Defensive UBs and Castle Ideas

[nealhunt]

I miss Castles from Vanilla.

I know the concept of castles has been subsumed in the fort/tower mechanic, but it seems like those are of quite limited use. Personally, I consider towers to be primarily an obstacle to placing cities. Their usefulness in fogbusting is of limited duration. The only forts I ever build are spamming them around the borders of Kuriotates' cities, and that's only because it's easy to run out of tiles for the workers to improve. If I capture a tile with a removable castle, I'll tear it down almost as soon as it's safe to move workers into the area.

It seems like using the Castles from Vanilla as in-city buildings would be more useful. They might need a bit of toning down since they won't obsolete like they do in Vanilla. OTOH, defensive buildings in general tend to suffer in Civ because if you are pressed back on the defensive, there's a good chance you're in serious trouble regardless of defensive buildings (a trait shared by the fort/tower mechanism as well). So, maybe substantial non-combat bonuses would be just fine.

Several civs have defensive UBs - the Elohim Chancel and the Malakim Citadel come to mind (are there others that I'm missing?). The sense I've gotten from the reviews is that they are not very popular for the most part. Even if Castles aren't included for general use, the base building class applied to the UBs would make perfect sense could be the solution to making the them more viable. Defensive UBs for other civs would be a fun and flavorful implementation. Something like a an "Infernal Brass Citadel" or "Dwarven Ironhold" would be cool and could easily be given minor bonuses that reinforce the civ's character.

Another implementation option for flavorful Castles would be religious versions. (Wasn't there some sort of defensive temple way back around .11?) A Basilica, for instance, could easily work as a castle variant.

I'm sure these forums could generate a huge amount of creative ideas.

 

[fuzzy_bunnies]

I dunno... I think the elohim and malakim are intended as peaceful builder civs (they have a war weariness penalty after all) so an extra defensive building makes sense. It wouldn't make so much sense to give that to other warmongering civs.

I don't think I ever built a castle in vanilla tbh... by the time I got castles I was only a tech or two away from beelining gunpowder. For a lot of my cities it would take that much time just to build the castle.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'd rather make these defensive buildings into unique fort improvements, with python effects when units get too close.

 

[Atnanor]

Forts suck. All I've ever used them for was defending chokepoints, and sitting my troops on as they attack a city.

Actully, now that I think of it, they arn't bad.

 

[nealhunt]

I don't really want to turn this into a "forts suck" thread. That's been done to death here and in the vanilla threads. I only brought them up to acknowledge that castles are included in FFH in a sense before agitating about including "real" castles in the game.

 

[xienwolf]

I'd kinda like Castles to be reworked to cause a zone of control defensive perimeter.

Build a fort in a tile, and any unit hostile to you (at war or barbarian/HN) cannot enter the tile, but can attack it. Instead of a normal full battle, only 1 round of combat occurs, but a fort cannot heal (you have to pillage it and build a new one if you want it "fixed"). As the fort grows (to castle and Citadel) it enhances the range at which is creates this "conflict zone" which has to be attacked for enemies to enter.

That way, a fort which isn't in a chokepoint can simply be walked around, but a city which builds up to having a citadel in the corner just outside the fat cross on all 4 sides is impenetrable until the enemy has worn down one of the citadels.


Could be interesting IMO, but would certainly need some playtesting.

 

[Onionsoilder]

I'd kinda like Castles to be reworked to cause a zone of control defensive perimeter.

Build a fort in a tile, and any unit hostile to you (at war or barbarian/HN) cannot enter the tile, but can attack it. Instead of a normal full battle, only 1 round of combat occurs, but a fort cannot heal (you have to pillage it and build a new one if you want it "fixed"). As the fort grows (to castle and Citadel) it enhances the range at which is creates this "conflict zone" which has to be attacked for enemies to enter.

That way, a fort which isn't in a chokepoint can simply be walked around, but a city which builds up to having a citadel in the corner just outside the fat cross on all 4 sides is impenetrable until the enemy has worn down one of the citadels.


Could be interesting IMO, but would certainly need some playtesting.

Maybe if the Fort was scripted so the are around it caused 10%(To much?) damage/turn to a unit adjacent to the fort. A Fortress could be an "upgrade" of the Fort, either from the "builds after X turns" or from an upgrade like the Road/Railroad in Vanilla Civ, which could damage 15% from up to three units.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

totally agreed about Zone of Control for forts and the like

 

[Marnok]

Well now we have a trigger for walking near an improvement, so this should be do-able.

 

[Farmer Bobathan]

I like Xienwolf's idea but I think it should only work with a unit in the fort and the unit should get attacked instead of the fort

 

[Ranbir]

I also want to make a call for a "Great Wall" type tile improvement as a final defensive solution.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

awesome idea, I definitely agree with this one

 

[Imuratep]

You could either use the zone of control like it works in alpha centauri (xienwolfs idea) or like it worked in civ 3 (Unit gets damaged, when walking through a zone of control). Perhaps for defensive leaders the first, for all others the second.

 

[psychoak]

I miss control zones

 

[zup]

Also do not forget units/promotions that can ignore zones of control, particularly recon. Otherwise casters become impervious to assassins.

 

[sputnik323]

Good point, I wonder if there could be a skill/spell assasins/rangers could gain to bypass Zones of Control for their stack? think that would be a good addition (if it required like combat 4 or something)?

 

[PapaMonkey]

What if any unit that was in a fort got to attack an adjacent opponent and then automatically retreat after a number of turns equal to the fort defender's first strikes. This means that an archer would get a few free hits, while an swordsman wouldn't. Taking the drill promotions now has a benefit (now the archer gets more and the swordsman can too) and so does the fort.

Forts should also boost healing (they do now) and provide additional sight. The zone of control then would tie into all this very nicely.

 

[avalonnn]

how much of a load would all of this place on the PC?

 

[Gelvan]

I'd like to see castles being prerequesite for the benefits of the civic city states ("if you have a castle, corruption is reduced by"). that one still is too powerful compared to Aristocracy and God King (at least if you like many cities). Castles could be available with masonry and produce +1

 

[Skitters]

How about if Forts worked in a similar manner to the Forts of Colonization? - not sure if it's in Col II, but certainly in the old version if an enemy ship finished it's turn in an adjacent tile then the Fort would fire at it.

In FFH/FF, perhaps the Fort would 'summon' a one turn duration catapult? (...perhaps with water walking so it could attack enemies in water tiles?)

As the Fort grows in size, perhaps either more than one catapult would be summoned, or the 'summons' would be given additional promotions

Edited note: perhaps for the summons to work, the Fort would need a unit stationed at it.