Fortress construction

[Noir]

JimAde got it right, atleast that was my original intension. Then the discussion about food blossomed up, partly because I worded my first post in a clumsy way, and I have found it quite interesting and educating hitherto.

"Several hundred thousands of soldiers (with families)" seem to be a bit over the top appearently. What is important to think about is the fact that it is a fortress and therefore not fully manned unless it is times of war. This means that the fortress should be able to for a while house vast amounts of soldiers, but in no way at all times. Extremely large storages of food will exist within the fortress for these times and as Wolffenjugend pointed out earlier, there is no way to come up with a "realistic" solution to this. Magic is a prerequisite for the whole thing to be possible.

Thank you cool hand luke for your input, it is interesting to learn about how this would actually work in the real world. I am sorry to say that, we, in our gaming group, lack the knowledge to actually include such high detail whether the mountain, which in our case actually has an underground river, has a limestone embeddment (or even the qualities of limestone) or not.

And to finish this post up, a question for you all:
How big were the greatest fortresses of the mediaeval age, how were they supplied with food/water and how did they take care of waste disposal?

 

[mmadsen]

How big were the greatest fortresses of the mediaeval age, how were they supplied with food/water and how did they take care of waste disposal?

You may want to read about
Krak des Chevaliers, in modern-day Syria:

The Hospitallers rebuilt it and expanded it into the largest Crusader fortress in the Holy Land, adding an outer wall, 30 meters thick, with seven guard towers 8-10 meters thick. One of these towers was occupied by the Grand Master of the Hospitallers. In the 12th century there was a moat covered by a drawbridge leading to postern gates. Between the inner and outer gates was a courtyard, leading to the inner buildings, which were rebuilt by the Hospitallers in a Gothic style. These buildings included a meeting hall, a chapel, and a 120-meter long storage facility. Other storage facilities were dug into the cliff below the fortress, and it is estimated that the Hospitallers could have withstood a siege for five years. By 1170 the Hospitallers' modifications were complete, but parts of the fortress were rebuilt after numerous earthquakes in the late 12th century and early 13th century. It may have held about 50-60 Hospitallers and up to 2000 other foot soldiers. Aside from the control of the road to the Mediterranean, the Hospitallers also exerted some influence over Lake Homs to the east, where they could control the fishing industry and watch for Muslim armies gathering in Syria.

T.E. Lawrence called it "perhaps the most wholly admirable castle in the world."

 

[mmadsen]

It must be:

• able to house several hundred thousands of soldiers (with families) and undead.
• practically self-sufficient.
• able to withstand decades of siege (mainly because it is built on enemy territory, not too far from a great city).
• a resemblance of the lich's power (as in control over lesser beings and as an archmage).

Several hundred thousand soldiers? For much of its history, the republic/empire of Rome had ~30 legions of ~6,000 soldiers, plus auxiliaries -- but they weren't all in one fortress! Several hundred thousand soldiers with their families would represent an entire metropolis (e.g., the city of Rome).

A fortress is never self-sufficient -- it produces nothing. A city needs to import food from the surrounding countryside. A metropolis like ancient Rome needs to import food from overseas; it needs to be a port.

I can't imagine a fortress withstanding decades of siege without access to the sea and a navy to protect that supply line. I also can't imagine storing victuals for a large force for years. (The crusader castles had tiny garrisons that they could feed for years.) A soldier eats ~3 lbs of food per day -- ~5 tons per decade.

 

[glass]

Here's an idea:

What if the fortress is in fact a series of fortresses scattered around the whole world, linked by magical portals. Instead of a fortress of 200000, 20 fortresses with garrisons of 10000 each. Still vast in any realistic sense, but (IMHO) much more believable.

To cut off the food and water supply, you would have to besiege ALL of them. It also keeps the troops divided up nicely to discourage mutiny.


glass.

 

[mmadsen]

Now granted, a good chunk of that is to lawn, etc, but, for 200,000 people, and going to war, you need to be able to bring in at least 15 MILLION gallons of water a day, more if you want to grow anything inside the city, fight fires, have a running water/sewer system of any kind, or use any water for water wheels, or mechanics, or defense. that's a lot of water, think 3 6' diameter pipes under high pressure flowing 24 hours a day.

I don't imagine a quasi-medieval military fort using water for much more than drinking -- they're not too concerned with laundry or gardening -- and an adult actually drinks less than one gallon per day, right? Not that 200,000 gallons per day is coming from a 20' well...

 

[mmadsen]

You may find this Castle Outline of Krak useful.