Are forts really useless?

or is there so top-secert method of using them, only known to the top players?

I have NEVER built a fort in CIV! This is mainly due to me lurking on these boards before I bought the game, and everyone saying they were useless...

I think theres just been a discussion about this, but no there isnt any magical use to make it worth it, like usual only good useful places for it are on chokepoints between continents and such. I like to use them as gathering points for my armies though, in the center of my nation, since i hate to gather armies in my cities.

they are basically useless IMO

I can think of 3 possible uses for the forts.

1) You can build them on the shoreline to make amphibious assaults even tougher, although unless there is one on every space of your shoreline they could just be bypassed.

2) You can build them to help defend choke points as was already mentioned.

3) You can use them as gathering points for your workers if for some reason you don't want to gather them in your cities.

It is of special note that units with the "city defense" (can't recall the actual name) bonus get that defensive bonus in a fort.

I've used forts myself a few times, but that was just to experiment with them and see if they were worth using. More often than not, I find they aren't, but every once in a while they may come in handy.

It's rare, but in a chokepoint they do the trick rather nicely. They do need some modification though. What I would like to see is...

- Forts come in 3 tiers. Fort (archer), Watchtower (longbow), and gun tower (infantry).
- Forts act as a city for defensive modification purposes to those in them.
- A fort will act as 1 unit and auto-fire on enemy units passing within an adjoining tile. For example, a watchtower would be the equivalent of 1 longbow attack against enemy units passing by.

Alternately, if you really wanted to boost them up,
- Forts come in 4 tiers. Fort (catapault), Watchtower (trebuchet), Sentry tower (cannon), and gun tower (artillery).
- Forts act as a city for defensive modification purposes to those in them.
- A fort will act as 1 unit and auto-fire on enemy units passing within an adjoining tile. For example, a watchtower would be the equivalent of 1 trebuchet attack against enemy units passing by.

Possible other aspects to theoretically pick and choose from,
- Forts gain experience as units do.
- Forts use strength as units do.
- If on a tile worked by the city forts repair faster.
- If on a tile worked by the city forts add 1 coin/1 hammer to the tile.
- Optics adds the +1 visibility promotion to forts.

Well, that's 50% off topic, but I had fun listing that stuff

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Build forts in your forests (esp forest hills) before Lumbermills are available, at defensive choke points. It doesn't hurt production, and fortified units there will be nigh invincible (like The Tick).

Wodan

Pretty much worthless as a short answer. The chokepoint is the best method but really if there is a forest, or better yet a forested hill on the choke point you are better off just using the forested tile. A forest is better defense than a fort for some reason. It might be different in warlords but in the original a fort is only a 25% boost, I believe. Whereas, a forest is 50%.
So really if a forest is on the chokepoint, it is better to keep it rather than chop it down and build a fort.

Although, I too use the as rally points for my troops on desert tiles. Mostly as a marker than for anything else.

EDIT:

Wodan said:

Build forts in your forests (esp forest hills) before Lumbermills are available,

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Did this change come in on 2.08? (Being able to build them on forests)

Why did they scrap the barricade upgrade? Spending the resources on a barricade made the initial cost of a fort worth while in Civ3. I remeber the AI was programmed to build these on choke points. On occasion I ran into one and paid dearly for my decision of a land invasion instead of sea.

As far as I know, building a barricade (100% defence) on a hill made no difference. I wonder if civ4 changed that. It was a major flaw to not reflect the real life advantage of a suped up fort on a hill(barricade) rather then the open plains

I use them to them to decorate my deserts when my workers have nothing else to do.

King Flevance said:

Did this change come in on 2.08? (Being able to build them on forests)

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Yes, either that or Warlords, I don't remember which (look in the docs/logs if you're really curious). It was a conscious effort by Firaxis to make forts more worthwhile (which it did). Not that they're totally better, but they definitely have a use. Given the time lag between when you can build forts and when you can build lumbermills, there's a big window of opportunity. And, the fort won't hurt the citizen-workability of the forest tile in the slightest.

Wodan

I find that in the cities which border other civs, that I pretty much leave those tiles clear, apart from possibly roading them. Since my game with Germany is defensive for so long, I am having those tiles getting razed quite a bit anyway, so it's best not to put anything there. So in using forts on those tiles this would be an excellent way to get a leg up on the radiers. It's even better if your borders have expanded and the tiles you are forting aren't part of the fat cross anyway. Now if I will ever get mnyself around to doing just that .

