The Point of forts?

[ritterpa]

I think forts are only good in certain places. The amphib defense mentioned above is one. I have a chance to put a couple to good use in my current game.

Egypt is to the north/central, I am to the east, and England is to the south/west of the continent. Egypt's border extends throughout the middle of the continent north and south down to a handful of squares away from the southernmost point of the continent. England has two cities kind of wedged in south of Egypt and I...so England's cities are arranged in sort of a golf club fashion, with Egypt north of the club head and me meeting Egypt's line and extending East.

I culture bombed near the westernmost of my empire and that cut off those two cities from the rest of England. Right now, I'm going to build a fort behind the two cities, fortify it--cutting off reinforcements from England unless they sign an open border with Egypt--then will quickly destroy those two. Then, I will probably just seek to declare peace, continuing to use the fort as my choke point to keep them from pillaging.

All of this because there is no way to destroy a city once you cause it to culture flip.

 

[abbamouse]

I have yet to build a fort in Civ IV. I built them all the time in II, rarely in III, and not at all in IV. There just doesn't seem to be much of a point -- and 25% isn't a very hefty bonus in this game.

 

[HounddogLGS]

You don't build forts in isthmus. You build cities. They are the most important places to build cities in many cases. God knows how many turns you save exploring the seas.QUOTE]

STRONGLY AGREE. More importantly than exploring oceans, this can be what is known as a "force-multiplier". For example, if you are in America, instead of having a large fleet on your west coast and another on your east coast. maintain a smaller fleet that can quickly move back and forth through the Panama Canal.

Forts basicly work the same way as old medieval castles in the real world. You could go around them too. Hold your fort with strong defensive units, but station fast units there too, to take potshots at any enemy that goes by. Too bad catapults don't seem to work for this any more.
Also, clear forests and juingles adjacent to forts to deniy the enemy their defensive bonus (something to keep in mind when clearing around cities too).

 

[homersheineken]

If you are trying to fortify your entire border then your clearly approaching defence incorrectly.

You want to be able to have large numbers of units scattered across your borders or preferably in between the enemies' borders and your own so the moment any invasion seems likely, you can either attack first or intercept their units.

Having a static line of units is costly and vulnerable to intense bombardment. It would only ever be useful if you had a narrow strip of land that was clearly going to be the invasion path for your enemies.

You might also want to build forts parralel to any cities you have on your borders. If you have a city with perhaps 2 normal units defending and then several bombers or other artillery units within that is on a vulnerable border, go two squares away from it (so your forts do not get in the way of resource harvesting) and build a line of 3 or 5 forts.
Make the central one so it is in line with the city. This means any unit coming from outside the garrison's line of sight will not reach the city within one move. You will be able to start bombarding them before they threaten the city and if the garrison is outnumbered you can decide whether or not to retreat to your city.

You shouldn't think of a fort as just 'part of a long line of forts', it works perfectly well on it's own. The Great Wall of China didn't work, the Siegfried Line line didn't, the Maginot Line didn't... Long walls do not work, as Speciou5 said (who is clearly your military superior), the Hedgehog defence works brilliantly, any square you are not harvesting and is within your territory should have a fort on!
If the enemy only ever has to conquer your cities then you will fall very quickly unfortunately.
The Germans aced the hedgehog defence in Russia and North Africa, perhaps you should read some military history before you lay down the law on how to make war

BlytZ

This quite interesting. Is this what you mean??

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[HounddogLGS]

OK, I change my mind. Forts are pretty much WORTHLESS. It seems you can only build them in your own territory. You can't even build them in neutral territory. And when you do build one, you lose whatever improvement you had on that tile.

 

[Paradigne]

I was playing against raging bararians, and my iron was on the far side of the river from my city. I built a fort next to the iron, put a couple of axemen in it and used them to attack the barbarians before they could destroy my iron. then pull back into the fort to heal (you can attack and move back on the same turn on roads). I can see how this could have been very useful in protecting the entire breadth of my civ if I hadn't been able to wipe out the barbarians, or was at war with the AI

 

[StanKee]

Forts should have a zone of control - maybe 2 - 3 grid radius? Enemy units crossing pass a fort must attack it first to pass.

