Fortresses

[QES]

It's not devoted to pure defense, if forts are implimented via the "Fortified Mine" workaround.

Personally, I don't see how a small fort cound be considered to be as strong as a fortified city surrounded by miles of multi-layered walls etc, but that's sort of besides the point. It'd have to come to how the system played out using the Civ engine. I don't know enough about the AI nuts and bolts to really predict what would work best. I'm just hedging to the conservative side on this topic is all.

Forts come in various shapes, and sizes, and capability, I dont argue that. A frontier fort should be lackluster in comparsion to a grand castle of impenetrability. But fortifications are used for two reasons, both of which are offensive in nature. They're designed to impose will on an area, by allowing quick access of armies and supply lines, and they are meant to strike fear into potential enemies who know of them.

Cities have issues, and many of which are seldomly "defensive" in nature. Granted, sometimes Defense and Civility merge and you get the fortress township. But often the two are NOT connected, Bysantium was special because it reflected both in symetry. Most forts were not towns were not forts. Cities produce, and should have defenses, but fortifications are designed to the SOLE END OF BEING FOR WAR.

IF there is "crappy forts" in the early part of the game, and "grand castles" near the end, it'll work out. Perhaps construction of these requires certain raw materials to do so. THus providing a Tiered level of defense (one would have to destroy an old fort to make a bigger/better one.)

This is all quite moot however, if forts are not granted ZOC, or something that can "hold" large swaths of land.

I still see getting the "AI" to understand it as the biggest obsticle. If THIS part can be mitigated, the rest will fall into place.
-Qes

EDIT: Is it possible to simply program the AI to place forts on unused Hills tiles? Max maybe one per city? No max outside city radii? Also, is it possible (since AI's seem to be aware of boarders and how to enter them for invasion) to program AI's to build forts at the "best" location (location with the highest potential defense) in land near enemy boarders? - This is all unknown to me.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

Also, it's not like you can attack freely, after all your unit will still be badly hurt after retreating, has to heal for some turns and is vulnerable to counter attacks if there is no strong defense force in the fort...

This is quite the valid point. I'm just feeling conservative when it comes to giving foot units a mounted capability. I feel less conservative when it comes to helping a unit type do what it already does best.

Also, lest we get carried away with our fort fondness, remember there are certain disadvantages to being in a garrison that we are not modeling. e.g. Inability to forage/starvation, dwingling/befouled drinking water, disease, castle falling into the swamp, etc.

At the end, I don't care too much exactly what the forts "do". If they served to add some variety to the combat game, they'd be a wonderful addition.

 

[QES]

Hey wait a minute, maybe there's a solution here.

Most foritifications were built near natural springs and rivers. Perhaps we could invent a resource "spring" and require either IT or a source of freshwater to allow fort construction. IN THIS, it would also be easy to get the AI to understand it, becuase its the NATURAL improvement you place on a spring. So any "well placed" springs that appear in the natural map generation, will become hotspots for forts.
-Qes

 

[Sareln]

Also in the interest in Invasions... I was fighting an all out slugging war with the Malakim a couple of hours ago, and they proceeded to send a small horde of tigers at me (where I use the term horde to describe about 100 odd units). It was really frustrating to see them infiltrating the borders and using my roads while I had no way to impede them. (I ended up deploying a ranger force of 15 or so in a staggered defense). A ZoC fort/fortress that forced your enemy to make a substancial effort to bypass (represented by a 1/tile/turn move) or siege would be awesome as far as invading goes. It would also be cool when fortifying what you envision to be a permanant border.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

Forts come in various shapes, and sizes, and capability, I dont argue that. A frontier fort should be lackluster in comparsion to a grand castle of impenetrability. But fortifications are used for two reasons, both of which are offensive in nature. They're designed to impose will on an area, by allowing quick access of armies and supply lines, and they are meant to strike fear into potential enemies who know of them.

