The Point of forts?

[Yusaku Jon III]

I would agree with the Doctor on the idea of a zone of control for forts, but that could just as easily be made up for in the early game by having cavalry units make the quick strike at barbs or enemies passing by on the adjacent tile and then retreating back to the fort to recover. If there are two or more in a stack, you can have your slower units knock off one or more and then return. Unfortunately, it looks like siege weapons useful only for weakening enemy defenses now and not for taking potshots at units passing within range (that gets done by fighters and bombers in later turns, it seems).

 

[DisruptiveIdiot]

You don't need zone of control for forts. Forts are used as a place to keep a dispatch of military units as a fast response to an enemy. It is utterly foolish to see them as a means of defense. Their defense is what accomplishes their real purpose. You harry approaching armies with forts, and you capture them in your enemies' territory to use them as staging points for reinforcement. They are a rendezvous where you can mass a counterattack with less fear of it being neutralized, and a place where you can keep fast units to out-flank and assault the enemy army.

Use forts for what they're needed for, keeping your army safe until it gets to where it needs to go. If you have a fort on the front lines and you keep a small amount of force in it, either the enemy will slow himself down trying to dismantle the fort or leave himself open for raids.

The one thing I think needs to be brought back is catapult attacks on adjacent squares, then you guys could have the zone of control you want. A fort with an artillery detatchment would be incredibly useful in keeping your defense in a healthy state.

 

[Big J Money]

The Idiot has it right.

By having "responder" armies stationed in forts, you have the ability to smash up an invading army that is not prepared to defend themselves, because they have been trained to be attackers, themselves. The whole unit promotion feature works for your advantage, here.

=$=

 

[MerakSpielman]

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.

Catipults don't bombard a square, but they do damage every unit in a square when they attack. That's not to be underestimated - artillery is the Stack Killer. That's as good as bombardment, IMHO.

 

[HounddogLGS]

Catipults don't bombard a square, but they do damage every unit in a square when they attack. That's not to be underestimated - artillery is the Stack Killer. That's as good as bombardment, IMHO.

I agree that is nice ability. But the problem is that, especially if your attacking a strong defender, you wind up sacrificing your artillery unit in the process. The real world doesn't work like that. The only thing that should be able to defend against artillery would be another artillery unit , a naval unit that can bombard, or an air unit. And an artillery unit shouldn't be able to capture a city. I think the Civ3 concept was better.

I guess I'm just too hung up on realism, but after all the hooplah, I have very high expectations of this game.

 

[Sati]

I actually think the game is WEAK in this area ... time and time again I have witnessed enemy units slide through between my units unobstructed. It seems like there is *NO* area of control, so unless you line up like a wall, the enemy will slip through.

Trying to do this effectively is troop intensive and unrealistic, imho ... try creating a wall of units that completely blocks every movement angle, including the diagonals.

Having units control the squares around them, or certain units with this ability, or an upgrade that allows this, or even inferring this ability to units inside a FORT would all be logical game additions.

In the meantime, good luck trying to stop the enemy sliding through your borders.

Well, its not quite unrealistic, cuz, you shouldnt be able to gain defensebonus from the fort if the enemy is 1tile away for example, if they attack the FORT then you should have the defensebonus, am i right?

 

[ritterpa]

I agree that is nice ability. But the problem is that, especially if your attacking a strong defender, you wind up sacrificing your artillery unit in the process. The real world doesn't work like that. The only thing that should be able to defend against artillery would be another artillery unit , a naval unit that can bombard, or an air unit. And an artillery unit shouldn't be able to capture a city. I think the Civ3 concept was better.

I guess I'm just too hung up on realism, but after all the hooplah, I have very high expectations of this game.

Oooh-Rah!

I agree with everything in this post.

 

[MosquitoE]

This thread has sort of mutated into the "the point of artillery?" but I think if artillery still functioned like in Civ 3 the problems with forts would be lessened.

Imagine an invading army sitting outside a city. Both sides have cannons. The attacking army has the ability to bombard the city walls with no risk to itself. The defending army's cannons can not respond in any way?!
Does this make sense?
Cannons should always have the ability to harm units at a distance.

 

[NCC81701]

This thread has sort of mutated into the "the point of artillery?" but I think if artillery still functioned like in Civ 3 the problems with forts would be lessened.

Imagine an invading army sitting outside a city. Both sides have cannons. The attacking army has the ability to bombard the city walls with no risk to itself. The defending army's cannons can not respond in any way?!
Does this make sense?
Cannons should always have the ability to harm units at a distance.

What you describe is just about what happened at Fort Pulaski when the Union invaded the city of Savannah. Union Rifled cannons destroyed the walls of Fort Pulaski with impunity since it had a greater range and accuracy than the cannons inside the fort. I think Civ4 makes a good reflection of what happened there. Besides the attacker has the advantage of time, and picking where, when and how they attack a fort.

A fort is not as much as a defensive structure, but more of a staging area for offensive units to be stationed in forward locations. This allow them to quickly respond to things like border raids or slow down invasion until the bulk of the army arrives. At least this is how i usually view them in both historical context as well as in Civ 4.

 

[Nilrim]

Even if they were trenches, they were still 'defensive walls'.


