Civ6 Modern Fort

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Is Kinmen Fortress of Taiwan the perfect example of active 'Modern Era Fortress' ? And overall laouts how does it looks like? did it evolves from Old Starfort or also the return of Medieval Castle made entirely with ferrocrete?
did modern 'Fort' Tile Improvements in Civ6 modelled after Kinmen Fortress?

^ Civ6 modern era fort

^ A fort at Kinmen. there are many there actually since the isle is a strategic point to the Republic of China.

And Kinmen Fortress is also a place where 240 mm Howitzer is emplaced and still remain active. despite that the 240 mm is more or less obsolete
And is the 240mm big gun counts amongs civ6 'Artillery'?

 

[AntSou]

That fort looks like it's about to become self-aware of its own ineptitude.

I'm not sure what it is that you see when you look at that picture, but this is what I see.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

I'd only change the appearance to make look more like a bunker but I guess the function would be nearly the same.
Having concrete towers like that in the modern era are just asking to get bombed.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

I'd only change the appearance to make look more like a bunker but I guess the function would be nearly the same.
Having concrete towers like that in the modern era are just asking to get bombed.

I don't know who designed modern era fort to be THAT imposing tall? the only thing close to that in height are German Flakturms.
Forts tend to be small after 1850s. with rifled artillery rendered starfort design obsolete (??). It began in England as coastal defense systems that moved all facilities underground with minimum exposure to ground level (rifled siege guns that provided long range attacks ) the very fort is quite complex and large, and nicknamed after Lord Palmerston (Prime Minister of Britain of that time). and this set evolution patterns of fortress but the original form of Palmerston Forts didn't remain relevant for long thanks to the invention of barbed wire and machine guns (made possible with cotton-based smokeless propellants) in 1880-1890s.
And thus the most logical designs of Forts in modern era is of Civ3. isn't it?
And how big would a 'modern fort' be? if being built primarily with reinforced ferrocrete.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

I would think a modern "fort" would be more like a string of forts and not necessarily one building. There would barbed wire and concrete pillboxes along an entire border, maybe "dragons teeth" obstacles too. The DMZ in Korea comes to mind. Or the Atlantic Wall in World War 2.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The operative term in modern 'fortifications' is Don't Be Seen.
- The same as it is for everything in modern warfare: what can be seen, can be targeted, what can be targeted, is Dead.
Modern munitions, air dropped or ground-launched missiles/heavy artillery, can penetrate meters of concrete. Being hidden in piles of city rubble (see Mariupol, Beirut, Stalingrad) or deep, deep underground (NORAD base at Colorado Springs, old Soviet base in the Urals) are the only protection against non-nuclear weapons, and nobody is sure how even the most protected sites will fare against megaton nuclear weapons. At the very least, the residual radiation will make it difficult for the survivors to leave them afterwards.

And the field fortifications that comprise 21st century 'defensive lines' mostly rely on restricting movement with barriers, ditches, minefields, artificial waterways, etc to keep the attacker exposed and vulnerable to defensive fire longer, and hidden, multiple firing sites for the defenders in the front line and mobile, 'shoot and scoot' defensive artillery and missile launchers that deliver the bulk of the defensive firepower. Reference 14,000 estimated Wagner Group casualties attacking Bakhmut for the past three months against such defenses, without result except to have another 10,000 (estimated) Wagnerians desert or surrender to Ukrainians.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

^ So what graphical representations of a fort in modern era is correct or not?
And estimated costs of late 19th Century forts VS similiar forts built with 1915 technology (MGs, barbed wire, and the same big gun battery) and layout changes from Palmerston forts please.

 

[Equilin]

^ So what graphical representations of a fort in modern era is correct or not?
And estimated costs of late 19th Century forts VS similiar forts built with 1915 technology (MGs, barbed wire, and the same big gun battery) and layout changes from Palmerston forts please.

I think he's trying to say that fort is a wrong concept in modern warfare (so cold war to present) and so it will never be correctly represented anyways.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I would think a modern "fort" would be more like a string of forts and not necessarily one building. There would barbed wire and concrete pillboxes along an entire border, maybe "dragons teeth" obstacles too. The DMZ in Korea comes to mind. Or the Atlantic Wall in World War 2.