Cities have issues, and many of which are seldomly "defensive" in nature. Granted, sometimes Defense and Civility merge and you get the fortress township. But often the two are NOT connected, Bysantium was special because it reflected both in symetry. Most forts were not towns were not forts. Cities produce, and should have defenses, but fortifications are designed to the SOLE END OF BEING FOR WAR.

IF there is "crappy forts" in the early part of the game, and "grand castles" near the end, it'll work out. Perhaps construction of these requires certain raw materials to do so. THus providing a Tiered level of defense (one would have to destroy an old fort to make a bigger/better one.)

This is all quite moot however, if forts are not granted ZOC, or something that can "hold" large swaths of land.

I still see getting the "AI" to understand it as the biggest obsticle. If THIS part can be mitigated, the rest will fall into place.
-Qes

EDIT: Is it possible to simply program the AI to place forts on unused Hills tiles? Max maybe one per city? No max outside city radii? Also, is it possible (since AI's seem to be aware of boarders and how to enter them for invasion) to program AI's to build forts at the "best" location (location with the highest potential defense) in land near enemy boarders? - This is all unknown to me.

One problem of fantasy games is that the insirpations draw from so many different eras and are mixed into one. So are we using Troy or Massada or Syracuse or Byzantium or Madgeburg or Verdun as our example of a fortified city? Anyway I don't know exactly what era I think of or which I should be thinking of instead.

But in for instance the experience of the early Crusaders, a castle would be built at the end of every day's march. That was the only way they could protect their supply lines, as you suggested. But in Civ, a new castle every day's march represents hundreds of 'forts' in each and every 'civilized' tile. The tiny ZOC around any one of these forts is microscopic in the game scale. In Civ, the "ZOC" is supplied by the cities.

In my way of thinking, and this is only my way of thinking, this effect is already simulated by the Cultural Boundries and by the inabiity of invaders to use the road net, for instance. I agree this is a rather high abstraction. But I think the game mechanics already simulate the presence of little castles populated by little Lords scattered all around. (I have also thought that units should get a combat bonus simply for fighting within their own cultural borders, for the same reasoning.)

So to me, a ZOC effect is not an absolute requirement. A FfH 'Fort' can be thought of as a region where the local castles are particualrly strong. It makes sense, under this concept, that the 'Fort' would affect the tile it is in only. (All those little interlocking microscopic ZOCs in the tile make it very hard for an invader to get past even the most pedestrian garrison.)

But I do like the +Withdrawal mechanic idea. That would allow a defender to base his defense out of the local strongpoint. A ZOC in everything but name could be effected. Ot to put it anohter way, a ZOC is really an abstraction of the Stronghold+Sally Forth tactic. We might not need the abstraction.

Again, just one gamer's way of looking at things.

 

[dreiche2]

a mechanic like pirates coves would prevent spamming (consume worker and must be three tiles apart), upkeep seems a bit crazy considering atm no one would ever consider building a fort lol

yeah, with the spamming I had some possible implementations like yours (fort as feature) in mind where you could both have a fort and an improvement on a tile so that at least the AI had no reason not to build them everywhere. But your suggestion would be a good solution for that, especially the three tiles one. That might keep the AI from overusing them.

and if a fort replaces an improvement, make the AI build them only outside the city radius. together with the three tile rule that might already be enough for a basic AI strategy, even if the AI still wouldn't select the really nice spots.

edit: oh and of course make the AI protect it as with resources (it does that, doesn't it?)

 

[eerr]

i think the ai can understand bottlenecks, but maybe not quite well enough to understand placement of a fort with it's "zoc"

in civ three i had this continent to myself with an island chain 1 tile wide connected by land and sea but the city on it only had a 1 tile harbor, while also protecting a valuble rescource next to it

the ai declared war on me and sent a small fleet that blocaded the port and set down troops that blocked off the island chain and pillaged the rescource
the ai also kept this up for some time as i was unable to both rebuild the the rescource and make a route back to my capitol...
: (

 

[QES]

One problem of fantasy games is that the insirpations draw from so many different eras and are mixed into one. So are we using Troy or Massada or Syracuse or Byzantium or Madgeburg or Verdun as our example of a fortified city? Anyway I don't know exactly what era I think of or which I should be thinking of instead.

