Fort Discussion

[Mailbox]

I think that forts and their upgrades are a little weak and I've always pushed for a little more use to them. Maybe this thread will promote some discussion and I'd love to hear some other people's ideas.

Ideas for Forts:

- Develop an "OnMove" Python hook that forces all enemy units to stop whenever in the radius around a fort. Fort must be occupied.
- Fort only radius of 1 (9 tiles)
- Castle only radius of 1 (9 tiles)
- Citadel radius of 2 (20 tiles)

- Each fort gives culture based on garrison (perhaps 1 culture per 2 str up to 3 culture/turn for a fort, 4 culture/turn for a castle, and 5 culture/turn for a citadel)
- Fort only 1 tile
- Castle only 9 tiles
- Citadel only 20 tiles

- Each level of fort gives an automatic promotion, one that gives some attack strength as well as on the defense.
- Fort Defender: +2 FS chances
- Castle Defender: +2 FS chances, + 1 FS
- Citadel Defender: + 2 FS chances, + 2 FS's

- Perhaps less support for units in forts, up to a certain point?

- AI then is told to build forts on contested borders, especially those on borders with hostile enemies

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I believe the old onMove python hook has been disabled for performance reasons. Improvements and Features now have tags that handle those things. <PythonOnMove> only triggers when the unit tries to move into the tile itself, and <PythonAtRange> only trigger when a unit moves within 1 tile. This can't handle the proposed effect for Citadels.

I find actually stopping the units to be too strong. Slowing them would be better, or maybe a random chance to be stopped (although, since I've noticed than random number generating often seems to really slow down some spells I've written, that might not be such a good idea). Certain promotions (invisible, flying, ect) should probably grant immunity to this.


I don't think that you can just give culture points like that to improvements. You could force tiles to be within a certain civ's borders, but (iirc) this would have to be done every turn and could get pretty complicated.

You might want to look into some of Jeckel's modcomps for how he implemented things like culture from improvements and maybe other useful things like distance requirements and prerequisite improvements. Xienwolf has said he won't borrow any such modcomp's code,although he might be convinced to write something similar on his own (borrowing code others wrote can make it harder to identify errors).



I believe the free promotions for units in forts is (in FF, not normal FfH) pretty easy to add, using <PrereqImprovements>, <bMustMaintain>, and <bAutoAcquire>.

You know what might be better than a promotion boosting the attack and defense of units in forts/castles/citadels? A promotion that allows/improves ranged combat (using the <iAirCombat>, <iAirCombatLimitBoost>, and <iAirRangeChange> tags). (I'm thinking this is way too strong for mere forts, but could be cool for citadels.)


You know, given the new tags that recent versions of FfH/FF have added, I'm really wanting to try adding civ-specific "unique fort" improvements again. This would work much better if xienwolf added abilities like in JImprovementLimit. Adding a prereq civ and/or prereq promotion tags to CIV4BuildInfos.xml would be extremely helpful too.

 

[Mailbox]

I believe the old onMove python hook has been disabled for performance reasons. Improvements and Features now have tags that handle those things. <PythonOnMove> only triggers when the unit tries to move into the tile itself, and <PythonAtRange> only trigger when a unit moves within 1 tile. This can't handle the proposed effect for Citadels.

I think Vehem readded it for things like the Seven Pines effect.

I don't think that you can just give culture points like that to improvements. You could force tiles to be within a certain civ's borders, but (iirc) this would have to be done every turn and could get pretty complicated.

You can actually do it via python and I assume the same thing can be done in the SDK. The JFort mod is amazing for the stuff it did, and it's one of the ones that Jeckel did. The best thing to do would be to add tags in the ImprovementInfos because that way it could be added for other improvements.

I believe the free promotions for units in forts is (in FF, not normal FfH) pretty easy to add, using <PrereqImprovements>, <bMustMaintain>, and <bAutoAcquire>.

That's why I made this thread here, a lot of things are much easier to do with the FF code.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

definitely agreed that forts need some useful and fun features to make them more worthwhile, and I like those suggestions. you've got me curious about the Jfort modcomp btw, what does that do? I don't think I've ever noticed it in the modcomp forums...