One thing I think that civ has missed the mark on is the idea of trench warfare, which started to be common during the world wars. It might make Military Engineers more useful to build trenches that damage enemy units trying to move into it, similar to the barricades in the Zombie mode. On the flipside it could act as a road for your units. China's Great Wall improvement could have just been an earlier version of that.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

One thing I think that civ has missed the mark on is the idea of trench warfare, which started to be common during the world wars. It might make Military Engineers more useful to build trenches that damage enemy units trying to move into it, similar to the barricades in the Zombie mode. On the flipside it could act as a road for your units. China's Great Wall improvement could have just been an earlier version of that.

Ain't trenches dug by common soldiers of regiments and engineers only do 'refined' jobs?
WW2 US Army and USMC infantry are instructed how to dig foxholes individually.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Ain't trenches dug by common soldiers of regiments and engineers only do 'refined' jobs?
WW2 US Army and USMC infantry are instructed how to dig foxholes individually.

Between a foxhole and complete entrenchments and Field Fortifications there is a considerable difference.
A foxhole, as the name implies, is a single hole for one or more soldiers. It is not connected to anything else and unless improved, provides no overhead cover against air bursts, plunging mortar fire, or direct fire from heavy caliber weapons that can penetrate a few feet of dirt (which is anything heavier than a 12.7mm machinegun). One man with a personal entrenching tool can dig a foxhole in less than an hour.
A "full profile" trench system (trenches you can stand up in and still be covered) with underground bunkers to protect the squads and teams, covered positions for heavy weapons, fully camouflaged against air and ground observation, is much more complex. The Soviet army in WWII, probably one of the best forces in the world at 'digging in', calculated that a rifle regiment and all its heavy weapons (up to 120mm mortars and 76mm howitzers) could be completely fortified with trenches and covered positions and camouflage in 24 hours. Adding minefields, barbed wire, and other obstacles would take much longer, but as the Germans facing them quickly realized, any Soviet rifle unit given a day to dig in could only be dislodged by a full-scale attack with artillery support and, ideally, tanks - nothing less would do anything but pile up casualties. Ironically, the modern Russian army is relearning this lesson the hard way against Ukrainians who have apparently read the Soviet 1942 Infantry Manual (which, Full Disclosure, I translated into English over 20 years ago, so it's not as if it were a secret!)

The trench warfare of the Western Front in WWI was a peculiar situation, caused by both sides having far too many troops for the frontage, so that there simply was no room to maneuver, and enough troops to not only dig in completely but also have multiple lines and zones of defensive works stretching for kilometers behind the 'front line'. The result was really more like Siege Warfare than any maneuver battle, and since Civ has never really modeled siege warfare very well, it is hard to replicate "All Quiet on the Hexagonal Early Modern Front" in the game.

What is needed in Civ VII is to take a lesson from Humankind and separate regular Field Battles from Siege Battles so that they are not fought and resolved the same way - and then also admit that when armies are numbered in the hundreds of thousands or millions, they may devolve into a Siege situation by digging in and forcing the adoption of Siege techniques to dig them out again.

 

[Horizons]

The fort is something I never, ever build under any circumstances. It is truly awful

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

The fort is something I never, ever build under any circumstances. It is truly awful

I Rarely build ones. and personally it is redundant to Encampment with walls being built. as personally I placed these encampments at the farthest possible city radious on high ground and next to river.... next to rival territory in case of war breaks out. and frankly this works better in game.
What i've seen with my own eyes as actual 'modern era fort' TI are series of bunkers and concrete pillboxes built in Sa Khaew province by Thai-Cambodia border. with a size that can hold roughtly ten men infantry section. If 'fort' does have modern era successor. in addition to trench system that one 'regular' infantry company can finish basic 'usable' trench fortifications within 24 full hours (with severe sleep deprivations of course). Is this counts amongs 'Forts' in game? as well as Hesco Bastion (that has international importers worldwide. in Thailand Singha Corporation is a national dealer) in Iraq and Afghanistan (before 2022 withdrawal)? and did Firebase in VN (built by US Armed Forces and their allies there) counts amongs this kinda fort?
And did the same 'modern fortress' has the same capabilities as Palmerston Fortress but cheaper and how cheap? assumed that the same fort has a big size Antiship Missiles or anything big enough that converted to do that job like Chinese mobile coastal defense battery composing of big missile launcher trucks ?

