Fortifying mechanics

[Valmighty]

Civ4 has good fortifying mechanics. Even if you skip turns (do nothing) twice, you'll get cumulative defense bonus.

Civ5 is horrible.
1. You skip turn, you won't get fortified, and no healing (as far as i remember).
2. You fortify until healed:
a. If enemy/barbarian attacks you, you'll be there forever unnotified (yes it's my bad, but sometimes i just forget)
b. If there's enemy in your line of sight, you won't get notified either since you are not on alert.
c. If you are at war, when your unit is 100% healed, you lost the fortification bonus.
3. Alert to heal:
a. If there's no enemy, you'll fortify forever
b. When there's enemy unit, you lost the cumulative fortification bonus

Yes there's a workaround like pressing do nothing after fortify to heal. But it's too much of a hassle. I did complained about this long time ago, but unlike me some members didn't seem to be annoyed by this very much.

Do you guys think this is important? Do you think Civ6 will return with a good fortifying mechanics? To me this is a small things that they can fix from the beginning, there's no reason not to do it right. But i'm worried since this doesn't seem to bother Firaxis in Civ5 at all, it's still like that in the last patch.

 

[Red Pearl]

Correct me if I am wrong. I think that in civ 4 you could fortify for +5% per turn up to +25% max. I think in civ 5 you could fortify for +20%. As for 2a that sometimes gets me too. Under additional actions you could have your unit fortify until you give it another order. As for Civ 6 I hope that the UI is better in general.

 

[m15a]

I'm not sure what you're saying in #1, but a unit does heal if you skip its turn (ie don't move or attack).

 

[DeutschDachs]

If you moved at all they wouldn't fortify or heal but if they hadn't moved they would fortify and heal that turn

 

[inthesomeday]

Civ5 is horrible.
1. You skip turn, you won't get fortified, and no healing (as far as i remember).
2. You fortify until healed:
a. If enemy/barbarian attacks you, you'll be there forever unnotified (yes it's my bad, but sometimes i just forget)
b. If there's enemy in your line of sight, you won't get notified either since you are not on alert.
c. If you are at war, when your unit is 100% healed, you lost the fortification bonus.
3. Alert to heal:
a. If there's no enemy, you'll fortify forever
b. When there's enemy unit, you lost the cumulative fortification bonus

1. Incorrect, will heal, plus if you want a fortification and also to do nothing on a turn there is not even one reason I can think of not to fortify for the turn
2a. Your responsibility, you have all the tools
2b. See 2a
2c. If you want the unit to fortify regardless of health, just use the fortify command instead of the fortify until healed command. Will continue fortification after full health.
3a. See 2a
3b. This is why to never use alert. Use fortify in any situation you'd need to use alert, it's much better in every way because you don't lose the fortification bonus, and alert's only mechanic is literally one you can make use of in fortification with very minimal effort.

 

[Haig]

I would love to get more fortify mechanics via techs, like trench warfare would give them super fortifying bonus which tanks could overrun etc.

 

[m15a]

3b. This is why to never use alert. Use fortify in any situation you'd need to use alert, it's much better in every way because you don't lose the fortification bonus, and alert's only mechanic is literally one you can make use of in fortification with very minimal effort.

The fact that it's smarter to never use alerts points to the fact that it can be improved. But I don't think much would have to be changed (speaking functionally, not in terms of programming) to make the fortify system work the way people want.

Maybe the default "alert" option can be changed so that it works identically to fortify but simply provides a notification that you can just dismiss without ever commanding the unit or click on just to highlight the unit. And then if you want to move the unit, you click on the unit manually.

And you can still have the standard fortify option if you don't want to see alerts. (It would also be nice if you could control how alerts appear, but that's a whole other UI issue.)

 

[MIS]

On the edge of my territory I once saw a barbarian archer keep shooting a fortified A.I. Scout on a hill. I think the damage must have been equal to the healing, because this lasted for pretty much the whole game. I found it hilarious.