I have on occasion put a unit into say a bordering unworked forest tile, and the benefits can be quite good. My main line of defense is to defend the city, but often I am trying to chop attacks into little bits along the way. One thing that doesn't seem to be too intuitive about this game though, is that the following situation would be made that much better by the border unit(s) being in forts. What I have noticed that happens is that if you attack out of a tile into a group of units the unit naturally does not move and remains in the same tile, but one thing that isn't natural is that in it attacking it "retains" it's entrenchment rating. It is only after it moves out of a tile that it loses it.

One small problem with having a unit entrenched, even in a fort in woods, is that should they attack their remaining strength after the attack may make them so weak as to make them an easy target for counterattack. To make matters worse they don't have a medic unit with them either. Well of course one might consider medicing them in some form or another, but with the fort bonus they are much more apt to survive a counterattack and also to discourage one from coming in the first place. The other method would be to always make them attack as one of your last attacks so that they are fighting the weaker units of a stack and at least that way aren't relegated to being nothing but a stiff protecting a good tile. One other method, of course, would be to reinforce that location with a full strength unit it it fared badly enough in the original attack, such that they could spend time recovering while the other unit sits there to keep attackers at bay somewhat.

Chokepoints. If they had free zone of control, a stippled border of forts would be useful for slowing an invasion. Pretty much a waste of tiles otherwise.

Mowque said:

or is there so top-secert method of using them, only known to the top players?

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Shawnosaurus said:

It's rare, but in a chokepoint they do the trick rather nicely. They do need some modification though. What I would like to see is...
(...)
- Forts act as a city for defensive modification purposes to those in them.

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As already mentioned by SwordofStriker, they already do that. So, for example, archers get the extra defense as though they were in a city. It also works for the city defender promotion, I think.

Arvedui said:

As already mentioned by SwordofStriker, they already do that. So, for example, archers get the extra defense as though they were in a city. It also works for the city defender promotion, I think.

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Yea, I was listing their complete features, current and proposed.

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I must be special... I build forts

Usually, I'd find a patch of worthless land between my enemy and me, hopefully surrounded by peaks/hills/desert and make a city there and name it Fort Nessecity. (and sometime the land isnt worthless...but it'll work)

Then I'd have the city build a worker and rename it Army Engineer cuz its fun.

Then if gunpowder hasnt been researched, i'll build a wall/castle there and then a barracks. The worker I made will go to the hills/desert and start making forts. My capital/military city will churn out a small army and garrison it into my new city. Both AI and human seem to be stupid and will attack this fortress city instead of bypassing it. It seems to work especially well in Inland Sea (multiplayer) that I play alot.

You stock your troops there, make a bunch of roads and tada! You have your defence center. If you want, you can make a hammer city nearby, build a barracks/heroic epic in there and have it chuck out units nonstop to man your fort. Until you realize your units are costing you small fortunes in matinece and switch to vassalage.

But honestly, forts suck. Build citys instead.

- Forts come in 4 tiers. Fort (catapault), Watchtower (trebuchet), Sentry tower (cannon), and gun tower (artillery).
- Forts act as a city for defensive modification purposes to those in them.
- A fort will act as 1 unit and auto-fire on enemy units passing within an adjoining tile. For example, a watchtower would be the equivalent of 1 trebuchet attack against enemy units passing by.

Possible other aspects to theoretically pick and choose from,
- Forts gain experience as units do.
- Forts use strength as units do.
- If on a tile worked by the city forts repair faster.
- If on a tile worked by the city forts add 1 coin/1 hammer to the tile.
- Optics adds the +1 visibility promotion to forts.

Click to expand...

Citys get culteral bonuses, expand your territory, claim resources, and can act as virtual forts. I just agument them with the crappy forts. Apparently they resist enemy culture, can contribute to your economy, can let soldiers fortify, if on hill also gives natural 25% bonus, units with city defence promotion/natural bonus wortk there better, it gives visibilty according to cutural radius, as culture expands it gains more defence %, and the culture auto repairs. You can even command the units in the city to attack enemies passing by.

Did you know cultral radius comes in tiers too?

I think forts would be useful if you could build them on top of other improvements.

Another thing that I think would be cool is making fort tile impervious to culture-flipping, as long as you have at least one unit inside. That way you could use forts to "hold your borders" against a cultural onslaught...

But then you have to think. Players would jsut dot their land with forts since they aren't BAD and have no negative effects. The cultral thing would be cool though. Maybe resistence would go up as the number of units inside is increased...

None_Existant said:

But then you have to think. Players would jsut dot their land with forts since they aren't BAD and have no negative effects. The cultral thing would be cool though. Maybe resistence would go up as the number of units inside is increased...

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Those forts would still have to be garrisoned, creating maintenance costs and spreading their army thin.