Forts. This improvement is allowed with the technology Mathematics. Forts can be used as Harbors or Canals or Airbases and Missle Sites.

This strategy utilizes a linking of all cities via forts - with optimal city positioning near lakes and coasts to allow the furthest inland waterway possible. The Artifical Intelligence has a hard time calculating the ramifications of such a build and becomes somewhat paralyzed in its strategical plans.

However, why would one bother with a Canal based empire?
The answer is threefold. The Artifical Intelligence cannot resist attacking units in Forts. They will waste siege and other units to deviate from their target. What is the affect of a multiplier to this phenomenon? Also your units rushing to a city's defense will have a defensive bonus along the route especially if they fall one tile short of their destination. Forts as Roads (much like Rome's famous network). Reason number 1- Defense, Delaying Action, and Death Traps for the AI.

Another consideration is that your navy gains incredible movement possibilities- ferrying troops and launching surprise counter offensives- the true goal of any good defense. A word of caution- do not leave a ship in a fort unprotected if there are enemies nearby. Reason number 2 - Amplifies Movement, Allows for at least one ship to be around for The Blessed Sea quest.

Finally, there is the end game, the "clausula alea", where you find yourself with a bunch of forts, harbors, air bases, missile bases and nuke launch sites at a time when - navy units can travel large distances, you have airplanes, and missles and nukes and the enemy is attacking all the time with faster moving heavier hitting units.

This "Canalis Imperium Aeternus" (Canal Empire Eternal) is created for speed, tactical positioning and a late game. Any civ that has a unique building that comes along the Mathematics path is the superior and the Dutch, Willem van Oranje- Financial, Creative, with the unique building the Dike with the wonder the Collosus .

You can't move a sea vessel more than one land tile inland via forts in the latest BtS version. Not sure what it was before it was patched.

I build forts in tiles near borders as late-game air bases, or to hook up resources that aren't in the BFC. They can be mighty handy as a "Panama Canal" type of construction for a one-tile ithsmus between land masses.

troytheface, I fear you are starting to lose your touch ^_o, the other threads were funnier :P

Sorry Troy, I must agree with Burn - you need to start playtesting your strategies more so you can accumulate enough stories to tickle us with.....

If it was a joke, it needs more deadpan and ridiculousness, lol.

I wonder, if a naval unit is in a fort, and is attacked by another naval unit, is there an extra defense bonus? Naval units dont defend in coastal cities at all.

Optimal is city on coast next to some kind of lake. (one tile lake holes also work).
four workers (slowly) set to road/fort (usually coastal works best) to each city, back fill cities come last, in other words no need to hurry, and the range of your ships is doubled.

The guide would work better with pictures. :p

A map with lots of lakes and a crazy extreme canal system would be great.

lulzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Experimentation (Organized) has shown it is not necessary to have alot of lakes.
Coastal fort/roads and then optimized city to city paths Tundra, Desert tiles and Ice tiles, utilizing coastal divet tiles) , oft times incorporating building on resources (both cities and Forts.)
By the time of Fuedalism eight cities connected some utilizing one tile lake holes.
(Standard, Fractal)

However, why would one bother with a Canal based empire?
The answer is threefold. The Artifical Intelligence cannot resist attacking units in Forts.

I disagree. The AI tends to attack my cities, not forts with units in them.

They will waste siege and other units to deviate from their target. What is the affect of a multiplier to this phenomenon? Also your units rushing to a city's defense will have a defensive bonus along the route especially if they fall one tile short of their destination.

If they fall 1 tile short of a city and that tile is a fort, you either wasted several worker turns on an unnecessary fort (if it was a grassland, for instance, it should have been cottaged) or you wasted building a road on a crappy tile. I almost never build forts in BFC locations.

Also, city defenses are often greater than forts, so why bother having forts? If the AI attacks your units on a fort and kills them, they may put their stack on your fort.


Forts as Roads (much like Rome's famous network). Reason number 1- Defense, Delaying Action, and Death Traps for the AI.

Forts and roads are completely different concepts in this game. Roads are meant to provide faster transportation but also to connect cities and resources. Forts don't do that. They need roads for that.

Also, could you explain what these death traps are? My death traps are forsted hills, not tiles with forts in them.

Another consideration is that your navy gains incredible movement possibilities- ferrying troops and launching surprise counter offensives- the true goal of any good defense. A word of caution- do not leave a ship in a fort unprotected if there are enemies nearby. Reason number 2 - Amplifies Movement, Allows for at least one ship to be around for The Blessed Sea quest.

So one of the top reasons that forts are useful is to assist you in a quest...uh....:confused:

Finally, there is the end game, the "clausula alea", where you find yourself with a bunch of forts, harbors, air bases, missile bases and nuke launch sites at a time when - navy units can travel large distances, you have airplanes, and missles and nukes and the enemy is attacking all the time with faster moving heavier hitting units.