 

[arcticnightwolf]

Can be somehow done, that Citadel will have some cultural radius (3*3 fields)(only if build in players cultural border; only one citadel can be in 5*5 fields)?? IIRC, something similiar is in Final Frontier (Airbase, or what)...

edit: oops, i must read the first post more carefully before posting

 

[sputnik323]

I have a question about forts and culture...
Can units have cultural borders?
The reason I ask, is that I dont like the idea of forts giving culture if the AI spamms a bunch of them all over the place if they dont have a "cost" of some sort. Which is why I have always thought it would be best if forts giving culture requiered a unit garrisoned there. If it is possible that units grant culture borders then there could be a requirement for a unit to be inside a fort to get a promotion granting culture.
Then, if forts with units get culture there needs to be a good reason to have them because the AI doesn't attack units or forts, they go for cities and run right past the forts. A solution... having workers build traps, and giving hunters and scouts the ability to see and disarm traps, which takes a movement cost like pilaging.
Traps could include stasis traps, spiked trapts, exploding traps (maybe citadels grant better trapts?) or whatever else any of you can think of. This way, there is a purpose to building forts and creating a defensive line. - trapts can only be built in cultural borders - (thus all trapts are destroyed when the fort is destroyed or the units inside them granting culture are killed) -trapts also can only be built 1 square away from the fort tile 2 for castle and 3 tiles away for citadel- so people dont spam trapts all over their civ, unless they spam forts. -
2nd another idea is that later on in the game if you want to put a city where a fort is it gets an automatic bonus. Cities built on a fort square automatically get a palasade and a training yard. Castles automatically get what the fort grants as well as walls and an archery range. Citadels get all the stuff of castles as well as a siege shop and the castle defensive building. units in the forts get the walls defender promotion.

So what does all this accomplish? forts are good to build for defense, expand borders, give access to rare resources where a city might not thrive, become a high prize target, and can be taken over and used by the enemy! so many many good points.
Although much of this idea is based on units granting culture, otherwise it may get complicated to make all this happen.

Im interested in all of your feedback on this one.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

nice ideas there, I quite like the traps and the "city built on top of a holdfast gets free upgrades" thingy.

 

[zup]

As long as Nox Noctis and Chosen of Esus continue to make units in forts invisible, all other changes to them are meaningless.

And stop creating new stuff that abbreviates CoE ...

 

[Mailbox]

If forts are bActasCity, then the invisibility doesn't apply to them.

 

[sputnik323]

There have been a lot of changes proposed on this thread and others, I dont understand how you think any of those changes would be meaningless... forts right now are for the most part - basically meaningless... (only build them after workers have nothing else to do) Some of the proposed changes would make forts at the forefront of defense and expansion, and have a tactical reason to take them over offensively...

 

[sputnik323]

If someone was looking for just the fort mod by jeckel here are the links... the one magister listed was for his modcomps.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=7077
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=243427

I think there is a lot of cool stuff that could be added (like civ specific fort commanders and abilities - and traps used for ZoC) but the first task would be getting this mod to work with FF. I think just reading what Jeckel has already done with this could help anyone wanting to put this together.

 

[Valkrionn]

This would be an amazing addition for FF... would help make Forts valid improvements.

 

[sputnik323]

Its times like these that I wish I knew something about modding... Good thing Mailbox is here and proposed this thread

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I strongly approve getting some of Jeckel's work into FF

 

[arcticnightwolf]

Is possible to make castle casting Sanctify (Life1) spell each turn without adept(and eq., mage(and eq.), archmage(and eq.))? (mean prevent spreading hell terrain in 3x3 radius and without reducing AC)

 

[Mailbox]

You could do a python per turn function, but it would be easier on the processor if it just checked for a adept/mage/archmage with life whatever and then checked to see if they were on a improvement of some sort.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

When I first suggested it I was thinking that the Elohim unique fort would have a <PythonOnMove> function that heals units entering the improvement and also sanctifies. Python can easily force a unit to cast a spell it normally couldn't.


It may also be good to add some lines in def doHellTerrain(self): to stop hell from spreading near these improvements in the first place.