Idea for improving AI's use of forts

[Thalassicus]

Building on my earlier idea...

• Garrisonable forts.
• AI builds forts on shortest-path to each neighbor.

The garrison capability makes forts mini-cities. Forts are built by workers over time and limited to friendly/neutral territory. Shortest path between the center of two areas is easy to calculate. The AI places forts on the edge of friendly cultural borders, 1 fort per shortest-path to each individual neighbor.

Attackers face a decision to take short & difficult routes, or avoid forts with a longer route. Whenever borders shift significantly, the AI can raze forts and rebuild new ones. The mini-city approach has these advantages:

• Protects ranged units within forts.
• Siege becomes important against forts.
• Provides access to resources underneath it.
• AI code to to attack and defend cities already exists.
• Citadels could have bombard capability, more hitpoints, and expand borders.

 

[tlaurila]

If forts are mini-cities that can garrison a ranged unit, while defending about like a melee units, I think their construction should at least, for example, cost the worker, or otherwise more than current forts. A fort that protects a ranged unit inside it is worth much more than the current one. On the other hand, I do like the general concept, since it brings utility to forts in a novel way.

 

[Thalassicus]

I agree, balancing factors could be determined after some playtesting. The value of a fort like that would depend on its hitpoints, combat modifiers, heal rate, construction time, if it consumes the unit, minimum spacing distance, and so on. I'm just thinking about general concepts for now, since I believe anything in this discussion would require game core access.

 

[Dunkah]

I love this idea.

Would be great to see either buildings or policies, or even techs that allow these to get larger, more hit points.

Will these be allowed to the human players?
Will players be able to build them side by side?

 

[tlaurila]

Will players be able to build them side by side?

Well, in the realm of the hypothetical...

Spamming them next to each other would very easily lead to nigh-unassailable positions. At the very least there should be 1, perhaps 2 tiles in between.
But then a problem is how do they intertwine with cities. On one hand I'd like forts preventing city building right next to them, so that forts could claim land without happiness costs of making a city (in the late game so that it'd claim land from enemy, not pristine land). That, on the other hand, will likely make AI shoot itself in the leg with fort placement. And building a couple forts right next to a major city to make for a combined ranged garrison that challenges the player is likely how AI could best use them. But then that would make it possible for a human to rather easily make an unassailable strongpoint.

Interesting, in any case.