FORTS in BtS... Everything there is to know

[PieceOfMind]

Yxklyx,

Cities also act as nodes. Basically a coastal fort provides the same trade node functionality as a coastal city does. So unless you have no coastal cities at all there is no need for a coastal fort on a continent.

Having said that, if you're playing something like Pangaea and you don't have any coastal cities, building a fort on a coast nearby may be useful for increasing the size of the trade network.

 

[Yxklyx]

Can you airlift a unit into a fort?

 

[PieceOfMind]

Can you airlift a unit into a fort?

No. Only air units (and missiles) can be rebased to forts, and paratroopers and missiles can be launched from forts.

 

[Giraflorens]

I built a city by an inland sea (or lake) and it can't make ships or boats, but it can a lightfare or harbor. What if i make a fort that conects the inland sea(or lake) with the outside sea... is it a way to make that city building ships and boats?

see the picture:

 

[PieceOfMind]

The thing is, that is not an inland lake. An inland lake must be no more than 9 tiles worth otherwise it becomes plain old coast (you can tell because the tile yield has only 1 for each tile). It's probably for this reason that you can build the harbour/lighthouse, but the reason why you can't build boats may be more sutble. I'm not sure why, to be honest.

 

[Yxklyx]

Check here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=274087

9 or less and it's a lake. That "sea" you have there should not be able to supply fresh water since it has 10. You can build the Lighthouse because it's 10 or more spaces large.

Additionally, each ship has a minimum number of spaces of 20. This can be modified - but perhaps the AI will start doing really stupid things. The AI likes to build lots of Caravels - I don't think I'd modify that ship's value. Not sure if a fort will allow the ships to be built...

 

[mfie]

About forts in neutral territory givin you resources: how is this possible since a fort in enutral territory is everyones ?

 

[PieceOfMind]

About forts in neutral territory givin you resources: how is this possible since a fort in enutral territory is everyones ?

Forts built on top of resources in neutral territory don't give you access to the resource. I'm pretty sure I didn't say that anywhere but if I did please quote me and I can correct it.

What might be leading to the confusion is that forts in neutral territory can connect coast networks to road networks. For example, if there is a two tile island off the coast but inside the BFC of one of your cities, and there is a gold hill on one of those island tiles and desert on the other, then building a mine on the gold and then a fort on the desert and connecting the two tiles by road would ensure your empire could get access to the gold. I'm not sure if the road is even necessary. Even if the fort tile was not inside your borders but rather inside neutral borders it would still work. However, the gold mine would have to be in your borders if you want access to the gold.

 

[Bibor]

Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man.
-- George S. Patton, Jr.



Otherwise awesome article!

 

[Aaroc]

Something I didn't see in the original post, but might be worth mentioning is that (might not be applicable to most games because of when one is likely to research mathematics) if a tactical resource is outside your borders but your culture will eventually pop out to reach it, building a fort on the resource before you are otherwise able to reach it means that once your border pops, you will instantly have access to the resource. This could be worthwhile for some calendar resources as well (for the happy/health bonus as soon as calendar is researched, but since calendar comes right after mathematics anyway.. it's a bit moot.

A more worthwhile use of forts in this manner might be for something like Oil, which is discovered long before it's able to be used in many cases.

 

[clif9710]

The fact that forts' defensive bonus cannot be reduced to zero like a city argues for putting one up near/next to a city as a last ditch defense, especially on a forest since the fort will add to the forest defense without getting rid of the forest health benefit (I assume) and without offering the fort bonus to the enemy should they take the tile.

Can forts be destroyed by spies through sabotage? If so, that would be a great use of a spy because sabotage is cheap in EP and forts are otherwise tough to crack and take time to build.

 

[Alki]

Great thread and I think it deserves a bit of necromancy for noobs like me.

 

[EditorRex]

I was told on a thread a while back that a rival's tile with a fort and defenders occupying it near my cultural border will be much harder for me to turn culturally than an ordinary tile, an ordinary tile with defenders, a fort without defenders, or possibly even a rival city. Can anyone address the truth of this? It does seem to fit the situations I've seen in some games and possibly even explain some aspects of AI fort-building strategy.

 

[aemer]

Here's a little story on the utility of forts for launching surprise attacks:

I'm currently playing a civ pitboss game where one of my supposed allies went and screwed me over. This is to be expected of course, but since we are a group of people who will regularly be playing pitboss games down the line, there's a certain degree of reputation to it - he is more than twice my size, has a big tech lead on me, and is generally in a position to be a big mean bully all that he wants.

In this situation, he promised to aid me in a struggle versus a common neighboor, but he never joined up, as he became otherwise engaged...he has since refused to sell me troops, or even upgrade my troops for profit, so he's clearly milking the fact that two of his neighboors are at war and wants to stretch it out for as long as possible.

I need to get back at him, ideally, since that'll send a clear message that you don't want to mess with me by playing diplomacy games, so I devised the following strategy.

Now bear in mind, we don't actually share a land border; he just has a bit of culture on my land, since he controls the delta of water between he and I. Here's a rough sketch of the geography:

Ally | quarry|
____|______|
water|Me |
water| |

His tech: Cannons and Riflemen
My quarry's tech: very recent musketmen, heading towards riflemen
My tech: samurai and crossbowmen and catapults.

- Build a fort, and fill it up with 8 samurai and 2 galleys. Promote the samurai with amphibious promotion. It must be within 3 squares of my "ally's" nearest coastal city.
- Make a deal with the game leader, who's currently at war with my ally. The game leader has infantry and panzers. I give him my nearest city, but ensure that it's empty, and I gift him my samurai and galleys. I make some kind of bargain where he gets some cash if he promptly upgrades the samurai and galleys, loads the infantry into the galleons, and give me my city back.
- I make sure to name the units in such a fashion that my ally knows who screwed him over.

Since my ally's flank is completely and utterly exposed, and since he's not even the main target in the war with the game leader, it should allow for a surprise attack he won't see coming.

 

[Pangaea]

This article is a couple days old, but looking over the OP it probably still has informational value as an overview of what forts can do.

In a game I'm playing, I wondered if a fort could solve an issue. A rice tile is in the middle of nowhere, and it's impossible to chain farm it due to desert and lack of rivers. Forts act like cities for combat purposes, as the Civopedia tells us, so I wondered if it could chain irrigate as well (post-CS, obviously). Fired up the game and World Buildered something in. Sadly it does not. Forts act as cities for many things, but not for irrigation purposes

 

[Orion Pax]

act as cities for many things, but not for irrigation purposes

Ah sad day. You know what would be cool? If they DID chain immigrate once you have Biology.

(Also, the OP appears to be back from 2009! )