 

[Valmighty]

Correct me if I am wrong. I think that in civ 4 you could fortify for +5% per turn up to +25% max. I think in civ 5 you could fortify for +20%. As for 2a that sometimes gets me too. Under additional actions you could have your unit fortify until you give it another order. As for Civ 6 I hope that the UI is better in general.

I forgot. I think it's 15% or 25%, but yes it's cumulative.

1. Incorrect, will heal, plus if you want a fortification and also to do nothing on a turn there is not even one reason I can think of not to fortify for the turn
2a. Your responsibility, you have all the tools
2b. See 2a
2c. If you want the unit to fortify regardless of health, just use the fortify command instead of the fortify until healed command. Will continue fortification after full health.
3a. See 2a
3b. This is why to never use alert. Use fortify in any situation you'd need to use alert, it's much better in every way because you don't lose the fortification bonus, and alert's only mechanic is literally one you can make use of in fortification with very minimal effort.

I know, but it's not the point.

If the argument is "your responsibility", they could come up with a very bad UI for example:
- not notifying the influence meter on city states
- not hiding luxury resource that we already have in trade
- not halting workers on enemy area of movement
- etc
And you can argue that removing all those notification can make a better micromanagement.

The point is they could have made a better UI for easier access but they didn't. It also doesn't make sense when they already made the better fortify UI in civ4.

The fact that it's smarter to never use alerts points to the fact that it can be improved. But I don't think much would have to be changed (speaking functionally, not in terms of programming) to make the fortify system work the way people want.

Maybe the default "alert" option can be changed so that it works identically to fortify but simply provides a notification that you can just dismiss without ever commanding the unit or click on just to highlight the unit. And then if you want to move the unit, you click on the unit manually.

And you can still have the standard fortify option if you don't want to see alerts. (It would also be nice if you could control how alerts appear, but that's a whole other UI issue.)

They already made a working solution on Civ4. Do nothing is the same as fortify, do nothing twice have two cumulative fortify bonus. I don't know why they didn't do it right on Civ5 when the mechanics is exactly the same.

 

[m15a]

They already made a working solution on Civ4. Do nothing is the same as fortify, do nothing twice have two cumulative fortify bonus. I don't know why they didn't do it right on Civ5 when the mechanics is exactly the same.

I'm fine with that system, but I was talking about the alert system - how to alert the player without breaking fortification and requiring as few clicks as possible.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I'm fine with that system, but I was talking about the alert system - how to alert the player without breaking fortification and requiring as few clicks as possible.

Very easy, unit 'wakes up' but doesn't break fortification unless it does something

 

[m15a]

Very easy, unit 'wakes up' but doesn't break fortification unless it does something

That works, too. I don't think my suggestion was particularly difficult, though. (It could be slightly faster or slower depending on how often you actually want to perform an action when you are alerted.)

 

[stealth_nsk]

Multi-turn fortifications were designed for SoD game of Civ4 and even in it, it's role was questionable. In 1UPT games additional defense bonuses will make attack even more difficult if those fortified units are placed right. I don't think that's desired. On the side note, it would be extremely difficult to teach AI to use this or counter this tactics. So, IMHO, it's totally unnecessary.

If there are any arguments for multi-turn fortifications, it would be great to discuss them.

 

[Ryika]

a. If enemy/barbarian attacks you, you'll be there forever unnotified (yes it's my bad, but sometimes i just forget)

You should get a note in the Scrolling Combat Text at the upper Center of the Screen, but it's somewhat hard to see. I still think a proper Combat-Log (one where you can click on units to be brought directly to the action) would solve that pretty well.

That combat log would also solve b without waking up units whenever some barbarian comes around.

Multi-turn fortifications were designed for SoD game of Civ4 and even in it, it's role was questionable. In 1UPT games additional defense bonuses will make attack even more difficult if those fortified units are placed right. I don't think that's desired. On the side note, it would be extremely difficult to teach AI to use this or counter this tactics. So, IMHO, it's totally unnecessary.

If there are any arguments for multi-turn fortifications, it would be great to discuss them.