Because in it's current incranation - forts are useless, enemies just walk around them

BTW, Is there an easy way to spot enemies in your lands? Sometimes the colour of the enemy blends into the background, making them hard to spot.

 

[Radres]

I think that forts would come in handy for protecting resources from pillaging in a desolate location of your empire. For example, if you had oil within your borders but in the middle of frozen tundra, you could station units close by with a fort without having to build a city so that you can protect it. I believe that some other posters to this topic have alluded to this.

Also, do forts in Civ 4 push back borders? I'm at work and can't test this myself. You might be able to utilize forts where a city should not be built in order to prevent the enemy from building on your continent.

 

[ipris]

Ex. I have a fort deployed some tiles away from my city. Your forces simply bypass the fort - there aren't really a lot of units on the fort anyways - and move to attack the city. However, if your forces become stagmented (slower movements, wasted movement points, etc.), or reinforcements are arriving, the units in my fort will be able to threaten those units and cause more casualties.

I use this method too, but find that a plot of forrest serves the same purpose if your troops are hunkered down.

 

[atc_chief]

...Absolutely NOTHING
Say it again!
Forts ugh
what a waste
what are they good for?
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

If you're fighting on your territory then you're already beaten. A tenet of RTS gaming, but it pretty much applies here as well. Forts require that the enemy attack you at a strengthened fixed position which isn't tactically sound unless there's a REALLY good reason to do so. Most of the time there's a alternate course of action.

Forts are STATIC, and a waste of $$$. Buy some defensive units which are at least moveable and can react to the DYNAMIC flow of combat.

Believe me, I'd love to post forts all over my land for asthetic purposes and hopefully maybe even defensive purposes as well. Unfortunately, your borders usually quickly grow beyond the frontier that the fort was originally built on. You can argue that you'll still be left with an internal line of defense, but over time the increase in unit movement speed and options even makes this point moot.

 

[elderotter]

in 1 game the barbarians always went to a hill 2 tiles from my city first. When i could i built a fort and put some units in it - sure enough the barbarians started attacking the fort. I would rather lose a fort than a city.

 

[ritterpa]

Archers should be able to "bombard" units that exit squares adjacent to forts. This would mean that the enemy would either have to attack the units in the fort or get hit by arrows if they wanted to walk right by it. Sounds kind of...realistic.

Civ should have (destructible) walls or forts that work. Forts and walls have been used all throughout history to funnel enemy troops. The idea isn't necessarily to wall in an entire empire, but to be able to wall certain strategic areas.

I also think that archers should be able to either bombard or maintain a portion of the terrain bonus when attacking.

 

[Pinstar]

If you notice that tiles can exist with two 'modifiers' on them.

Like a forest square with a lumber mill on it. If you look at it right, the forest is an 'improvement' and the mill is one too, they stack. In order for forts to be useful you need to allow them to 'stack' with other improvments without over-riding them. This means pastures, mines, quarrys and wells. If ever there would be a use for a fort, it would be the spot defense of specific resources.

 

[Big J Money]

Okay guys, I'm going to weigh in and, hopefully, I'll leave you with some new ideas to try out in Civ IV. First of all, I'd like to offer a different perspective: I'm glad there are no more ZOC in Civ! To me, there was nothing realistic or desirable about units sitting in stationary forts possessing the arbitrary ability to prevent enemy armies from bypassing them. If you look at the scale in the game, we're talking miles and miles of terrain. So, try looking at it that way. I personally think we were spoiled in Civ III with ZOC. I never played Civ II, so that's probably why I'm not as sentimental about them as some others here may be.

As far as how they can be used now, here are my suggestions:

1) Chokepoints. This one will be the least used, because it depends upon specific terrain circumstances. In most games, you won't get the chance, but it's still worth trying. Here is the premise: It's worth it if you can block of an entire area of cities using fewer forts than you have cities. In other words, if you can manage to block of 10 cities using only 4 forts (even if they are in a line), then you only need very minimal defenses in your cities -- if any at all.

