of a "star fort", allow me to provide some context.

So I proceeded to create some rules and regulations to ease construction and clarify what the fort must be able of achieving:

1. No walls must have "blind spots".
2. The structure must allow a layered defence.
3. The outer fortifications must not provide any cover if captured.
4. Outer wall layers must not be as high nor higher than the inner ones, shooting over the outer walls from the inner ones must be an option.

So I built a model to study the concept, a small town with a fortified church and a few houses surrounded by an octagonal wall (as 90 and 45 degree angles do not allow hexagonal nor pentagonal desings without trouble) and some extended defenses.

As the fortification is simply a proof-of-concept, the defenses are somewhat randomly assembled. The two gates are constructed in different manners in order to observe alternative layouts. Most, if not everything, is constructed in order to make an head-on assault and the usage of siege weapons against it as tough as possible. The main goal of this experiment was, however, to explore the possibilities unlocked by the introduction of diagonal blocks.

Even tough the game does not, and possibly never will, contain a gunpowder based arsenal, a star fort doesn't really furfill its original purpose. Low and thick walls are hard to crack but easy to cross.

So... Has anyone else glanced at this geometrical and mathematical approach to fortification? Have any other unexpected techniques come to your mind that you wish to share?

I declare this thread:
Open for discussion

 

i like start forts.. HOWEVER they require a LOT more space than a traditional style castle where you can mould the walls to match the terrain easier. so there is a tradeoff there

 

Indeed. Though star forts can be built to fit in the surrounding terrain, the concept and design tends to limit them from achieving their full potential.
In all simplicity, star forts are more effective on flat ground while conventional castles, thanks to their flexibility, hold the advantage around the rougher parts of the world.

 

I actually started out by building fortified castles where there where no blind spots, no right angles, and each wall closer to the keep could be overseen from the next. Usually 3 walls deep (each getting higher) type of fort with drawbridges from one wall to the next. One long arched hallway entrance through all the walls and a hidden underground escape route. Needless to say, these can become quite large.

After many countless builds and some serious thought about survival mode and multiplayer in the future, I've stepped back in time. I'm toying with the idea of a motte and bailey now. I'm just not sure if I'll be able to pull it off with the voxel hands and have it be presentable.

 

ive honestly stopped even leveling out the area im building my castles. it looks 100x better if you build your castle to match the terrain rather than make the terrain match the castle. Having a big level area just looks dull.

 

I still do some leveling, but mostly where I want it to look heavily man modified or the slope makes creating a remotely level structure a pain.

 

ya once im donw with the outer walls i level out the interior.