Can forts connect you to oil earlier?

[Nishdog]

I'm not in a game right now so I can't test it, but Forts are supposed to connect you to a resource inside your borders if you're playing BtS. Oil is revealed with Scientific Method, but you can't build an oil well until you get Combustion. If you could connect to Oil with a fort, you could then have access to it earlier, and therefore build tanks and battleships a bit earlier than you otherwise could, no? That's assuming you haven't already discovered Combustion by the time you discover Industrialism (the tech needed to build battleships and tanks).

 

[Percy]

I'm afraid the harvest tech needed is Combustion, which means that you must wait for it to be discovered to harvest Oil.
However, building a fort between the discoveries of Scientific Method and Combustion can result in Oil coming online with no delay.

 

[UncleJJ]

I do just that and it allows me to build destroyers and transports immediately. They require Oil and Combustion, so a fort on the oil does speed that up - unless you had about 7 workers waiting on the oil tile ready to instantly build the well - in which case it takes the same time . You can even turn the fort back into an oil well later, if you want to work the tile, without interrupting production.

 

[axident]

Building a fort on oil is like building a city on oil--you get the resource but can't actually use it effectively until you discover the prereq tech, in this case, Combustion. It can save you a bit of time as you can build the fort and then have your workers do other stuff. Later on they can come back to convert the fort into a well, if it's inside a fat cross.

 

[Carnage04]

Out of curiosity, if you had a hankering to......could you TRADE the oil prior to combustion if you can "Harvest" it but not "Use" it?

 

[Firewind]

No, because you can't harvest it - Combustion is required for that, even though the resource is revealed via Scientific Method.

Is it just me, or is this the only resource that works this way? All the others seem to be instantly usable once they're discovered, barring the Calendar resources, which aren't strategic resources anyway.

 

[obsolete]

Coal...


.

 

[Bast]

You save a few turns at most.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

You can mine coal and uranium as soon as it appears on the map but you don't get the resource from them, just the commerce or production bonus.

I think the reason though is that you get the "build a mine" tech from mining, the "build a plantation" at calendar but only get "build a well" at combustion and "build offshore platform" at plastics.

 

[weregamer]

After a very interesting PM conversation with Solver about why Whales and Fur go obsolete, I'm pretty sure that Coal and Oil are visible before they are harvestable is a very deliberate decision. These are crucial (especially Oil) late-game strategic resources; by the late Industrial era if you have no Oil you are basically doomed. So this gives you time to plan how you are going to acquire them early.

Building the fort to harvest them the instant you can is a little cheesy, but I don't see how it could be avoided as a natural consequence of the other game rules. And as others have mentioned, if the resource is inside a city radius you won't get the benefit (big + hammers) from working it until you get the replacement Well built.

 

[KMadCandy]

You save a few turns at most.

it can take 9 turns (i think normal speed, possibly epic) to make an oil well on a desert tile, and it likes to be on desert. sure you can stack workers, but i still have to remember to have them over there and ready the turn combustion comes in. chances are very high that i'll have some workers bored enough between SciM and combustion, so in every game that's lasted to that point, i've made a fort in the meantime. just in case i forget to run right over there and do it pronto, and those "few turns" can be handy. plus it's a nifty new BtS thingy and i like to take advantage of nifty new BtS thingies .

 

[Tennyson]

You save a few turns at most.

A few GLORIOUS turns.

Frankly by this time I normally have idle workers; detailing them to build a fort is better than putting them to sleep.

 

[UncleJJ]

A few GLORIOUS turns.

Frankly by this time I normally have idle workers; detailing them to build a fort is better than putting them to sleep.

Correct; and of course the tech before Combustion is Railroads, so if you research Sci Method before Railroads, then building a fort on the oil tile can allow your workers to continue railroading, rather than be distracted building a well. That's about 3 more railroads ... a significant optimisation

 

[uncarved block]

Can anyone who can look at the code tell me if Forts are treated the same as cities for Spies? If so, camping a Spy or two on the Oil would help catch enemy espionage before you lose that resource-- in the middle of a war, say. I know Forts count as cities now when it comes to promotions, but dunno about anything else for certain.

But the saved turns is enough reason to build a Fort anyway