Forts = canals???

[TheLastOne36]

It'll be nice to name a series of canals. Seems unlikely though.

(like Suez, Panama, etc.)

 

[Nikis-Knight]

You already can put notes on the map with Ctr-s I believe. So you can name mountians, forts, rivers, anything you want, really.

Can we build improvements within the fort?

IF you could do this, I don't think they would have needed to allow forts to hook up resources.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Sounds to me as if the new fort is a limited city of sorts rather than a tile improvement, as we currently have. So there would be limits on how close you could spam them.

Which means you could "possibly" build a canal, particularly on a lake map.

 

[winddbourne]

Y
IF you could do this, I don't think they would have needed to allow forts to hook up resources.

True, but they didn't say HOW the forts hook up resources. It could be that they automatically hook up whatever resource they are on, if you have the required technology, or they could do it by letting you put the mine or whatever inside the fort itself like a building in the city.

It's probably just a simple hook-up, that's the easiest way. But the question is still valid till we know more.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Even if you could combine forts with every other terrain improvement, then you would still not want to build forts on every tile. It would leave your civilization more vulnerable to invasion than you think. An offensive stack could enter your borders (you can't possibly defend every tile of your borders that well that no offensive stack can enter) and then enjoy the defensive bonus of the fort. It would make removing that stack from your territory even harder.

If that were to be the case, then it would remind me a bit of Civ2, where the AI would build forts on several locations in their territory, allowing you the benefit of those forts when you captured them.

 

[r_rolo1]

And remember that forts aren't cheap in worker-turns as that for building them everywhere....

 

[kniteowl]

Assuming you can build forts on top of improvements.

Makes you wonder if Automated workers will build Forts on every possible tile in boarders once they have nothing to do. Especially late game.

Can you ships use enemy Forts?

Let's say an enemy Fort isn't being defended and it's an important canal between a large inland lake and the Ocean and you got a Stack through of Frigates through the Fort/Canal and used you're Frigate to take down inland city cultural defense.

 

[Spitefire]

hmm sounds like an opertunity to trap an enemy fleet without fireing a shot.

 

[kniteowl]

hmm sounds like an opertunity to trap an enemy fleet without fireing a shot.

True but that only if the ships stay in the fort, ship generally have a lot of movement points so they can basically skip right through a fort.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Hopefully automated workers will be smart enough not to tear down forts with units in them!

 

[Angst]

Lol, a major bug can happen btw...

A Frigate or something enters a Fort. Then a Rifleman enters the Fort and razes it - the Frigate is now trapped on land and cannot move

 

[r_rolo1]

I've seen something similar in the Funny screenshots thread, but with a city.... Hope they fix it, as well as the erratic automated workers behaviour

 

[Rusty Edge]

Assuming you can build forts on top of improvements.

Makes you wonder if Automated workers will build Forts on every possible tile in boarders once they have nothing to do. Especially late game.

Can you ships use enemy Forts?

Let's say an enemy Fort isn't being defended and it's an important canal between a large inland lake and the Ocean and you got a Stack through of Frigates through the Fort/Canal and used you're Frigate to take down inland city cultural defense.

Probably not, because if it were an undefended city, a ship wouldn't be able to do that without dropping a ground unit in it first.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

A Frigate or something enters a Fort. Then a Rifleman enters the Fort and razes it - the Frigate is now trapped on land and cannot move

Test this now with worldbuilder. I suspect the firgate could still move, as it can always move INTO a water square it is adjacent to, and it is still adjacent to water.
It would only be stuck if you could chain forts and then pillaged the ones next to it--it wouldn't be able to move. It doesn't sound like that is the case.

 

[sydhe]

I'm wondering if the "hooking up resources" thing means that a coastal fort acts like a port city in giving access to interior resources.

 

[UncleJJ]

If they are as good as they sound I can only hope they have upkeep costs OR can't be built next to each other, or they will become the new roads improvement for civ IV. I certainly don't want to see them on every square.

If they CAN be built next to each other, and they don't cost anything (As R rolo 1 suggests) then I hope they have some serious drawbacks to keep fort spam down to a minimum.

I suspect they are like forts now in the sense that you can only build them inside your own cultural boundaries and they stop you having any other tile improvement on that tile. Who is then going to spam a lot of forts on grasslands or hills inside their cities fat cross? Thereby losing the ability to build a lot of cottages, farms, workshops or mines. That "cost" alone would limit spamming them everywhere and then there is the worker turns used to build them when most players (well me at least ) never have enough workers to build all the improvement needed. I doubt they will be spammed.

As others have said they could be useful in certain special circumstance such as the canal through an isthmus (where I normally build a city now) and they could be useful on the border as an airbase for short ranged fighters. Then the military advantage outweighs the economic benefit of other tile improvements.

However, if they could be built outside own cultural boundary then I can see them being used for an early resource grab or a later grab in a bad area like tundra. We might see players building less cities than usual and having a mix of cities and forts to get resources, but that leads to a problem with "owning" tiles outside your cultural boundaries. At present only roads can be build outside own (or friendly) culture. With no culture or only low culture a fort grabbing a resource will be flipped by aggressive use of a real city to pump out culture.

They might even have an effect on culture, maybe have a small fixed amount of culture for the tile they're on (say 50 culture) or a powerful late game effect like halve enemy culture on the tile, then they could add a lot to the cultural battle. We might see a line of Maginot forts along a civs cultural boundary. But that is all speculation on my part

 

[Industrial]

I actually liked that you can do more with forts

there prettly useless now.

except for the 25% Defense bonous.

 

[civzombie]

"Probably not, because if it were an undefended city, a ship wouldn't be able to do that without dropping a ground unit in it first."

Heh, you can still do it to an allie though. I have done this to war allies by razing a canal city belonging to an enemy... thereby trapping the allie in the lake. I have also closed borders to trap an allie in a lake after they had entered said lake by using one of my canal cities.

So definitely shoud be able to raze a fort after your allie uses it to enter a lake. After all, an allie is just a future enemy... might was well weaken their navy pre-war

 

[Onagan]

I love the fact that you can base airunits in it, If placed on a single tile island, it would be powerfull

 

[ww2commander]

The potential is all good

I can see several variants being modded including canals, bunker complexes and finally a proper use for asios little beauty: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=223175

Of course all you would need to do is mod the various defence factors and other bits and bobs that make each 'type' of fort unique in its own way.

I must say I am very happy with this expansion after reading the chat log