how do you use forts

[cicero spqr]

I've been playing civ 4 for a few months, and i've been wondering what to do with forts In the early game, they take so long to make that the game has totally changed since i started building. help would be nice

 

[Puhi]

I almost never use them.

One possible use is that if you build a fort next to the water, a ship can enter it. I believe you can link two together. Thus, you can create a canal to cross a narrow bit of land. It is rarely needed, but can come in handy in certain situations.

You could also build one on a forested hill in a choke point with Shaka or Monty on the other side. I think I've done that once and it was kind of fun.

They can also be used to hook up resources. Once you get scientific method, you can see the oil. You can build a fort on it and road it. Then, when you get combustion, you get immediate access to oil.

Still, I rarely build them.

 

[Bezurn]

If you have enough workers, put about 4 of them on the task of building them near aggressive AI borders that you suspect an invasion will come from. Nice on forested tiles (and hill) where you can put 2 double woodsman spears / pikes, 2 swords / maces and 2 first strike archers / longbows (or double hill if applicable). Forts also count as cities for the city garrison promo as well. Then clear all the other forest around it and keep some catapults and knights nearby.

Thus if you're cultural borders are extended far enough beyond your city you can make any possible engagement take place at a highly fortified area, but one that loses you little if you lose that spot. That way you cities won't have troops going around pillaging your improvements as easily. And if they just rush past it with mounted then you should have enough counter units on your border cities to deal with that.

Works a lot better on AI who will attack that spot instead of finding an alternate route.

 

[Woodreaux]

Forts serve as airbases and limited canals. You can connect water tiles separated by up to 2 land tiles using forts. This facilities usefulness depends heavily on the map.

 

[raxid]

The other use not mentioned above is if someone is going espionage heavy and is sabotaging improvements. In this case on an important resource (like coal) you can have the regular improvement (mine) and then pre-build a fort, i.e. build a fort on top of the mine except stop the worker one turn from completion. Then if that mine is sabotaged, taking away your only coal resource, a worker can finish that fort and give you back access to coal on the same turn, not interrupting any production.

While this is useful, its a pretty close match (read: poorly played match) that this becomes a make or break use.

 

[jwez11007]

The only time I've seriously used forts was in a late war as tokugawa where I made heavy use of tactical nukes and required forts to bring them in range of the first couple of target cities.

 

[Fleme]

Canals to bypass polar ice (a line of forts on the coast acts as a channel so long as they're coast a adjacent. Furthermore, I like to make smaller canals as well, or ones that span through as much of the continent as possible via lakes but all in all forts are just a novelty rather than something usual.

If forts had a zone of control and collateral damage reduction, they'd be much more valuable in serving the purpose they're obviously intended for.

 

[NihilZero]

There's a pretty comprehensive guide to forts in the strategy articles section.

They have a few niche uses. Airbases to augment your cities. Naval canals to bisect continents instead of going the long way around. Defensive emplacements at chokepoints - note that you can't bombard forts, so you always get a 25% defensive bonus with them. Built on a forested hill they are pretty impregnable, although how often do you find a one-tile chokepoint on a map? Rarely.

One of the better things about forts is that they are resistant to air attack, so if you use them to hook up a resource they can be hard to remove with fighters or bombers (much tougher than an oilwell, for instance).

 

[Mutineer]

I found good use for them as an airbase. There only limited amount of air you can have in one city and often it is not enough. On coast I bring carriers, but deep in land fort are invaluable.

 

[UncleJJ]

There's a pretty comprehensive guide to forts in the strategy articles section.

They have a few niche uses. Airbases to augment your cities. Naval canals to bisect continents instead of going the long way around. Defensive emplacements at chokepoints - note that you can't bombard forts, so you always get a 25% defensive bonus with them. Built on a forested hill they are pretty impregnable, although how often do you find a one-tile chokepoint on a map? Rarely.

One of the better things about forts is that they are resistant to air attack, so if you use them to hook up a resource they can be hard to remove with fighters or bombers (much tougher than an oilwell, for instance).

Good points, I use many forts in the late game as airbases and also as a refuge for ships when my cities are far apart, that lets me move up and down the coast without losses or escorts.

Earlier in the game I find that a fort on a forested hill can be a very useful strongpoint and it doesn't have to be a chokepoint blocking movement. I use the fort as a safe base to harass an enemy SoD, even if they just march past it. A single longbow on a forested hill with a fort can protect against a SoD of 20 (maces, knights, cats etc). In the fort (make sure to have a road leading to the hill) I can move my own cats and HAs and launch weakening attacks against the SoD and then finish it off with melee troops. My wounded troops are safe from counter attack and can heal ready for the next invasion.