This "Canalis Imperium Aeternus" (Canal Empire Eternal) is created for speed, tactical positioning and a late game. Any civ that has a unique building that comes along the Mathematics path is the superior.

I never find myself with forts, air bases, etc. The game is over for me by then.

And how do civs that have unique buildings with an early-game tech like Mathematics superior if the Canal is created for a late game? I personally find these unique buildings to be superior: the HRE Rathaus (comes with Code of Laws), the Incan Terrace (comes with Pottery) as well as the Dutch Dike (comes with Steam Power).

I disagree. The AI tends to attack my cities, not forts with units in them.

In a recent game i used this build and positioned two outdated longbowmen in the forts around a city at the front. Sure enough the AI lay siege to the city-- i made one counter-attack- and the AI's next move was to lose a rifleman and cannon- attacking the Longbowmen in the the Fort.

"if it was a grassland, for instance, it should have been cottaged"

If it is in a location that requires a Fort for the connection then it should have a Fort. Building a cottage just because it gives commerce? -the assertion that every tile has to be maximized with cottages is just a notion floating around this board, ghostly, an illusion, made solid by micromanagers fond of writing about it. However it goes without saying that you should try to use "city to city paths Tundra, Desert, Ice .."

"they may put their stack on your fort"
They do not get your fort's bonus and will pillage, setting itself up for a another round of counter attack.

" as well as the Dutch Dike (comes with Steam Power)."

The Dutch should be the optimal Civilization to use this method now that you mention it-
- one of those unconcious designer binary code computer script psychological mechanics. Also the mention of teching towards Steam Power .
The theory can be fleshed out to be sure or variations inter-connecting within the common demonitor scope of the game. In Multi-Player you road to your kill at times - a similiar but amplified hybrid of this in the slower paced Single-Player mode is to road/fort to your enemy. Which is another theory, "Attacko's Multi-Player tactics Optimized for Single-Player Games"

Troy, I like your posts because they're fresh, theyre unusual and they drive so many people crazy. :p

Keep them coming.:):):):)

The cowardly cottage builders like thier cottages, and thier advice as being definitive.
Many attack that which is not even at issue as you will note- why?
Because on the issues they have no counter, and wanting their opinion as the superior
and faced with the inevitable shallowness of their proposals as shown via the Attacko Method, some will use ignore (thank god) or personal attack as the final bastion of refuge for their antiquated play styles, which are - mind you- rather quaint.

ROFLMAO...and then some

The cowardly cottage builders like thier cottages, and thier advice as being definitive.

You are right Troy, every player on this board (except you and Attacko) is a coward. They are so cowardly that they refuse to lure enemy archers with their Great People :lol: Maybe because others have not learned the "Attacko Great People Explosion" methods which allows one to generate 10 Great people per turn?

You are a genious and simply out of our league! :scan:

"every player on this board"

never stated. There are a few posters on the board, some of which espouse one idea or another and a larger number of members and visitors. While the silent majority strongly favor the Attacko articles over others and while there is a conspiracy to keep them out of the War Academy -i think that this be due to the over powering almost game breaking information provided.
Understand that for some - cottages, finacial civs, and the Great Light House have nothing to do with the benefits of play style, rather that they have a possessive, greedy, and phallic unconscious bias.

cottages[/I], finacial civs, and the Great Light House have nothing to do with the benefits of play style, rather that they have a possessive, greedy, and phallic unconscious desire.

Ahh, it is all about those gold coins and bags of coins right Dave?!

@troy, i like the name of this strategy, though I could careless about its content, but just a cool name suffice. Keep up the good work! :king: :goodjob:

I would not want DaveMcW to see this thread...

I would not want DaveMcW to see this thread...

It's a good thing he blocks troy then ;).

It's a good thing he blocks troy then ;).

YOU CAN BLOCK PEOPLE!:eek:

cottages, finacial civs, and the Great Light House have nothing to do with the benefits of play style, rather that they have a possessive, greedy, and phallic unconscious bias.

So we like cottages because they are phallic?

YOU CAN BLOCK PEOPLE!:eek:



Awesome....

"every player on this board"

never stated. There are a few posters on the board, some of which espouse one idea or another and a larger number of members and visitors. While the silent majority strongly favor the Attacko articles over others and while there is a conspiracy to keep them out of the War Academy -i think that this be due to the over powering almost game breaking information provided.
Understand that for some - cottages, finacial civs, and the Great Light House have nothing to do with the benefits of play style, rather that they have a possessive, greedy, and phallic unconscious bias.