** - Note that you can improve your chances of this strategy being possible simply by thinking defensively (rather than economically) when founding new cities. If you can manage to find good chokepoints and build your early cities near them, then you have it made. All future cities will automatically benefit from it, and your worries are over.

2) Castling. This tactic is what you've got left if #1 simply isn't an option. The goal here is to build a few, very heavily manned forts near your borders and on the way to your cities. It forces your opponent to make choices he does not wish to. If he ignores the forts, he will face massive retalliation after he takes one of your cities (remember, immediately after a seige, the new defenders will have few to no defensive bonuses). If your opponent attacks the forts, he will delay his main assault and weary his forces en route to your cities. The forts should have only one or two defensive units, and mainly be filled with attacking units. This strategy is practically necessary for players who like to build smaller and more focused civilizations.

3) Protecting Mission Critical Resources. This tactic is always useful. Those rare resources such as iron, horses, etc deserve an adjacent fort. Since your units will be attaking from this fort (rather than defending), you can at least control the angle of attack they will have to the resource they are protecting.

If there is to be anything that would really cause forts to become more useful (and also used more historically) it would be if Civ finally developed a system where attacking enemy stacks from two fronts gives a major flanking bonus. It would practically force civs to deal with their opponent's armies when invading them, rather then focusing on going for one objective and then holding it.

=$= Big J Money =$=

 

[MerakSpielman]

Historically, it was always possible to avoid a castle and it's garrison and march straight on a city, but it was considered foolish. Why? Because you have left a fresh army behind you. There are many reasons you wouldn't want this. Some (but not all) translate into Civ4.

First, your army is now free to counter-attack the opponent's civilization, now that their primary army is in your territory.

Second, the army in the fort could contain several attack units, and attack any army moving by them. The invading army, thus weakened, is less likely to field a successful attack on the city.

Second-and-a-half. Assuming the enemy attack has failed, your fort can pick off wounded stragglers as they limp back their own territory - since the only way back is right by the fort.

Second-and-three-quarters. If your city IS captured, you now have a nice, fresh army ready to recapture it, and the invading army should be nice and weak after the battle.

Third, triage. Just one unit with a heal bonus and a fort on your border, and any of your troops wounded in battle with the other civ don't have far to go to fortify and heal up.

Fourth, protection of vital resources. I've noticed that you can have resources beyond the radius of your cities, after your borders expand far enough. It's a simple matter for an enemy to send a single unit over there to Pillage away the improvements that allow you to harvest this resource. They are much less likely to try this if there's a manned fort on the hill next to the resource.


The purpose of the fort IS NOT, nor should it be, to plug a hole and block the advance of enemy units. That is a minor function of forts, if it could be considered a function at all.

 

[Thorek]

Im using the fort on resource thing too. The enemy is really eager to destroy my uranium connections etc.

 

[HounddogLGS]

As far as bombarding troops in neighboring squares, looks like catapults and the like can't even do that anymore. They can reduce city defense bonuses or attack directly like any other unit, which is almost unprecented in the real world.

 

[Volstag]

I know you can build forts for A 25% defensive bonus. I have one problem with this: they can go around. I have NEVER seen a choke point only one tile in length, which means the enemy can just go around your fort. What's the point?

With high mobility units, and good recce, you should be able to "cover" a lot of ground around the fort. Unless they have units considerably more mobile than yours, they can't really "go around" w/o a fight. While you can obviously do the same thing in a city, or a hill for that matter, you can build a fort practically anywhere, and the defense bonus stacks with terrain (IIRC). Edit: actually, I don't think it does.

If you have two forts supporting each other on the frontier, you can transform large swaths of area into a killing field for your knights, cav, armor, etc.

They're certainly not "required" but they have their situational uses.

 

[apatheist]

This discussion makes me wish Civ4 had real supply lines. Then forts would clearly be important, and in a way that reflected their historical importance as well.

 

[Dr. Broom]

Forts should have a zone of control like all units in civ ii did so that you don't have to build so many of them.