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[werothegreat]

(as usual, in progress)

It's amazing what one sentence can do to a card.  On boards without a card that can trash Actions, Fortress is just an expensive Village.  But otherwise, Fortress is the card that can never be trashed.  That is, in the spirit of trashing - technically it does enter the trash pile, if only for an instant.  Once trashed, Fortress is whisked back into your hand.  This has some rather marvelous consequences.

The "Johnny" card

First, I think we need to discuss what Dark Ages really brings to the Dominion table.  Previously, a Dominion card had to be able to stand on its own merits - it could be judged purely on what it did as an individual card, though, of course, how it worked with other cards was certainly important.  You can look at Goons or Ill-Gotten Gains in the absence of other cards and understand why those cards are fairly potent.  This is probably one reason why Chancellor is viewed as such a weak card - what it does is not exceptionally powerful on its own terms.  But combine it with Counting House or Stash, and suddenly you have a strategy to be reckoned with.  Dark Ages gives us many more cards like Chancellor - cards that simply cannot exist in a vacuum.  Without support, Rats is an absolutely terrible card - it turns your deck into junk.  But if Bishop or Apprentice are in the kingdom, you'll be happy you bought that Rats.

And so we come to Fortress.  As the untrashable card, it combines with pretty much any card that is able to trash it.  As such, it shares a lot of the same combination space with Rats - they cost the same, and they both add a card to your hand when trashed.  But they diverge in the specifics.  The intention of Rats is to give you expensive junk to trash.  The intention of Fortress is both to be a Village and to be the Dominion equivalent of a boomerang.  Fortress, like Rats, does best with trashers that care about cost.  For Rats, this is because it fills your deck with $4 cost cards.  For Fortress, it's because most of those trashers are terminals.  If you're running a Bishop/Rats deck, you'll only be able to play one Bishop per turn, unless there's a Village in the kingdom, turning this into a 3-card combination.  Fortress fills both the Village and the fodder role.

So what does best with Fortress? 

Really, any trash-for-benefit card.  Beyond the Rats' "big three," which love Fortress just as much, any trash-for-benefit card that can trash an Action will now have an unlimited supply of fodder.  This is particularly deadly with Mercenary, as without Fortress, Mercenary can quickly run out of things to trash, leaving you with the dilemma of trashing useful cards in your deck in order to hurt your opponent.  But Fortress allows that Mercenary to keep chugging along, and allows you to play multiple Mercenaries per turn.  Similarly Death Cart, which has very little fuel to begin with, and is often relegated to being a (still powerful) three-shot card, can keep going well into the endgame.  And of course there's Procession, which, when played on Fortress, gives a buttload of Actions, some draw, and gives you a $5 cost card to boot, all for the price of...  getting to keep your Fortress.  In hand, no less.  And of course, two Fortresses are a prime target for a Forge.  This is by no means an exhaustive list - what do you expect me to do, list every trash-for-benefit card?

Well, I should probably mention Rats itself.  Normally, Rats games will not end up emptying the pile, as you'll most likely trash them away for better stuff before that happens.  But in a Rats/Fortress game, it's perfectly feasible to auto-pile the Rats.  Get your entire deck into your hand, including at least two Rats and a Fortress, and then just play Rats, having it eat the Fortress each time, until the pile is empty.  Then move on to the other two piles.  This also works with Upgrade (which is perhaps a more useful card to have than Rats).  And, while Rats is intended to chew up Coppers and Estates, Fortress can ease your pain in hands with lots of Rats and no junk, allowing you to use Rats simply as a cantrip.  This also works with Junk Dealer.

One rather fun quirk is to gain Fortress outside of a Buy with Watchtower in hand - simply trash the Fortress with the Watchtower, and now you can play Fortress this turn.  This works best with Ironworks, since it's non-terminal that way.  Ironworks a Fortress, Watchtower it into your hand, play the Fortress, then draw with the Watchtower.  Or proceed to feed the Fortress to whatever trash-for-benefit card you may have in hand.

Fortress as a defense

There's another, more subtle aspect to Fortress.  When you think of defending against Attacks, you generally think of blue Reaction cards.  So how is Fortress a defensive card?  The hint is in the card name - what are Fortresses for?  Any card that trashes from your deck, if it hits a Fortress, now has the rather embarrassing effect of increasing your handsize by popping that Fortress into your hand.  Oh, and not even trashing it.  And some of them now have to even give you an extra card - this is particularly shaming with Swindler, which, in the absence of Potion or Scout, is guaranteed to give you a pretty decent card, if only another Fortress.  But how can I ensure that my Fortress will be on top of my deck?  Why, with Secret Chamber, of course.  That most awkward of Reactions can make your opponents think twice about playing Sir Bailey.  One moment I would dearly love to have in Dominion would be for my opponent to King's Court a Saboteur, only to have me reveal a Secret Chamber, place a Fortress on top of my deck, repeating this for all three times, and have them watch in horror as my hand slowly gets bigger and bigger.