But in for instance the experience of the early Crusaders, a castle would be built at the end of every day's march. That was the only way they could protect their supply lines, as you suggested. But in Civ, a new castle every day's march represents hundreds of 'forts' in each and every 'civilized' tile. The tiny ZOC around any one of these forts is microscopic in the game scale. In Civ, the "ZOC" is supplied by the cities.

In my way of thinking, and this is only my way of thinking, this effect is already simulated by the Cultural Boundries and by the inabiity of invaders to use the road net, for instance. I agree this is a rather high abstraction. But I think the game mechanics already simulate the presence of little castles populated by little Lords scattered all around. (I have also thought that units should get a combat bonus simply for fighting within their own cultural borders, for the same reasoning.)

So to me, a ZOC effect is not an absolute requirement. A FfH 'Fort' can be thought of as a region where the local castles are particualrly strong. It makes sense, under this concept, that the 'Fort' would affect the tile it is in only. (All those little interlocking microscopic ZOCs in the tile make it very hard for an invader to get past even the most pedestrian garrison.)

But I do like the +Withdrawal mechanic idea. That would allow a defender to base his defense out of the local strongpoint. A ZOC in everything but name could be effected. Ot to put it anohter way, a ZOC is really an abstraction of the Stronghold+Sally Forth tactic. We might not need the abstraction.

Again, just one gamer's way of looking at things.

This is a VERY good point. And i had'nt thought about it quite in those terms.

I think the issue that many of us are dealing with is that we'd like it to be a LITTLE less abstract. The withdrawl idea seems a bit week to me, because its really just advocating the use of cavalry. An actual ZOC (cannot move between two adjacent squares) strikes me as more of a obsticle to movement than the thread of potential withdrawing troops.

While your right about the forts in every square, I agree that they should represent "particularly STRONG" forts and permenant defenses. I think the "fortification" option is supposed to represent those temporary forts.

There is a mechanic already in game that we might use. We might simply allow the "fortifiaction" option that a unit takes in a tile to be at a higher limit, like 100% defence. Perhaps this would still be limited to 25% in cities (hustle and bustle preventing truest defensive capabilities). But a unit that camps out for 20 turns would get 100% defensive bonus.

OR tie it into technolgoy. As better resources and building materials come along, units are able to increase the max number of % bonus they can receive from fortifications?

An actual built fort could provide some small bonus, and some small promotion to units within it. BUt units that had the time to actually sit there and fortify, would get the best bonuses. I still think CIV2 ZOC would at least force enemy units to go AROUND the long way, or attack the square directly.
-Qes

 

[Tortanick]

I strongly believe that units should be able to walk round forts. But it should be a big risk to them. A withdrawal bonus creates that risk just fine in my opinion.

If you have a zone of cotrol that prevents movement then a dragon could some how be unable to walk past a weakling in a fort. so either you do some fancy math to work out how effective the fort is or you give it a real risk and let players decide. And trying to swarm past with weak units and pillage before they can mop up should be a valid stratagy.

 

[PapaMonkey]

I don't think you need anything to limit Fort Spamming. Why limit it? If someone wants to spend his workers time spamming forts, so be it. But how many of these forts will be manned is already limitted by the number of unit a civ can maintain. Personally I'd rather not have a fort un-manned deep inside my territory where my opponent can come in and sit sniping my own people with a bonus to defence and (hopefully) a high withdraw rate.

But to keep with some of the principles of this mod, provide options, not limits. If someone wants to spam, let them.

