pixiejmcc
Prince
Can anyone say for sure whether city raider promos apply when attacking forts?
Forts in Warlords
- Thread starter DaveMcW
- Start date
Aussie_Lurker
Deity
Whether forts have ZoC or not is really not a major issue. However, Forts SHOULD provide the units within them a bonus Drill, Medic and Garrison promotion-to represent exactly what forts did historically. It is also balanced and simple-something which even the AI should be able to understand and exploit!
Aussie_Lurker.
Aussie_Lurker.
Andraeianus I
Warlord
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2006
- Messages
- 180
pixiejmcc said:
I would also like to know whether it it possible to bombard the defensive bonus of the ford to 0.
pixiejmcc
Prince
Andraeianus I said:
These things would be so easy to test. Aren't we lazy.
Neo Guderian
Panzerarmee General
parachute4u has the right idea about forts.
Forts by nature aren't meant as a barrier to invading armies, but rather they are there to provide the invader with a choice.
Does the invader move that large army over open poorly defensible ground? Or does the invader sacrifice some strength to assault the fort and take the high ground.
With forts, you dont want to keep the enemy out of your land by having an impenetrable barrier. That is just too expensive. You want to force the invader to put their forces in a bad situation. Don't have a massive army in each fort as this makes the forts redundant. Rather put 1-3 well promoted garrison troops in those forrested hilled forts so to deprive the invader of moving their army through that highly defensible terrain.
If the invader attacks the fort, they are weakened as they will have to sacrifice a 2 to 1 (or higher) casualty rate to capture that fantastic terrain thus blunting their invasion spearhead OR they will move their army onto open ground and set themselves up for a slaughterous counter attack from your strategic reserve
you DO have a strategic reserve don't you?
Forts by nature aren't meant as a barrier to invading armies, but rather they are there to provide the invader with a choice.
Does the invader move that large army over open poorly defensible ground? Or does the invader sacrifice some strength to assault the fort and take the high ground.
With forts, you dont want to keep the enemy out of your land by having an impenetrable barrier. That is just too expensive. You want to force the invader to put their forces in a bad situation. Don't have a massive army in each fort as this makes the forts redundant. Rather put 1-3 well promoted garrison troops in those forrested hilled forts so to deprive the invader of moving their army through that highly defensible terrain.
If the invader attacks the fort, they are weakened as they will have to sacrifice a 2 to 1 (or higher) casualty rate to capture that fantastic terrain thus blunting their invasion spearhead OR they will move their army onto open ground and set themselves up for a slaughterous counter attack from your strategic reserve
you DO have a strategic reserve don't you?
Papa Lazarou
you're my wife now dave!
Aussie_Lurker said:
hello dave!! this is actually a really good idea. not overpowering. even sounds quite moddable. think this could be implemented?
Beld
Whiskeyclone
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2005
- Messages
- 80
I've used forts extensively since warlords, and they are quite nice.
My most recent game as Stalin:
There was a large round peninsula beneath my civ, that was only connected to the mainland by one tile.
This peninsula connection point was also on the equator, so it had lots of jungle. I was at the north of this point, and then below it, as I said, was a lot of jungle, and then forests and resources and DUH DUH DUUUUH!!! The Mongolians. They had room to build 8-10 cities and still not overlap. So I built up my little empire north of there on the mainland, with 5 cities, kept closed borders with him to block expansion out of the peninsula and then attacked at catapults.
At the choke point I built a fort, and stationed 3 archers (that became longbowmen) and then drained almost all my army into the peninsula, save some northern border troops to protect against a surprise mainland attack by another rival.
I bypassed a lot of his smaller cities that were near the chokepoint (it still being rather early for him to have chopped through the rainforest to make any good cities close to me) and attacked the south of his empire. He tried to sneak into my territory with a stack of 10 or so, but the fort held them off, and ever successive raiding force he tried to take to my lands. Meanwhile, my one massive army had a field day unopposed in his land. It could not have been so massive without that fort. The fort also served as a good meeting point for all the newly produced units being sent to the battle front.
Of course you could argue this might have been almost as good just setting the LBs in the forest in the chokepoint, but it certainly helped.
Now in the gunpowerder era, having taken that peninsula long ago, I have that as a retreat point should the whole world turn against me. If they take my 5 northern cities, I can hold then all off at that fort, and still have my 10 cities on the peninsula with which to mount a re-conquest. Whats more, my northern border is shared by 3 empires to my north. The westernmost one is my vassal, the central one is friendly, and the eastern one is annoyed with me and my friends. So on the border I share with him, I have 6 forts placed in a line inbetween mountains. Inside each I have staggered 1 or 2 riflemen and in the city behind, (one movement away with roads) I have 4 grenadiers, that I can move up to the point of their attack.
Well sure enough they attacked, and of course my vassal closed borders and went to war with me, which left the friendly civ, who I got to close borders with him as well. Now his only path into my land is via the fort wall, while I am free to go up through my friends land and attack him anywhere.
Hes thrown several stacks against my forts, and I just shift over all my soldiers to the 3 forts near his stack, leaving 1 soldier in the other forts, and I have beaten off every attack easily with very minimal defenders. (my navy is great and I only have 1 or maybe 2 soldiers in any of my cities) I think forts are great now.
My most recent game as Stalin:
There was a large round peninsula beneath my civ, that was only connected to the mainland by one tile.
This peninsula connection point was also on the equator, so it had lots of jungle. I was at the north of this point, and then below it, as I said, was a lot of jungle, and then forests and resources and DUH DUH DUUUUH!!! The Mongolians. They had room to build 8-10 cities and still not overlap. So I built up my little empire north of there on the mainland, with 5 cities, kept closed borders with him to block expansion out of the peninsula and then attacked at catapults.