I have never lol'd so hard at stupidity ever...until I saw this post. :D

I suggest that Attacko articles are the most blocked articles by veterans on this board because the tactics and methods force them to do what ...skip over, no ...dismiss, ...no , ..rather ..Block which must be amusing for the diety master of attack to witness, as he appreciates irony.
Thank god newer players can still benefit without having to look at a fifty page long posts with screenshots that are tiring after the first one culminating in the grand advice to build a cottage.

I suggest that Attacko articles are the most blocked articles by veterans on this board because the tactics and methods force them to do what ...skip over, no ...dismiss, ...no , ..rather ..Block which must be amusing for the diety master of attack to witness, as he appreciates irony.

So what you are saying is that DaveMcW, and other Civ masters who will probably get articles into the War Academy block you because they are arrogant and you "see the light" and have never started a thread that is even worth reading for any purpose other than humor?

O yea, and the conspiracy thing made be laugh so hard i think i puked a little...

Which veterans "block" Attackos articles in the War Academy?

And why do you talk about Attacko in the 3rd person?

i don't know the boy davey so it is hard to speculate.

"Which veterans "block" Attackos articles in the War Academy?"

poorly worded. most people don't get all worked up and uptight (except -in my experience- know-it-alls and the frightened. Very few would bother to block anything -
but as to the uptight.... this select group will take great pains to alleviate both fear and embarrassment. But as they have been beaten off and have scurried away to the depths of their own design by superior Attacko literary prowess, it is not an issue- nor was it ever in doubt.

"Which veterans "block" Attackos articles in the War Academy?"

poorly worded. most people don't get all worked up and uptight (except -in my experience- know-it-alls and the frightened. Very few would bother to block anything -
but as to the uptight.... this select group will take great pains to alleviate both fear and embarrassment. But as they have been beaten off and have scurried away to the depths of their own design by superior Attacko literary prowess, it is not an issue- nor was it ever in doubt.
Um, what was poorly worded. You used the words "veteran" and "block", as if there is some conspiracy to keep Attacko's guides and articles out of the War Academy, I am merely asking who these powerful, uptight people are.

Wow, never knew we had an ignore list! Never needed to use it before. This is cool! I can't believe I learned something useful from an "Attacko" thread! :goodjob:

Thank god newer players can still benefit without having to look at a fifty page long posts with screenshots that are tiring after the first one culminating in the grand advice to build a cottage.

This is so good that my laughing "gave me away" to my co workers in the surrounding cubicles. Right On Troy!!:rockon:

I am amazed to say that TtF actually has a (very) small bit of useful advice here. I've built canal-forts on the Earth 18 Civs map to reach fairly far into Asia from the Mediterranean. It was a handy way to advance my war effort against China when China was the massively dominant Asian Power.

A single Fort on the Panama Canal and at the Suez Canal are also handy for reducing transit time for invasion forces.

Unless you have a map that is extremely well suited for this kind of thing, though (two huge blobs of land with a very narrow isthmus between them), then Canals and Forts are pretty well useless.

Suez and Panama are valid fort-crossing locations. More than 1 square, you can't move through it so TfF derails back into dark comedy, of the Andy Kauffman genre.

Wrong - two squares, or five with a single lake in the middle.

Still useless on most maps.

Wrong - two squares, or five with a single lake in the middle.

Still useless on most maps.

Pangaea and continents maybe. I often find them useful in archipelago and fractal. And of course nice more varied maps like Big and Small.

Having become master of one tile lake hole optimization, on a somewhat common map one can still build it where you can cut through a quarter of your empire (standard).
City in divit on coast , one tile lake hole behind it, Fort behind that, city and fort on coast which if your on a penisula traverves through an early empiire (2 to four cities) with two forts.

Building to 6 then eight or conquering is no great chore (monarch and above)
as is road/forting to an enemy-worked with Babylon when i was experimenting with Babylon.

Canals, Bowmen and Oasis and Elephants/Ivory are superior then teching to Bronzeworking and tryiing to build an early wonder

After translating the title, i got:

Channel Sovereignty Eternal

which probably means

The Eternal Sovereignty of Canals

how does that make any freaking sense?!

After translating the title, i got:

Channel Sovereignty Eternal

which probably means

The Eternal Sovereignty of Canals

how does that make any freaking sense?!

Translation from the Latin to English (passing through the moron filter):
Canals are good. Build forts with water next to them and your boats can move through an isthmus instead of going around a lot of land.

Yes, if your still learning what a granery does and what the difference between a luxery resource and a food rescource is, then wait until later and build one fort next to a city with a one tile lake hole and practice moving a ship.
At monarchy and above i suggest trying a corner , ...city-fort, lake tile, fort , city- a simple two city canal transway with three tile intersperse.
The title is that, a title. If this does not make sense it is a good thing i didn't use the original Attacko title in latin which was something like "Empire at the Edge of Tomorrow's Forgotten Eternal Waterways of the New Dimension"