Is this a bug? (Forts)

[DCL]

Usually I find forts a waste of time to build (someone can suggest stuff I'm missing tough sometimes they do serve me a a good outpost for planes but I find that's it is rare for me to get to use them that way in a game...) but I think I finally found a way to use them!

I'm sure this has been mentioned here before but I'm new here and I find that if you chain forts in a line along a land mass ships can go right through them! So if you want to find a way to cut through a continent or land mass just build a line of forts through that land mass and the ships can go right through. Of course this can be a problem when you build forts on good resource tiles so there is a drawback.

I was just wondering if this is a bug. If it's not what's the reasoning behind letting your ships do this? A group of people just carries them between forts? You wouldn't need forts because that same reasoning could apply when no forts are there at all!

Odd little exploit but for me the most useful use of forts that I have found so far!

 

[DCL]

Ok I did a little experimenting with the map builder and the only way forts will let you go through a land mass is if that fort is built on a 1 tile wide (or maybe 2 tile wide with 2 diagonal forts) land area. So in that case it just acts like a city and will let your ships cut through. I was just so surprised when I saw my ship cut through a 1 tile long land area with a fort there that I though it would work if you chained them together over a wider area. I was wrong, sorry.

If I could figure out I way to delete my message I would. Sorry about the mix up. Next time I'll learn to experiment more before I post. At least I figured out that when there is a thin strip of land if you place a fort there the ships can go right through.

 

[johnny42strom]

Forts have a few tactical uses. I mainly use them for what you found, where they can make bridges through land masses like cities. This is no bug. It's meant to be there so you can build canals. I also use them to grab a resource that's outside my cities BFC's. When you place a fort on a resource, it nabs that resource (provided you can build the correct improvement) inside your cultural boundaries. Other than these things, forts are worthless.

 

[DCL]

Thanks for that inf. Dumb me I couldn't figure out why, when I automated my workers, they kept building forts over resources instead of the applicable improvement there . So I would just unautomate, go back and build the correct improvement on that square(I would go back and build a mine on a uranium square where the fort was for example). Nice to know I don't have to do that anymore.

And another use for forts that thanks to this MB, i discovered!

 

[prototypetolyfe]

Forts have a few tactical uses. I mainly use them for what you found, where they can make bridges through land masses like cities. This is no bug. It's meant to be there so you can build canals. I also use them to grab a resource that's outside my cities BFC's. When you place a fort on a resource, it nabs that resource (provided you can build the correct improvement) inside your cultural boundaries. Other than these things, forts are worthless.

so you can build a fort on a resource instead of, say a plantation or a mine, and it will act as if you have that resource?

 

[Solomwi]

so you can build a fort on a resource instead of, say a plantation or a mine, and it will act as if you have that resource?

Correct. Another use that hasn't been mentioned is basing air units. With the limit on air units in a city, forts outside the BFC can be godsends, letting you bring that much more air power to bear on the enemy.

 

[prototypetolyfe]

Correct. Another use that hasn't been mentioned is basing air units. With the limit on air units in a city, forts outside the BFC can be godsends, letting you bring that much more air power to bear on the enemy.

i knew about the air base, but not the resources thx

 

[wisesteward]

Forts can be a great staging point for an invasion into an opponent. I usually build a long line of them along my border and just stack as many bombers as I can so when I invade it is complete domination. I like to use airpower so I don't have to bring along slow artillery. Bombers are one of my favorite units in the game.

 

[Supr49er]

so you can build a fort on a resource instead of, say a plantation or a mine, and it will act as if you have that resource?

2 great uses for this:

1. build a fort on a resource outside your BFC (Big Fat Cross City Radius). This gives you the resource, and you can station some units there as well.

• build a fort on oil. You will have access without having to wait to build a well.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Since we're on the topic of forts , don't forget your units with the city garrison promotion treat forts like cities. That is, they get the CG bonus in forts as well.

You can also load missiles onto various ships from forts. This can be useful if no cities are nearby.

 

[Scoottr]

I'm hearing that you can get a resource that is outside our BFC...are you saying our culturual boundry? I can have plenty of rescources outside my cross and use them anyways, have to build the plantation or mine of course.

Are you saying with the fort I get the added bonus to a cities health or happiness because I used a fort instead of a mine/plantation??

 

[Roller123]

So a fort is kinda like a small city eh.

 

[UWHabs]

I'm hearing that you can get a resource that is outside our BFC...are you saying our culturual boundry? I can have plenty of rescources outside my cross and use them anyways, have to build the plantation or mine of course.

Are you saying with the fort I get the added bonus to a cities health or happiness because I used a fort instead of a mine/plantation??

The resource has to be in your cultural borders to get use of it.

Now, the key is that a fort will give you the resource (so if you build a fort of a banana, you get the banana once you get calendar), but it will NOT act as a plantation, giving you the +2(?) food that the plantation would give. So, the general rule is that if once of your cities can directly use the resource, farm/mine/plantation/pasture it the normal way. But if none of your cities can use it, then a fort is just as good (if not better, sometimes).

 

[Bob the Barbari]

As for using forts to get resourcer. When I have no better use for my workers I like to build forts on desert tiles. That gives me instant acces to oil as soon as I research Combustion (provided of course that there is oil on one of this tiles). As for forts serving as channels you could ask the same question concerning a city between a lake and an ocean.

 

[Tephros]

Forts are okay. I rarely build them except for canals, but I hadn't thought of the extra air unit capacity. When you're talking about airships, their range of 8 is pretty good so usually 12 of them can reach any tile within my empire, which is sufficient to whittle down an advancing enemy stack.

I have heard that if you build a fort on a forested hill that is closer to an attacking enemy than your cities, that they will attack the fort instead of cities. The disadvantage for them is that they cannot eliminate the +100% defense bonus from the fort, forest, and hill with siege weapons. This would also be great for choke points. Suppose you have a good navy and the only other way for them to attack you via land is through a forested tile (you might see this if you do fractal maps).

But this leads to another question. Is it hard to destroy forts with spies? If it's harder than it is to destroy regular improvements, I might start building them. After all forts take more worker turns to build than other improvements so I usually don't build them to get resources.

 

[Fei Kelei]

Another nice thing about forts is that they don't work as canals for any other civ's ships regardless of open borders, which depending on the shape of the map can be a nice advantage for the mobility of your fleet (for example, having your own personal Panama Canal on Terra maps). They also make great bases for Privateers if you have a good spot for one.

Like someone else said, it's also a good idea to build a fort on at least one oil resource sometime after it's revealed by Scientific Method so you have access to it immediately after researching Combustion.

 

[Sidewinder00Q]

Forts also allow you to get resources off of islands that you may not want to put a city on yourself. Ever plant a city on the coast, and find that that one tile island two tiles away from the city has your only source of iron? Just put a fort on it and you have access to it. You don't get the production bonus, but sometimes losing a couple hammers is a neccessary sacrifice to make sure you have the resource.

 

[Suraze]

Just like PieceOfMind said, units defending on a fort with CG promotions will get the bonuses. If you use them that way you should also remember to look at the enemy promotions as they will get bonuses from CR promotions. I've razed forts in some of my games because the enemy simply had too many CR promoted units.

 

[Supr49er]

The AI does like to build a lot of Forts.

Welcome to the Forums Suraze.

 

[Davor]

I am glad you made this post and couldn't delete it. I just lernt a few things I never knew about forts.

Was any of these things documented anywhere? I don't ever remember reading about canals, getting a resource or air crafts landing on it.

How much air units can be stationed at a fort?