Well, you're assuming that each turn an additional modifier is added on top of the "desired" value, I'd see it the other way around. To get the full, balanced fortification bonus you need to stay fortified for 3 turns or so. That adds some strategic elements and makes fortification a mostly defensive tool.

 

[Acken]

If you want the unit to wake up put your unit on Alert rather than Fortify.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Well, you're assuming that each turn an additional modifier is added on top of the "desired" value, I'd see it the other way around. To get the full, balanced fortification bonus you need to stay fortified for 3 turns or so. That adds some strategic elements and makes fortification a mostly defensive tool.

No, I assume there are actually 2 values - "quick" fortification and "long-time" fortification. Both of them need to have balanced value to make sense. Quick fortification is tactical and could be used on both offense and defense to, say, cover ranged units with not moving melee unit. The amount of protection needs to be noticeable to have tactical value.

If we add long-term, strategic fortification, it needs to have even bigger amount of protection and it could be used by defender only.

EDIT: INHO, if we need strategic fortification, it's better to implement through some kind of reasonable fort mechanics, because:
- It will require more focused effort to build.
- It can be used by attackers if they reach it, making it more strategical.

I would make it something like fort improvements built on roads bring additional gold from the tile, so the tile is not completely lost, but also not as good as improvements without defensive value.

 

[Ryika]

Well, you wrote: "In 1UPT games additional defense bonuses will make attack even more difficult if those fortified units are placed right. I don't think that's desired.", that seems to heavily imply that you're talking about an increase of defensive strength above what we currently have.

You could just use the values we currently have and instead of reaching full fortification after 2 turns make it so it's achieved after 5 turns. The only real effects that would have is that maneuverability gains in efficiency, and that somebody who gets surprised doesn't get the benefit of full fortification. Both effects that I'd say are desirable.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Well, you wrote: "In 1UPT games additional defense bonuses will make attack even more difficult if those fortified units are placed right. I don't think that's desired.", that seems to heavily imply that you're talking about an increase of defensive strength above what we currently have.

You could just use the values we currently have and instead of reaching full fortification after 2 turns make it so it's achieved after 5 turns. The only real effects that would have is that maneuverability gains in efficiency, and that somebody who gets surprised doesn't get the benefit of full fortification. Both effects that I'd say are desirable.

You misunderstood me again. BOTH needs to br valuable - 1-turn fortification and X-turn fortification. Because first one is a component of tactics and second one is a component of strategy. AND if we have 1-turn fortification giving valuable amount of defense and X-turn fortification giving much bigger amount of defense (so it makes sense to use it), the amount of protection X-turn fortification gives to defender will be a problem.

If you're speaking about making 1-turn fortification very small, it's a bad decision, because 1-turn fortifications are part of tactics, while X-turn fortifications aren't.

 

[Ryika]

It doesn't need to be very small, you can just keep it at 25/50% and both types of fortification would still have their unique uses. short-term fortification would still be the "go-to"-fortification on a moving battlefield, just a little weaker now, and long-term fortification would still take the role of creating a stronger barrier at the defensible position.

Don't quite know what that "because 1-turn fortifications are part of tactics, while X-turn fortifications aren't."-argument is about, not every unit needs to be part of the action all the time. If you can use them to block bottlenecks, or to create a number of "pseudo-bottlenecks" that can buy you an additional turn in an open field, but not use them to create a sufficient overall defense I see absolutely no problem with that. It rewards good planning.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Don't quite know what that "because 1-turn fortifications are part of tactics, while X-turn fortifications aren't."-argument is about, not every unit needs to be part of the action all the time. If you can use them to block bottlenecks, or to create a number of "pseudo-bottlenecks" that can buy you an additional turn in an open field, but not use them to create a sufficient overall defense I see absolutely no problem with that. It rewards good planning.

X-turn fortifications are generally part of the strategy, not tactics. You place your unit at important point beforehand. It has several problems:
- It doesn't have additional costs to be used.
- It works for defender only.
- Before actual game balance, the values are not important, but making the long-term fortification much bigger than 1-turn fortification which is already significant, makes it strong.

So, to me, if we want strategic fortification, I'd like it to be more than just "fortify for X turns".