Forts Feedback

[TheJopa]

Ok, we got new forts! Now lets hear the feedback.

First, the AI. Workers seem to build forts excessively. They tend to fortify hills just above the city, when it should build mines and such. While there is some sense in this idea (castles give defense to surrounding tiles) it is still a lacking AI performance. But I do like the idea of castles around the city, which boost defense and attacker can either take them first or strike directly at city, with higher loses.
1.) Teach AI to build Castles 3 tiles away from city, just outside fat cross. City will get the defense, without loss in workable area.
2) Let the AI build a Castle just next to the city, but then reduce defense area to just 2 tiles and increase the defense % to, say, 25%.

Forts and Castles don't act like cities, just Citadels do. In my opinion this feature should be increased to Castles as well. For the AI sake, even to forts. AI, as it stands, doesn't know that he can build forts to obtain resources (and in fact, it cant). Also from other thread:

Can you build forts/citadels over improved mana nodes? An idea that struck me few minutes ago. Improve a node with adepts, then pillage it. You lose access to it, but to prevent cheating mana source remains in it's improved state. Then simply build a fort over it to collect it again.

Having fort collect your mana is in any case better than having a simple node. Station an unit over it for a strong protection against pillage/sabotage, and you get a defensive bonus in surrounding tiles as well.

I'll have to try it now.

EDIT: It's possible, however Forts don't count as cities, only citadels, so it would take waiting...

So for this to be possible, let the forts get resources and use city garrison. Then, if possible, teach the AI to replace nodes with forts, and if it conquers new land, raze forts over raw mana to build a node. Even if AI can't be taught this, I still think that forts gathering resources is a justified desire.

Are 3 levels of forts too much? Maybe we could do with only 2? Or even better, once certain tech if learned, let the workers build Castles directly, skipping Fort stage.

Economically, well I understand forts are for military uses but AI would be more competitive if Castles gave minor economy boost. At least wrong placement of fort wouldn't be as harsh. I think this would be a great solution for both the economy and the Aristocracy civic:Under Aristocracy, Castles and Citadels give +1 commerce to all surrounding tiles.

Zones of control. Everyone talks about them. And I love them mostly because they are AI friendly. AI builds forts all around. And when you invade the AI, every your unit that enters 1 tile next to fort ends it's movement. AI wouldn't need to do much here. You attack, you get slowed down and AI has more time to prepare. And when you are attacked, few well-placed forts can stop hordes of horsemen/commando troops that pillage your territory.

 

[kenken244]

I would like forts and its upgrades to provide pillaging protection within a radius around the fort. forts wil only protect it from being pillaged, while castles will do sorrounding squares and citadels will do 2 squares. forst will have a 25% chance of causing a pillage attmept on it to fail, castles 50% and citadels 75%. I would also like castles and citadels to provide +1 happiness to a city when it is in its fat cross

 

[TheJopa]

Yeah, happiness from citadels would be very easy to add (forest preserves) and would be a nice economy booster. Maybe under aristocracy?

 

[Humakty]

The pillaging protection would only make sense if the fort had at least one unit to garrison it, an empty fort being, I think, utterly useless.
Maybe it would also be a too easy way to negate some of the benefits of the according leader trait.(can't remember the name, never played it, too much to test, Bwaaaah...)

 

[westamastaflash]

Did they fix the bug where castles and citadels don't give the resource?

 

[Ranbir]

Wait...i can build a fort over a resource and when it's a citadel it's considered to link me to the resource? Awesome!

All in all, I like the forts now. They're useful and I use them for border defences.

 

[westamastaflash]

Wait...i can build a fort over a resource and when it's a citadel it's considered to link me to the resource? Awesome!

All in all, I like the forts now. They're useful and I use them for border defences.

Forts do, they also do this in regular Civ. BTS added this feature. However, I don't think citadels or castles are hooking up like forts do.

 

[TheJopa]

Just the opposite, I think. Forts don't hook up the resources, and don't act as a city for combat purposes. When they upgrade to citadels they act as a city for combat purposes (city garrison...) and they hook up the resources. But I think that forts should hook up resources immediately, as waiting 40 turns to get a resource makes that feature almost worthless. I replaced few of my nodes with forts and right now it works beautiful- they upgraded, I have an additional line of defense and a defense boost in nearby cities.

 

[daladinn]

what i would like to see.....

fort upgrades broken up into different techs (so you need more then 1 tech)

for any unit stationed in a citadel to the the "naval" ability to guard resources

both should be reasonable programming options i think

 

[TheJopa]

In civ 3 some units in forts could damage units passing by.
Could ranged units inside forts get ability like Age of Ice Barrage? Would it be too powerful? I don't think it would, as ranged unit would have to be inside the fort to get the ability.

 

[Ekolite]

I wish ancient towers wouldnt convert to castles out of borders. They are really useful esp' in the early game to explore and avoid animals/barbs and it is so annoying to come back 20 or so turns later with a scout, the tower is now a castle, scout doesnt get the sentry bonus, runs out blindly into the jungle, gets eaten.