Actually this is another case of Firaxis not knowing much about history
, castles evolved into the
Star_fort and city defences did not become obsolete with cannons. It is arguable that sieges of cities became a lot harder in the Renaissance. The defenders used cannons loaded with grapeshot to break up massed assaults and counter battery fire against the attacking cannons. There are many famous seiges in the 16th to 20th century where city defences were very physical as opposed to cultural. Checkout
Vauban
So historically we should have star forts as an upgrade to the obsoleted castles.
And Vauban's star forts turned into the fortresses like Verdun in WWI.
Warfare since very ancient times had two components -- the field army and fortification. The importance of these changed through time.
As Uncle JJ said, gunpowder did not end the era of fortresses, or even castles.
One mistake I have often seen people making on these boards is talk about 15th century warfare. In the 15th century, when cannon first became common, cannon destroyed all of the castles, and a new era came .....
Until the defenders learned how to counter the weapon and build new castles. Gone were the days of high wall that are hard to scale made out of stone, cannons will rip them to shreds. But late 15th century fortifications were tremendously thick, and SHORT. Scaling ladders weren't the threat any more. They had earthen exteriors to cushion the power of the blast.
Indeed, fortification was so well developed during these periods that most wars are a matter of moving from one fortress to another. It was impossible to capture all of the fortresses (impossible meaning that even if they could take the fortress, the cost of fielding and army for 6 months to take one fortress would bankrupt any country, and places like France had dozens of castles.) Therefore, to 'win' a war the fortress defenders had to surrender, and unfortunately we then had the development of terror tactics (surrender or I'll kill everyone inside.)
Gunpowder armies, because of their lethality, reduced the importance of mobility somewhat and therefore increased the importance of fortification.
Fortification is important even today. But the end of fortification dominating war did not come from a military breakthrough, but a change in government, specifically the French Revolution and the Levee en Masse. Logistics and communications were poor back then, and in the 18th century, and army may have a few hundred thousand people spread out, the 'main army' usually having 50,000 - 70,000 or so. Therefore, an enemy in a fortification with 5,000 -10,000 in the rear would cripple the ability of the main army to move forward.
But in the early 19th century, Napoleon changed the world. He achieved more conquest in about 15 years than the last several hundred together in Europe. His military genius is so great, I find it hard to believe some of things he did; he was a logistics master. But the key move was that with armies in the hundreds of thousands, he now simply bypassed forts in the rear, and put in a 'screening force'. So, if the enemy had 7 or 8 forts, manned by 5,000 people each, and would put out a force of 20,000 -- 40,000 to police the area and maintain communications, and the main army would move on. A 70,000 man 'main army' cannot do this.
By the time you get to the 20th century, we now have 'fronts' instead of armies, and the whole dynamic has changed. We know how to handle fortifications, the way the Germans did it in WWII. When the French build the Maginot Line, the Germans simply went around it. Japan took the 'impregnable' fortress of Singapore by going through the rear, the landward side.
(This whole argument mostly comes from Supplying War by Martin van Crevald).
I do not disagree with a_hampster in his facts or conclusions; rather, I think there is simply a difference in what people view when talking about 'castles' in game terms. As a_hampster points out, the critical issue with castles and then later the cannon and perhaps even more important the carpenters, sappers, etc. needed to sustain a siege reduced the power of the nobility since they couldn't afford it, and these did lead to an end of classic feudalism. But whether medieval castles should evolve into forts based on civics or techs is just a personal choice.
And there is history and then there is game. In real life, gunpowder did not end fortification. As a_hampster said, it changed the importance of centralizing power. If anything, it was logistical and raw size and organization that reduced their importance. If we want to take a tech in the game that best represents this, it should probably be something like Industrialism?
Int he game, though, as knightowl says, real life fortification may make the game just too hard. Indeed, in real life, its just darn hard to conquer the world, but we do it in Civ all of the time. The biggest reason is that Civ ignores logistics. The SoD's we create would starve to death quickly in RL. The second reason is that fortification is probably understated.
But I do like Civ and the way it works. Even though I'm an historian of some skill, I don't know if I really want Civ to be all that realistic!
Best wishes,
Breunor
for all your cities (pretty nice imo).