I have done this against Monty during a defensive war that lasted 1000 years (300AD onwards). I gained a huge number of GG points and killed loads of axes, jags and cats with an exchange rate of something like 5 hammers to 1. I refused to accept peace and he kept sending mini SoDs of 8 units or so. My fort had a couple of CG archers and eventually I built 20 axemen to launch the weakening attacks, some of which gained a lot of promotions. One of my chariots reached 26 exp and was given the honorary name Aztec Axe Killer after he killed so many. Probably half of Monty's losses came in battles adjacent to the hill fort. Not once did he try to attack the archers and later longbows stationed there. Using the fort as the lynchpin of my defence meant I could continue to research and develop while holding off Monty's attacks with ease. Although it wasn't a chokepoint and he could move freely both sides, in fact he followed a route past it each time, as I left a city with a weak garrison to entice him to destruction. Defensive wars like that cause the AI to spam units but the attrition stops the AI building up a large and unmanageable SoD.

Another use of forts is to make a "Northwest Passage" line of forts through the tundra in the top or bottom of the map when ice blocks ships sailing around a continent. Ships can pass through a fort that has own culture and is next to either water or ice covered water. That can sometimes be 10 forts in a chain and is very useful allowing naval forces to be shifted from one ocean to another without a lengthy detour. It is something constructive to do with workers once all the lumbermills and railroads have been built.

 

[lymond]

I'm not sure if this was mentioned, but forts can serve as ports for non-coastal cities to connect to the intra/inter trade network. Although I'd say it's not common, it is nice if you need to found a non-coastal city at a good distance that would otherwise not be hooked up for some time. Also, same concept is vital for non-coastal OCC games.

In line with the whole hooking up resource idea, the fort will hook up resources on islands if with your cultural borders - whereas improving that resource would not actually give you the resource.

 

[oranje willem]

-Air/naval units where you otherwise can't have them
-Hooking up a resource imediately when the needed tech is researched

.....

I never use them for the defensive bonus actually

 

[Norvin_Green]

I hide in mine during snowball fights!

 

[Scoottr]

Why does the AI build forts right next to their cities so often? They just become my defensive forts when I attack their cities....

 

[UncleJJ]

Why does the AI build forts right next to their cities so often? They just become my defensive forts when I attack their cities....

Forts only give a defensive benefit if they're inside your culture, so you get nothing extra, but do deprive the AI's use of the fort. It's the same for forts built on resources, the benefit only comes inside your culture. However you can build forts in neutral territory, so it can be the quickest way to make use of a resource if you build a fort on it while waiting for your culture to pop the border.

 

[AySteve]

Another use of forts is to make a "Northwest Passage" line of forts through the tundra in the top or bottom of the map when ice blocks ships sailing around a continent. Ships can pass through a fort that has own culture and is next to either water or ice covered water. That can sometimes be 10 forts in a chain and is very useful allowing naval forces to be shifted from one ocean to another without a lengthy detour. It is something constructive to do with workers once all the lumbermills and railroads have been built.

Thats actually a use I had not thought before and could have been useful in a few situations. I have seen articles on forts before where they talk about making canals across continents (usually with a complicated diagram involving a situation with a string of forts, cities and lakes that almost never occurs in practice!). I guess I never realised it worked the same for ice covered water. Now my canal can pass through the useless tundra and snow rather than building forts in the BFC of my important cities in the centre of the continent. UncleJJ, you have changed the fort building part of my life forever

 

[UncleJJ]

UncleJJ, you have changed the fort building part of my life forever

What an achievement!

Here is an illustration: See post #27 in this thread FORTS in BtS... Everything there is to know

 

[georgjorge]

How often does the AI really attack troops garrisoned in a forested hill fort instead of just passing them (if there's room) and attacking the cities, or pillaging ? In my experience, the AI attacks does attack at slightly unfavorable odds, but not at very unfavorable ones (except for the occasional stupid suicide of one or two units, but not a whole stack), so I guess you'd have to balance the defenders so as to not get too overwhelming odds...

 

[Udey1]

How often does the AI really attack troops garrisoned in a forested hill fort instead of just passing them (if there's room) and attacking the cities, or pillaging ? In my experience, the AI attacks does attack at slightly unfavorable odds, but not at very unfavorable ones (except for the occasional stupid suicide of one or two units, but not a whole stack), so I guess you'd have to balance the defenders so as to not get too overwhelming odds...

Sometimes it is a matter of AI pathfinding. when you issue a go command and see the pattern the units pick for the tiles you can see how the AI moves. If you had a forest hill fort in the GOTO path the AI uses it will probably attack the fort. Thats how that happens. and you can predict it to some extent by placing scouts/spies in their cities and seeing the GOTO path to your cities

 

[mariogreymist]

The only way I make frequent use of forts is by putting them on oil prior to combustion, that I might have access to oil on the turn I discover the tech. Use as canals is limited, but can be useful if a continent has a narrow spot or a lot of lakes and sailing around will cause a major detour. (about 1 game in 20, probably)