At the choke point I built a fort, and stationed 3 archers (that became longbowmen) and then drained almost all my army into the peninsula, save some northern border troops to protect against a surprise mainland attack by another rival.
I bypassed a lot of his smaller cities that were near the chokepoint (it still being rather early for him to have chopped through the rainforest to make any good cities close to me) and attacked the south of his empire. He tried to sneak into my territory with a stack of 10 or so, but the fort held them off, and ever successive raiding force he tried to take to my lands. Meanwhile, my one massive army had a field day unopposed in his land. It could not have been so massive without that fort. The fort also served as a good meeting point for all the newly produced units being sent to the battle front.
Of course you could argue this might have been almost as good just setting the LBs in the forest in the chokepoint, but it certainly helped.
Now in the gunpowerder era, having taken that peninsula long ago, I have that as a retreat point should the whole world turn against me. If they take my 5 northern cities, I can hold then all off at that fort, and still have my 10 cities on the peninsula with which to mount a re-conquest. Whats more, my northern border is shared by 3 empires to my north. The westernmost one is my vassal, the central one is friendly, and the eastern one is annoyed with me and my friends. So on the border I share with him, I have 6 forts placed in a line inbetween mountains. Inside each I have staggered 1 or 2 riflemen and in the city behind, (one movement away with roads) I have 4 grenadiers, that I can move up to the point of their attack.
Well sure enough they attacked, and of course my vassal closed borders and went to war with me, which left the friendly civ, who I got to close borders with him as well. Now his only path into my land is via the fort wall, while I am free to go up through my friends land and attack him anywhere.
Hes thrown several stacks against my forts, and I just shift over all my soldiers to the 3 forts near his stack, leaving 1 soldier in the other forts, and I have beaten off every attack easily with very minimal defenders. (my navy is great and I only have 1 or maybe 2 soldiers in any of my cities) I think forts are great now.
blitzkrieg1980
Octobrist
Why not just use the map features when you zoom out to world view. I love the sign markers and line drawings for plotting the perfect strategy for an invasion. It works great for marking important choke points and resources on your land for defensive purposes.Skudor said:
bassist2119
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2006
- Messages
- 218
I think forts should be able to be upgraded to siege towers. The opening movie of the game centers on a unit-building you can't make
By researching a certain tech, workers should be able to mobilize the fort.
By researching a certain tech, workers should be able to mobilize the fort.
Neo Guderian
Panzerarmee General
Mulitplayer is where forts really shine, even in their current incarnation.
The AI is generally too predictable to even worry too much about building too many forts.
With Human players, Forts are vital.
In multi, count on Human players to attack at your weakest point (if they don't then they are worse than the AI)
If I have a city with a forested hill next to it (or even 2 or 3 of these hills) and the city is one of my border cities, I definately build a fort there rather than improve the hill. This has saved my bacon many times. Upon the mere sight of my fort with 4 longbows/musketeers/infantry, my opponent realizes that in order to besiege my city, he has to march over that open ground.
Which makes my job of destroying his army much easier. If he insists on attacking my city, I let him walk right up to it, on the open flat ground, and then pound away with a few siege units. So now his mega stack of would be domination is weak and on open ground. A perfect target for my counter attack.
Once, I had a player actually assault one of these city adjacent forts. He bled through the nose to take it. Which met my goals just the same, next turn I counterattacked his much diminished stack and wiped it out.
Forts are not powerful by themselves, but with a solid defensive strat they are a powerful compliment to the other defensive tools.
Oh, and to those who scoff at fighting defensive wars, it is the best kind of war to fight in civ. Reduced War weariness, road and rail movement, No hidden terrain or units, rapid healing, short communication lines, no unit supply costs, just to name some of the advantages.
One of the greatest tricks is to build a solid defensive army and goad a civ into attacking you. Destroy their forces, at your advantage and then get a tech and a pile of gold out of the deal. Plus there are no '- 3 you declared war on us'. This is the forte of the Protective civs.
The AI is generally too predictable to even worry too much about building too many forts.
With Human players, Forts are vital.
In multi, count on Human players to attack at your weakest point (if they don't then they are worse than the AI)
If I have a city with a forested hill next to it (or even 2 or 3 of these hills) and the city is one of my border cities, I definately build a fort there rather than improve the hill. This has saved my bacon many times. Upon the mere sight of my fort with 4 longbows/musketeers/infantry, my opponent realizes that in order to besiege my city, he has to march over that open ground.
Which makes my job of destroying his army much easier. If he insists on attacking my city, I let him walk right up to it, on the open flat ground, and then pound away with a few siege units. So now his mega stack of would be domination is weak and on open ground. A perfect target for my counter attack.
Once, I had a player actually assault one of these city adjacent forts. He bled through the nose to take it. Which met my goals just the same, next turn I counterattacked his much diminished stack and wiped it out.
Forts are not powerful by themselves, but with a solid defensive strat they are a powerful compliment to the other defensive tools.
Oh, and to those who scoff at fighting defensive wars, it is the best kind of war to fight in civ. Reduced War weariness, road and rail movement, No hidden terrain or units, rapid healing, short communication lines, no unit supply costs, just to name some of the advantages.
One of the greatest tricks is to build a solid defensive army and goad a civ into attacking you. Destroy their forces, at your advantage and then get a tech and a pile of gold out of the deal. Plus there are no '- 3 you declared war on us'. This is the forte of the Protective civs.