Fortress is also in the unique position of being able to disrupt the King's Court/Goons/Masquerade pin.  The crux of the pin is that Masquerade trashes any card passed over, disallowing the pinner from passing any of their own cards over.  But Fortress can't be trashed, so if the pinnee sends a Fortress over on the first pass, on the second pass, the pinner has to send that same Fortress back.  With two Fortresses in hand, you can successfully play a 2-card hand after this.  If the other card in your hand provides draw, you might even be able to buy a Province, though you'll want to make sure you're able to have two Fortresses in hand at all times.

Is there a time when I should not bother with Fortress? 

Well, yes.  If there's no Action-trashing on the board (Fortress won't do shit against Pirate Ship - I guess Pirates are good at siegecraft?) and there's a less expensive Village (if you're even bothering with an engine), there's really no reason to get a Fortress.  Like most of the "Johnny" cards in Dark Ages that shine in combos, Fortress really isn't worth getting outside of its intended context.  But if it's the only Village on a trasher-less engine board, go ahead and pick a few up.

How does one counter Fortress? 

Well, what exactly are you trying to counter?  It's a Village.  How do you counter a Village?  As for Fortress-trashing strategies, the usual discarding and junking Attacks will be of merit here.  As for the Bishop/Fortress strategy in particular, be aware that the Bishop/Fortress player, once he has his deck set up, has no real need to buy any more cards, and will be perfectly content to Bishop Fortresses until the Apocalypse comes, so it will be up to you to empty out piles.  Just try to do it quickly, before they amass more points than are gainable purely through Victory cards.

Does well with:
Trash-for-benefits that can trash Actions
Ironworks/Watchtower
Countering trashing Attacks
Countering KC/Goons/Masq

Does less well with:
Everything else

[Jimmmmm]

You know what else Fortress and Rats are good with? Each other.

"Play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand..."

[werothegreat]

You know what else Fortress and Rats are good with? Each other.

"Play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand..."

Noted.

[LastFootnote]

You know what else Fortress and Rats are good with? Each other.

"Play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand..."

How is that a good idea? You're filling your deck with Rats and you're not even getting the benefit of trashing bad cards that usually comes with it.

[SirPeebles]

You know what else Fortress and Rats are good with? Each other.

"Play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand, play a Rats, draw a card, gain a Rats, trash a Fortess, putting it in my hand..."

How is that a good idea? You're filling your deck with Rats and you're not even getting the benefit of trashing bad cards that usually comes with it.

This can be good in an engine when you've drawn your entire deck, since it allows you to empty an entire pile, potentially ending the game.  It could be worth a lot of points with Gardens or Vineyard, but mostly just for emptying a third pile suddenly.

[DG]

Upgrading fortresses probably deserves a mention for the same trick as rats since it is more likely to be useful. Procession might be worth a mention to make up for me not singling out fortress in my procession article.

Fortress can help with actions that trash exactly two cards; remake, trading post, steward, since you can trash a fortress in hand together with only one bad card. There are some similar benefits for count trashing. Forge and fortress has obvious benefits.

The fortress having a cost of 4 is very useful. It can be gained in quantity through the workshop family (or remodel) and gives good rewards when trashed by most cards, whether it's a procession, upgrade, bishop, apprentice, forge, salvager, etc. It also defends well at that cost against knights, rogue, and saboteur.

[jomini]

For sheer hilarity, Fortress/Forge/Kc is hard to beat; even outside of those overly powerful cases, Fortress/Forge is rather good. Fortress is one of few cards that can make it worthwhile to buy multiple Forges. I'd go so far to say that Forge likes Fortress as much as Salvager or Apprentice and almost as much as Bishop.

Another fun trick is to gain Fortress with a Watchtower in hand, "trash the Fortress" and gain it to hand. Something like Iw (gain a Fortress) -> reveal Wt (trash Fortress) -> gain Fortress in hand -> Fortress -> Wt (draw to six) is cute and reasonably good. Likewise, Fortress/Hermit can pull just gained Fortress out of the discard and into hand by trashing them. University (gain a Fortress) -> Hermit (trash a Fortress, gain a Silver) -> Fortress moves to hand. Both of these tricks can accelerate your deck building.


Another fun strategic aspect of Fortress is how well it works against the classic Masq pins. Something like Kc/Kc/Militia/Masq is absolutely vicious at eating your deck. Sending over a Fortress limits your card loss to one per turn; this can be enough to let you escape the pin and beat them back; granted you still have 2 card hands to play, but you can do something with those. Yeah, the next turn, they can just play the Fortress first and you have to feed them a steady diet of Fortresses ... but you may be able to gain enough Fortress/other stuff to pile out before they can kill all your VP cards. Note this doesn't work against Masq/Cutpurse/Engine pin or against more esoteric pins (e.g. B-crat pins, Kc/Gov/Minion/Cutpurse pins, etc.).

[SirPeebles]

Upgrading fortresses probably deserves a mention for the same trick as rats since it is more likely to be useful. Procession might be worth a mention to make up for me not singling out fortress in my procession article.