The Maginot line was never punctured directly, so it never did fail for the purpose it was made for. Once the enemy is on the other side also, and no supply lines exist to support them, it's kind of hopeless...not to mention the country surrendering in two weeks.

Oh yes it was. In the opening moves the Germans made into France/Belgium there was one spot they needed to breach and it was not even done with a full out force, it was done by a crack commando unit that para on top and behind which the line was NOT set up to defend, the guns in the fortifications couldn't even be turned to fire behind the lines.

The only reason those trenches worked in WWI was the over whelming power of the new technology of artillery and machine guns. The moment the protection and mobility of tanks were introduced those defenses collapsed.

Fortifications throughout history were NEVER meant to stop an invader just slow them down, make them use resources and in general discourage them.

 

[DisruptiveIdiot]

The key to repelling an invasion is the siege. Sun Tzu knew this thousands of years ago. The longer your enemy fields his units without victory in your nation, the greater the probability of your success. Forts should be used to lengthen the campaign. As time goes on, the defender gets a bigger and bigger advantage.

 

[franlato]

if your enemy is going trough the same road again and again to attack you,

it's they go trough a hill tile, at the left and the right there's plains.

you build a fort there on the hill spot. Then, the enemy WILL Slip trough... but on the plains and you are on the hill. Send out your cavalry at them and you will beat those unit far more easily and they will not get near your city...

that's what I use fort for

 

[KAuss]

Why would you use Calvary? If anything use catapults...

 

[franlato]

Yes, the two of them if possible (catapult for stacks). But I like cavalry because they can attack farther and can retreat quiker. So I can use my zone of control 2 square instead of just one... because if the enemy arrive with many units on the right and the left I can attack the one who attack faster, without exposing my unit to other quick ones.

 

[KAuss]

I still don't see why a fort would be needed... Why not just sit on top of the hill?

 

[franlato]

because if you have the hill alone they will be more tempted to attack you and take the hill. In this situation, this hill take a very vital role. Having 50% instead of 25% ( or 75 instead of 50??)is what make the difference. So if your defensive unit have 10 str. It will make de difference between 12.5 and 15 witch seem to me like quite a lot if you attack and doesn't wish to lose 4-1 ratio of unit...

You will then send your enemy on a "how much unit will I lose to take this fort" mind set instead of a "What will I pillage" mind set And the time he take to destroy your fortification, the time you have to bring reinforcement...

 

[franlato]

That's why fort are there, to make better a vital line of hills that lead to your city... good luck if he take that path, he will then fortify on one of these hills and use is mobile units to pillage.

You will then have to go out of your city and try to take is possition.

you don't want him to come on your land and chose is field of battle don't you?

that's my take on forts, I used them often against barbarians in a frontline defense. They tend to always use the same way when they attack you. Also, I build forts one square away from improvements, to actually protect them.

 

[KAuss]

We're assuming this hill you're talking about is just a hill in the path of the border to your city...

General rule of thumb, if you're attacing you don't sit on a hill, so there is really no point for them to take a hill they don't need...

Secondly, you almost always want them to attack you away from your city... This means they're wasting time, and wasting effort... If they don't pillage you, they'll end up fighting weak vs strong units through out... The attacker is always fighting at a disadvantage, so why not have them fight with a 25% deficit?

Instead, you build a fort and now have to hunt them down and that makes yoru Calvary go up against a Pikeman or something...

If you already have troops sitting on top of the hill where the fort would be, the results would be the same...

They won't attack you, they never do...

The AI will always avoid open field fighting because they know in the field, defending yields you a higher chance of survival... Not to mention killing a unit earns you no money while risking your force's strength...

Even when you invade them, they don't attack you unless they overpower you... When you roll into their land with a stack of 10 - 15, they send one guy out to protect a resource and wait for you to attack... The rest sit in bunkered cities... Leaving you free to rape the land...

They ought to make forts a gold mine... Giving people an initiative to hit it... I mean no one fights wars to rape the citizens right? Thats an act of terror... So if warmongers get rewarded by fighting military units, then the results would be a much more ejoyable warfare...

Anything past medival times in this game shows a bit of that, but still not enough...

Once planes come out, all hell is loose and fighting is no fun anymore...

 

[MSTK]

I think we've solved our problem here.

We were looking at forts from the wrong standpoint. The people who thought that forts were useless and stupid where themselves narrow-minded. Forts should not be used as "wall". They should not be used to block units, and neither should they be used to sanction off territory.

Forts are used as a quick-strike retaliatory force and as a small city, with its own garrison.

 

[franlato]

Kauss - by taking this hill as an exemple, i'm talking about a far enough hill (or river where I can put my fort behind for that matter) that (like mstk say) can be used as a garrison to launch attack from (attack with catapult for stacks and cavalry for slow units, axeman for pikemans)

when i'm talking about using this hill it's because that is the best terrain (in my scenario, as a defender) If I'm on the plain and his unit pass on the hill, I will have to wait another turn for him to continue his way and get nearer my improvements.
If I do that and don't succeed in taking down is units, he pillage my improvements. There is all the advantage of taking the hill to myself. Not that he will need to take it, but it will force is slow moving units to go trough at least one square of plains.
Then my units garrison in the fort will launch an attack against units passing by. If he have cavalry himself, there can always be some pikeman wating fortified on some of my improvements...