 

[Tech Osen]

The fort is something I never, ever build under any circumstances. It is truly awful

Yeah, no point when cavalry can just run past them. Unless it's a stopgap between mountains.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Yeah, no point when cavalry can just run past them. Unless it's a stopgap between mountains.

The whole point of 'forts' - that is, isolated fortified points holding troops - was that they exerted Control over the surrounding countryside, a place of refuge for local civilians, and a danger to any marauding enemies. For most of history, armies lived off the land by scattering as they moved to pillage the territory they moved through. A fort with a garrison ready to race out at will could massacre the pillagers and leave even a much larger army starving to death as it tried to move past, so that the enemy had no choice but to stop and reduce the fort, which might or might not be possible without a long siege and so great loss of time if not men.

Civ, by not having any requirements for Supply to anything or anybody, and no effective ZOC around a fort for any distance, makes the entire Fort mechanic worthless in the game.

 

[fy00sh]

The whole point of 'forts' - that is, isolated fortified points holding troops - was that they exerted Control over the surrounding countryside, a place of refuge for local civilians, and a danger to any marauding enemies. For most of history, armies lived off the land by scattering as they moved to pillage the territory they moved through. A fort with a garrison ready to race out at will could massacre the pillagers and leave even a much larger army starving to death as it tried to move past, so that the enemy had no choice but to stop and reduce the fort, which might or might not be possible without a long siege and so great loss of time if not men.

Civ, by not having any requirements for Supply to anything or anybody, and no effective ZOC around a fort for any distance, makes the entire Fort mechanic worthless in the game.

reading this, im wondering how itd affect game balance if garrisoned forts could apply ZOC even to cavalry units. because it sounds like thatd at least move them closer to representing how they actually worked, and might actually make me want to build them at some point

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

reading this, im wondering how itd affect game balance if garrisoned forts could apply ZOC even to cavalry units. because it sounds like thatd at least move them closer to representing how they actually worked, and might actually make me want to build them at some point

On the one hand, Forts should control access to territory - it's what they were for, after all.
On the other hand, Forts were expensive. Not so much to build, although a large stone castle with wet moat and keep could be a major construction project, but in Maintenance. Every Fort required a garrison of some kind to be effective at all, and garrisons had to be paid, equipped and fed. And troops tied up as garrisons were generally not available to a field army to take the war into enemy territory - forts and their garrisons were strictly defensive.

So, the one thing Civ VI got right about China's Long Wall (Great Wall) is that it required a great deal of Garrison to make all the 'fortified' tiles worth anything at keeping the enemy out. Rome had the same problem providing garrisons to man their extensive frontier, which left them with mobile field armies that were too small to deal with the Germanic and Persian invasions.

 

[Horizons]

I didn't know that forts don't exercise ZOC on cavalry. That's clearly an omission from Firaxis. If forts were able to claim territory (the tile they are built on and all surrounding) they would be awesome and I'd build them all the time.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

On the one hand, Forts should control access to territory - it's what they were for, after all.
On the other hand, Forts were expensive. Not so much to build, although a large stone castle with wet moat and keep could be a major construction project, but in Maintenance. Every Fort required a garrison of some kind to be effective at all, and garrisons had to be paid, equipped and fed. And troops tied up as garrisons were generally not available to a field army to take the war into enemy territory - forts and their garrisons were strictly defensive.

So, the one thing Civ VI got right about China's Long Wall (Great Wall) is that it required a great deal of Garrison to make all the 'fortified' tiles worth anything at keeping the enemy out. Rome had the same problem providing garrisons to man their extensive frontier, which left them with mobile field armies that were too small to deal with the Germanic and Persian invasions.

1. With this. Should American Wildwest Forts counts amongs this as well as Spanish and Mexican Presidioes passed onto Americans? (And did US Army made use of any Presidios left over by Spanish and later Mexicans after 'Northern Mexico' changed hands in 1840s? (American-Mexican War, and later Gadsden Purchase with slightly more tracts of land transferred to the US controls in exchange of American dollars)
2. In Civ7. should Forts be a district rather than a TI? (which represents temporal stations)

 

[Tech Osen]

I didn't know that forts don't exercise ZOC on cavalry. That's clearly an omission from Firaxis. If forts were able to claim territory (the tile they are built on and all surrounding) they would be awesome and I'd build them all the time.

That's thr special ability of Poland...