Coincidentally, I just now played a game with Fortress, Ironworks, and Upgrades.  I used a few Ironworks to pick up Fortresses while Upgrading Fortresses to Upgrades and then using my Upgrade stack to trash just about everything else (got a couple of Catacombs off of Fortresses) and then in one megaturn Upgraded Fortresses to empty the Duchy pile (after emptying Fortresses and Upgrades)

[werothegreat]

Another fun strategic aspect of Fortress is how well it works against the classic Masq pins. Something like Kc/Kc/Militia/Masq is absolutely vicious at eating your deck. Sending over a Fortress limits your card loss to one per turn; this can be enough to let you escape the pin and beat them back; granted you still have 2 card hands to play, but you can do something with those. Yeah, the next turn, they can just play the Fortress first and you have to feed them a steady diet of Fortresses ... but you may be able to gain enough Fortress/other stuff to pile out before they can kill all your VP cards. Note this doesn't work against Masq/Cutpurse/Engine pin or against more esoteric pins (e.g. B-crat pins, Kc/Gov/Minion/Cutpurse pins, etc.).

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here.  You make a lot of good points, but the way you describe them doesn't always make sense.

[jomini]

Another fun strategic aspect of Fortress is how well it works against the classic Masq pins. Something like Kc/Kc/Militia/Masq is absolutely vicious at eating your deck. Sending over a Fortress limits your card loss to one per turn; this can be enough to let you escape the pin and beat them back; granted you still have 2 card hands to play, but you can do something with those. Yeah, the next turn, they can just play the Fortress first and you have to feed them a steady diet of Fortresses ... but you may be able to gain enough Fortress/other stuff to pile out before they can kill all your VP cards. Note this doesn't work against Masq/Cutpurse/Engine pin or against more esoteric pins (e.g. B-crat pins, Kc/Gov/Minion/Cutpurse pins, etc.).

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here.  You make a lot of good points, but the way you describe them doesn't always make sense.

Sure.  Let's say I'm playing against you. I get Kc/Kc/Militia/Masq and you get 7 provinces. I play Kc -> Kc -> Militia (you discard down to 3 cards, I get 6 coin) -> Masq (I have no cards to pass, you pass me one, I trash it, and we repeat all this three times). Net result: you lose 3 cards and have 0 cards to play.

Now let's say you have a Fortress in hand:
I play Kc -> Kc -> Militia (you discard down to 3 cards, I get 6 coin) -> Masq (I pass nothing, you pass Fortress).

I cannot trash the Fortress and MUST send it back on the next play of masq so we continue:

Masq (I pass Fortress, you pass something). If you pass me a Fortress, game state doesn't change - I have a Fortress to pass and you hold a Fortress + 1 other card. If you pass me something else, then I trash it. So we hit the last masq play:

Masq (I pass a Fortress/Nothing, you something).

So on net if you have one Fortress in hand you: Lose 2 cards and have 1 card to play. If you have two Fortresses in hand, you: Lose 1 card and have 2 Cards to play. I most likely gain a Fortress.

So on your turn, what can you do? Well, depends on your cards. Fortress/Lib can let you play a big hand and quite likely gain two real cards. Fortress/Iw can let you at least gain a Fortress and a Copper/curse (though 2 coin cards are preferred). One card hands are harder to do something, but things like Golem, Menage, Lab, Outpost, etc. can all be viable here. Any hand where you can gain more than 2 cards gives you time to pile out with a lead. The best thing you could do would be to play:

Fortress -> Militia -> Masq (pass any non-action).

This means I have to discard down, well if I want to keep pinning you, I need Kc/Kc/Fortress in hand. So say I do that, now you pass me a copper. I'm kinda screwed now. If I pass the Fortress, then: A. I don't get to pin you this turn and your next turn is a full normal turn with a shot to disrupt me with another Militia -> Masq and B. You get your Fortress back making it harder for me to destroy your deck.

So in the end a pin may still, eventually, chew threw a Fortress deck, but maybe not before a 3-pile end occurs or you can Militia -> Masq back to disrupt the pin. You break the pin in that you can have non-zero card hands even after the pin hits, but you don't totally escape (like if you passed me a Feodum) as you still lose a Fortress each turn (so at most you are protected for 10 turns).

What do I mean about the other pins? Well I did a brief article on the Cutpurse/Masq/Engine: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4676.msg106466#msg106466

This type of pin doesn't trash cards, it passes coppers, forces you to discard them, and forces you to pass your non-copper cards. It requires a huge amount of +action and normally a strong engine potential ... but it steals your deck rather than trashing it. Because it doesn't have to trash incoming cards Fortress does nothing against it.

Other pins - Like Kc/Kc/B-Crat/Scheme/Scheme/B-crat) when you have 5 green cards on deck top or  mass Kc -> Gov (draw both our decks) -> Kc -> Cutpurse -> Kc -> Cutpurse -> Gov (you draw one card, leave 5 coppers in draw deck) -> Minion (discard for 4 cards) -> Cutpurse 3 more times leaving you with just a copper. Don't need trashing at all so Fortress doesn't work to stop them.