Fortress

## Introduction

New players will be completely unfamiliar with this concept, but it's one of the best features of the game. The first requirement is to reach Marquis 6, upon which you can begin stabilisation.

This article assumes you've read Stabilisation, so if you haven't... go and do it.

## Further Information

Welp, here we go. But first off, here's what the inside of a fortress looks like. It's just like a dungeon, isn't it? (Heck, it even says 'Dungeon' on the screen)

###  What are they, really?

Fortresses are the same concept as dungeons, with just a few differences.

1. You need to be on a stabilised area to find them, and the rate at which they're found isn't 20% per exploration (something like 1 to 3% is what we think it is).So they are pretty rare.
2. They don't need to be expanded. That's right: no expensive expansion materials needed.
3. To cover up for the above point, fortresses have very high requirements on station stats (950+ PRD/MNG is needed).
4. Finally, fortresses don't give a wide variety of random materials. Instead, you get Rare, Ancient and Legendary varieties of 4 materials that are fixed for each fortress. Example:
5. P.S. We have the materials for any fortress and dungeon (below immortal) uploaded to the wiki as their seperate pages, there are currently 45 fortresses.

###  What's the catch?

Currently, we have 3 elements of Fortresses: Fire, Forest, Light. These correspond to the 3 Domains we have, but are otherwise unrelated progress-wise (you don't have to do anything in domain to unlock them).

* All elements are divided into three tiers of fortresses, with 3 Tier 1, 7 Tier 2, 5 Tier 3 fortresses. Take a look at the Fortress Book that unlocks at Marquis 6.
* Here's the stat requirements for them, and as for understanding the table, Fire Tier 2 is 1000/1000 PRD/MNG requirement:

 Light
 Forest

* Now, Forest generally does have a better selection of materials since they have higher stat requirement, but it's not necessarily so.
* You can check which fortresses can be found in a stabilised area by going to Map > Details > Fortress (Tab opens at Marquis 6, I think). It looks something like
* Check out Station Companions on an estimate for stats of stations at +10 upgrade.

###  How do I prepare for Fortresses?

Here's a list of-sorts to follow.

1. Have your combatants at Mythic at least. (With the recent changes, some of you might actually have fantasy combatants lol...)
2. Make the Alchemy Station building lvl10 and start farming cleaners even before you're Marquis 6.
3. Follow the Beginner Guide and start to make Expert (preferred over Novices) Station companions into +10. At +10lvl200, Chloa has 948/795 PRD/MNG, Lula has 884/992 PRD/MNG, and Laonhaje has 930/831 PRD/MNG. Check Station Companions for more detailed stats.
4. Craft a bunch of gear to boost your Expert/Novice+10 stations to the required stats. From the following, Legendary+6 are recommended, and they can take experts to 1100/1100, or even 1150/1150 with good Gear Refinement.
	* Rock Breaker+6 has 54 PRD, and it's very easy to obtain through journey expeditioning and it'll cost 2-3mil to make one.
	* Chief Pickaxe+8 and Phaethon Axe+8 end up at 76 and 77 PRD respectively. They can be journyed for if you have Archduke+ honor rank. But they can also be crafted for much cheaper than the Mythic item below. And in all honesty, this much PRD is enough for all your **Fortress** needs.
	* Penetrator+6 has 68 PRD, but at +10 it has 113 PRD. However, it costs between 20-50mil gold to craft a single one.
	* Steel Shovel+6 has 59MNG 13PRD 7TRS. Just like Rock Breaker, it is rather easy and cheap to farm.
	* Cutting Edge+10 has 128MNG and 23PRD. But again, expensive to craft. Not for newbies at all. However, what is for newbies is my following observation: Steel Shovel+6 has 59 MNG 13 PRD, right (No one cares about the TRS)? Cutting Blade+1 has 58 MNG but 23PRD, which is a much better balance for people trying to gear companions for their **fortresses**. It should cost nearly the same to make (2mil gold + 20 mats of each type + 2mil blue essence 'extra'), and the only downside is that your Station Crafting Building should be nearly max level (which costs around 20-25mil to do). But one of the biggest profits is that it's better useful stats, and in the future has the potential to be increased.