Forts & Resources??

[BlackX]

Apparently with BTS, forts allow you to access resources within your cultural borders. Can someone please explain what this is and how it works.

 

[MrCynical]

Building a fort on a resource connects it to the trade network, the same as if you built the normal improvement on it. It doesn't give the normal boost to food/hammers/commerce on the tile, but for resources outside any city radius, but within your borders it is worth considering (maybe).

 

[BlackX]

So building fort rather than a mine you get it? Is a road required connecting to the fort?

 

[MrCynical]

You still need a road to connect to the fort, but the fort will access whatever resource it is built on.

 

[Nansen]

Another fact worth remembering regarding forts, which I learned from another post, is that they act as canals and allow ships to cross land bridges if there is water on both sides of the fort tile.

That means we do no longer have to build a city to recreate the Panama canal - quite handy!

 

[Solomwi]

Actually, you only need water on one side of the fort for ships to enter it, which means you can construct a two-tile canal with forts in places that couldn't previously be bridged by cities. Where the fort is really useful for bringing in resources is with oil, between scientific method and combustion. Sure, you can't use the oil until combustion, but if your fort is already built, you can use it the turn you discover combustion and don't have to either wait for the well to be built or have 15 workers on-site to build it that turn. Aside from that the only real use I see for securing resources with a fort, rather than the normal improvement, is if it's outside any fat cross and you're going to park a unit on the tile to protect it.

 

[Willem]

Actually, you only need water on one side of the fort for ships to enter it, which means you can construct a two-tile canal with forts in places that couldn't previously be bridged by cities.

Or you can have a three tile canal by placing a city in between the two forts.

 

[r_rolo1]

^^No , no and no.... fort, city , fort doesn't work, unless the city is sea or lakeside as well

And there is another advantage of forts: in BtS the # of air units in cities is capped... so some forts are useful to host part of your air force

 

[LegionSteve]

The rule for canals seems to be that ships can only move in to forts or cities where at least one of the 8 surrounding tiles is water. That means the longest canal you can usefully build is 2 tiles. The best one I had was a big continent with a narrow-ish (4 tiles) bit in the middle. I had ocean, fort, fort, 1-tile lake, fort, ocean. Saved my frigates about 6-7 turns getting from one ocean to the other

 

[Yokuyin]

If you research Mathematics and you're avoiding Calendar for a while (because you have Stonehedge for example), can you build a fort on a Spices/Banana/Dye/Incense/Sugar/Silk tile and get the happiness bonus from it when connected to the trade-network? (Like the fort is a plantation, but without the +commerce/food bonus)

 

[narmox]

If you research Mathematics and you're avoiding Calendar for a while (because you have Stonehedge for example), can you build a fort on a Spices/Banana/Dye/Incense/Sugar/Silk tile and get the happiness bonus from it when connected to the trade-network? (Like the fort is a plantation, but without the +commerce/food bonus)

Nope. The fort connects the resource if you have the required tech to use the resource.

Advantage is - you can build the fort in advance and immediately get the resource when you get the tech. A good use of this is with oil, you learn early wheere it is but takes a while to get combustion.

another very important point: Calendar doesn't obsolete Stonehenge or Monuments anymore. Astronomy does it now

Narmox