 

[PapaMonkey]

Another thing is that I agree that you should be able to build a fort outside your cultural boundaries, or even in enemy teritory.

For enemy teritory:
If you have soldiers there who will dig in and want to dedicate some workers to the war effort, I think that you should be rewarded for that.

For Neutral Ground:
The plot with the fort (and probably only this tile) should get the builder's culture. This represents the control the units exert. In game mechanics, it also lets you control choke points with some movement restrictions if you do not have an open borders agreement. It also would speed healing in that tile. That tile should be resistant to cultural capture as well (maybe only if there are units in the fort, but now that gets a bit more complicated to code).

 

[tyrantpimp]

Forts should have the potential to be grandeous strongholds all the better for me to blow them up with magic

. . . . . couldnt resist

 

[vorshlumpf]

There is an old mod component call RealFort that I will be trying to merge with version .15 tomorrow. I've used it before and I like it's simplicity and effectiveness. Unfortunately, the AI is not addressed in the mod, which is something I'd like to do if possible.

Jeckel has taken the RealFort mod to make his own, one that actually implements ZOC (for those that can't let go of it ).

As for the topic of maintenance, I don't think forts need any added. Forts require stationed troops to be effective and to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Those troops will bump up the overall maintenance of the empire, so I feel this balances it well.

- Niilo

 

[Tortanick]

I think RealFort is great, but it could use protection from marksmen hitting the weakest and a greater withdrawal chance.

 

[Sureshot]

i think we have a lot of good ideas for what can make forts useful, we need more ways to get the AI to build them though.

i think i can get the AI to "build them" without just hurting themselves by making forts features (so the AI doesn't accidently replace resource improvements with fort improvements) and placing them whenever a unit has been fortified for over X amount of turns. its an imperfect solution tho, as the graphics can clash with some improvements unless i make them gigantic (im hoping to figure out how to mess around with the graphics more but that may take me a while lol). plus the code for it atm would need to run every turn and check every unit, which wouldn't be a new thing, but its inefficient and not something i think would be a good addition for a single purpose.

 

[Tortanick]

And if you make them a feature you ruin them.

 

[Sureshot]

how so? i can see drawbacks to them, but nothing that i would claim ruins them

 

[vorshlumpf]

I think RealFort is great, but it could use protection from marksmen hitting the weakest and a greater withdrawal chance.

The withdrawal I agree with, but isn't the Marksmen ability specifically geared towards attacking the weakest unit? If they cannot use it on a fort, why can they use it on a size 20 city with walls and castle?

- Niilo

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I guess it all comes down to a city being some big hectic place that is only being improvisationally used for defense, while a fort is made for the express purpose of protection and defense. That, and there is some gameplay function to being able to protect weak units.

 

[Oldfrt]

How about a new "promotion" that is only given to units fully entrenched in a "fort".... that it causes 0-25% of the units strength in damage to 1 adjacent enemy unit per turn that the enemy is in an adjacent tile (I think the AI could handle that). That combined with the added strength on DEFENCE only...

Of course, if the unit un-fortifies (ie attacks in the players turn), then they lose the promotion until they are fully fortified again...

The idea is that if you have 1 weak unit in a fort, then they will do weak but constant damage to attacking forces... of course, if you have 10 units fortified, then they will hit upto 10 enemy units and possibly wipe them out....

.... the reason for this idea is that I dislike the "withdrawal" option - it only kicks in if you are losing... and if you are losing, then you may be then too weak to hold off an attack the next turn. This way it models the "harrasement" of the enemy (rather than an attack)... and means you need to make a conscious choice.... do you take out the fort (and halt your advance), do you move straight through (and just soak up the damage), or do you find another way around.

I agree with the idea of forts "naturally" occuring over time. Having workers create them is pointless and negates the point of having them.... I see them more on the Roman lines.... the small camps created by the legions, over constant use become stronger, more permanant... until after a suitable period, the legion could leave, yet the "fort" would then remain....