How can I use forts?

[Larsenex]

I have heard alot about the use of forts in the game and I have rarely ever used them. I started and new game and spaced my cities rather far apart in a nice line effectively 'chopping' the continent I am on in half. I have ports on each coast. In between I put forts where I have no influence but other than that I can't think what advantage there is to building them.

How do you guys use them and why?


Thanks much.

 

[Lurking Liu]

There are a lot of threads on this already, but to sum it up real fast--
--Count as cities for City Garrison and unit healing.
--Claims resources on the tile if they're in your cultural borders and have a road.
--Don't chop forests or jungles, adding to their defense bonus.
--Ships can enter forts on coasts, multiple forts can be strung together (so long as each is adjacent to a body of water) to form a canal.

 

[the_elf]

There are a lot of threads on this already, but to sum it up real fast--
--Count as cities for City Garrison and unit healing.
--Claims resources on the tile if they're in your cultural borders and have a road.
--Don't chop forests or jungles, adding to their defense bonus.
--Ships can enter forts on coasts, multiple forts can be strung together (so long as each is adjacent to a body of water) to form a canal.

I don't get the second one. Why a fort instead of the appropriate improvement? Can a fort capture oil, even when you don't have Combustion to build the improvement?

 

[Kevin J]

If it's a crucial resource, such as oil, there could be a benefit to putting a fort up to garrison troops inside to protect it - you'll benefit from city defence promotions and the like, and you can station air units as well for air superiority.

I haven't really used forts for much other than canals, to tell the truth, or if I have extra workers just sitting around to give them something to do.

 

[Lurking Liu]

Take oil, for isntance. It reveals itself with Scientific Method, but isn't workable until Combustion. You still can't benefit from it, even with a fort, until Combustion, but the turn you finish Combustion you've got it. No having to wait for your Workers to run up into the Ice or Desert then spend a dozen turns building an Oil Well.

That and, as Kevin J said, it gives you a little more protection on those tiles. Four or five SAM Infantry can protect you from air attacks, four or five and a fort can protect you from tanks, too.

 

[Larsenex]

Thanks very much. What is the canal thing? Do you mean if you string them along from a coast?

 

[Welnic]

If you have a fort next to a body of water, then ships can enter the fort. If you have two tile wide piece of land, then you can make a canal with two forts. If you have a three wide piece of land, then ships would not be able to enter the middle fort. But theoretically you could do a three wide piece of land with a city and two forts.