Fortresses

[Oldfrt]

An idea:
Rather than worry about the "fort" itself... what about the defensive bonus on a tile.... is it held per tile, or worked out generically by type?

If it is held per tile, then simply "fortifying" a unit on it for a long period of time may force up the natural defence of the tile...
ie every 10 turns a unit is fortified on a tile, it adds +5% PERM to the defence of the tile....

 

[Sureshot]

and later in times of need you could return to your forts

ya, i like the existence of forts, and your idea is good (reminds me of the civ3 siege units, who attacked the way bombers do in vanilla civ 4 but could target nits and improvements not just cities)


adding permanent fortification bonuses could be neat, though its usually good if theres some visual representation (thats where forts come in ) though a grading for the amount of defense that increases with the length of time units are fortified there would be interesting.

 

[Oldfrt]

It helps the AI as well as it always "defends" resources..... sometimes with weak units.... this way, the tile will build up a great defensive bonus - would then make attack a held "resource" more of a challange...

aside: does the AI actually take into account the bonus of the tile when it moves?

 

[Sureshot]

it always tries to end its turn on the highest defensible position on the way to its target

 

[Oldfrt]

then this would also allow the befault AI behaviour to benefit.

Also, it provides a use for defunct units. You can throw your old units out into the world and make them fortify important places just to increase the defensive bonuses.... then in times of strife, you move your Longbows into the pre-created "fort"....

I agree it needs some "image" though... but not essential this way....

... also then crys out for some means of destroying that bonus (back to the bombard)... catapults/cannons etc as per vanilla.... terrain effects by spell casters into adjacent squares (rather than just the tile they are on).....

A lot of simple stuff that the AI already does and handles well (because it is vanilla)...

Let there be no upper limit.... image the carnage as you are forced to assault that near "impregnable" fortress.... Thermopyle all over again!

Of course dont allow the bonus to occur in "city" tiles, or you would never be able to capture them! (thats what walls/castle is for!).

 

[Jono]

An idea:
Rather than worry about the "fort" itself... what about the defensive bonus on a tile.... is it held per tile, or worked out generically by type?

If it is held per tile, then simply "fortifying" a unit on it for a long period of time may force up the natural defence of the tile...
ie every 10 turns a unit is fortified on a tile, it adds +5% PERM to the defence of the tile....

Cities would be impossible to break, especially the AI's...

 

[Sureshot]

i think he mentioned not doing this for cities, in the same way forts cant be built on cities

 

[Jono]

How about restrictiing it to forts? Every single tile surrounding a city in an empire would have around +200% defense, and only 1 unit would be defending the actual city.

 

[Sureshot]

maybe, though thats a lot of unit maintenance. restricting it to forts is a good idea
im still not certain on what would be the best system for forts, but much of what would be chosen relies on also getting the AI capable of using it

 

[Oldfrt]

I dont think you would need to worry about the AI "spamming" them all over the place. If you stick to a 5% increase per turn totally fortified (ie only kicks in on turn 4), then the unit needs to be fortified nearly 25 turns for each square to get a bonus of 100%!

Given that most of my games are over 300-500 turns in, that wouldnt give me long to build up good defensive positions everywhere.... I would have to be careful and chose wisely...

You would either need a HUGE army to "fortify" all your terrain, or plenty of free time....

But even if every tile surrounding a city was "fortified", that would still be simply adding more "realism".... after all... to take the city, you only need to clear one defensive tile... not them all....

Battles, especially against cities, normally involved some (either large or small) scale battles immediatley before the walls, before the siege itself started... this would emulate this nicely.

 

[Oldfrt]

Actually, thinking about this in practice, it would totally change the way battles are fought - it would make the combat far more like Civ 3 in that you could position weak units all along your borders in defensive posts and even if they dont stop the attack, they would at least give you more warning than having that enemy force suddenly turn up outside your gates without warning!

Battles in Civ 4 are too fluid (with the exception of cities). It is all movement and speed. A blitz wins out every time as there is no capability for developing bottlenecks.

I dont think this would cause the game to go into a "stalement" or purely defensive mode, as the time factor and strength of units (over time) would still make even large bonuses pointless...... you may improve the defensive ability of a tile with your Str 4 unit by 100%, but it can then still be easily wasted by a Druid or Chariot....

Would definatley need a fantasy equiv of the "bomber" or bombard ability though....

 

[hawkeye72]

one way to consider an area a choke point is if it has impassible terrain or water on two tiles that are opposite adjacent and nondiagonal (i.e. the tiles directly north and south or east and west).

about protecting improvements and city raider/defense promotions, maybe city raider/defense promotions should work on forts and cottages/hamlets/villages/towns, it would make them much easier to defend (though make the elven cottages not receive the bonus, since they already focus on forests anyways and have poor city defense anyways).

I think the choke point concept is different than the zone of control. At least in the sense that many old forts out on the plains were intended to have a very broad zone of control. Sorties to the outside and scurry back to the safety of the fort. So movement within the zone of control and increase to withdrawal within the zone (this is something that pretty much all forts should have for archers and other ranged units (or seige units.)

Protecting the pass between to impassible terrain points seems different and should have a high defensive fortress style coding.

One question though. Why would you prevent a civ from building fortresses side by side? If I want to tediously build my own Great Wall, then why not let me?

 

[dreiche2]

maybe because of flavor, but that's a question of taste, but more so because of the AI. If you let it, it *will* spam them everywhere, and, depending on how they are implemented, this could have drawbacks...

 

[Sureshot]

for my own games im thinkin im going to just bump up forts to 50%, allow them to be built anywhere, and give them a +1 production and +1 commerce, and hopefully AI's will build them and they'll be useful lol

after i get that done if they use them i may try more things

 

[Oldfrt]

Let us know how you go with your +50%.....

 

[Gamestation]

Anyone mind pondering this idea for a moment?

What if workers and a new "militia" unit (mass draftable) could build a barricade improvement? A barricade prevents more than 1 unit from moving on to that tile, stops anyone who moves onto the tile in their tracks (except heroes and commandos if raider no longer gave that promotion for free). Have the AI place this improvement on borders with other civs.

What I imagine this improvement would do is prevent a single stack of doom from entering and instead force the opposing sides to fight along fronts in a struggle to bring each other's barricades down and unleash the full force. There is no equivalent to the railroad in this game yet so reinforcing positions will be tough if there isn't already a large force in an area waiting or you have The Hub. Nearby cities and fortresses will serve as staging grounds for these forces to protect against fireballs and other spells thrown out to weaken and destroy the other forces.

So right there fortresses become more useful and frontal warfare is encouraged.

Breaking right through these defenses will prove to be difficult because that would require moving one unit onto one tile, survive a turn, and then pillage. Naval warfare will be of greater use if it becomes easier to send units around barricades and on the enemy's shore than to breakthrough the barricades. The Queen of the Line will actually be used.

Militia units would be a great addition, in my opinion I remind you. I picture the people of a city under attack decide that they had enough of feeling helpless without the trained military units around run out with whatever they could use as a weapon and just fight regardless of how hopeless the situation seems. In the game I would see 5 new militia units pop out of a city with one click on the draft button. Each militia unit will only have 1 strength but that will be all they need. Their attacks will first cause the enemy to become tired (negative promotion), then fatigued (negative promotion), then utterly exhausted (negative promotion) from the tension caused by seemingly random attacks by the local militia and population. Then the real military comes in to destroy their crippled foe. I imagine that because militia are not trained, they are disorganized and would actually have a greater chance of surviving in an area full of barricades than anywhere else, making them ideal units to take down enemy barricades (can retreat out of barricades when being attacked in a barricade).

So the idea is a new improvement called a barricade effectively halts the advance of an enormous stack of units from entering without splitting up first, breaking through the barricades, heading for the seas, or sending heroes on a lone mission. Militia units become the essential generic unit for huge wars involving frontlines combat.

I don't really know if this is possible to implement but just think about what if it is possible.

 

[upthorn]

How about restrictiing it to forts? Every single tile surrounding a city in an empire would have around +200% defense, and only 1 unit would be defending the actual city.

Not if it caps out at +75%, and drops by 5% each turn no unit is holding it.

 

[tyrantpimp]

mmmm Interesting but militia usually retreat quickly under pressure from a professional army. So if that idea did exist how would you compensate for this? Also what about golems and other fantasy residents of the mod, seems a few of them would easily bypass barricades.

Not trying to dump on your idea, it just sounds really complicated. Seems like it would raise lots of balance issues. But the thought of slaughtering thousands of civilian militias does sound like fun

 

[Uberslacker]

How about something along the lines of:

Militia; Strength 1, Move 1, 80% withdrawal ?

 

[Gamestation]

mmmm Interesting but militia usually retreat quickly under pressure from a professional army. So if that idea did exist how would you compensate for this? Also what about golems and other fantasy residents of the mod, seems a few of them would easily bypass barricades.

My point is they probably will retreat but they will do their best to build tension in the professional army like guerilla warfare. That stuff can really drive the stress on the army way up and weakens the army overall when the soldiers go into panic and lose their minds. Of course things like golems and the undead would be unaffected.

When I mention barricades I mean any and every form of a barrier against an attack: moats, stakes, walls, magical curses, ditches, anything available. Something in all that should stop a golem and other fantasy residents I would think.

Not trying to dump on your idea, it just sounds really complicated. Seems like it would raise lots of balance issues. But the thought of slaughtering thousands of civilian militias does sound like fun

Yeah I figured the idea would be tough to implement. The toughest part I think would be somehow limiting the amount of units in one tile since that has probably never been implemented in a civ game. I just thought the idea would be fun, especially if we find out later that it can be used. Hey the idea of having units use spells probably seemed pretty crazy and hard to implement at first right? Look where that idea had gone.

How about something along the lines of:

Militia; Strength 1, Move 1, 80% withdrawal ?

I think those would be appropriate values. Militia are weak, disorganized, and too worried about there own survival that they will run long before their unit is entirely destroyed.