The Point of forts?

[KAuss]

Why would you be on the plain if you're garrisoned on a hill?

You're seeing the hill as something you can't stack units on... You can garrison units on a hill wihtout a fort...

In Civ3, they had no choice BUT to fight you, and thats where the bonus helped... In Civ4, they don't fight you, and this is why it's pointless to build a fort with defense that'll never get used...


Simply put... A fort provides defense that'll never get added to your troop's battles... It's like if they had an improvement that can't be destroyed by pillagers but produce nothing...

 

[franlato]

no, if I garrison units on the hill, the enemy is bound to pass on the plain as it's the only terrain near

then I launch my attack...

the fort is there just to give your garrison the extra bonus it need to hold a long time... and the it's disuasive as the attacker will try to take your unit down only if he have no choice. ( a little like if you have to choose to attack someone across a river or in a jungle) it's not a miracle, it's only helping a little... and if one of your worker can build it, I think it's worth it..

if this strategy is successfull, then the enemy will have to take you down or use another strategy. And this strategy is (let's hope) far away from your improvements...

if you let your attacker roam in you territory, he will destroy your improvement. That's why i'm talking about taking him down before he gets close to your city.

 

[WuphonsReach]

I had a single-player game last night where forts would've saved my bacon. During my initial spread, I tend to leave as many as 12-18 tiles between my cities, so that I can make a large land grab before tensions heat up. Unfortunately, this also means that I'm spread thinly, even with archers on every 5th hill throughout my kingdom. (Mostly to beat back the fog of war and prevent barbarian incursions.)

The first attack came by surprise. An AI that I was friendly with suddenly decided that I was encroaching too close to their borders (I was trying to take over their copper mine by extending my culture's boundary across their mine tile). After losing 3 cities in short order (all of my border cities), I reloaded and went back about 16-20 turns.

My first order of business was to build more anti-melee / anti-mounted units and get them moving towards what would become the front. My second order of business was to place 3 forts in key strategic locations to shore up holes between my cities.

The AI still attacked about 10 turns later, but by that time I had reinforced my cities (2-4 units of varying types in each one) and I had 3 forts with 2-4 units each in positions where they could harry the invasion force. The war only lasted about 5 turns before I had destroyed enough of his invasion force for him to call it off. I killed maybe 8-10 of his units (nasty chariots and skirmishers) while only losing a single unit.

My usual tactic was to hole up in my fort and evaluate my attack chances. Anytime I had a 2:1 advantage (such as 6.0 vs 3.0) I went ahead and attacked. The AI would try to bypass my forts, but ended up getting shredded as the units passed by. Pretty standard tactic for repulsing invasions. Dig in, but attack wherever you have the momentary advantage.

A few turns later, however, my neighbor to the south declared war and promptly smashed his way to my capitol city. Since I had no depth, it was a short campaign for that AI and I gave up that game as lost.

Next game... walls around every city and forts / archers on key hills. I'm even considering always building my city on a hillside to give me an additional defensive advantage.

 

[WetWarev7]

I haven't yet read all 5 pages of this thread, so I hope no one has mentioned this allready:

I think the most likely scenario in Civ3, or 4, is when you have a rather small corridor, preferably three to five squares or less, that you want to defend, but is unsuitable for a city, such as tundra or desert. Forts are not for barricading, but for sheltering offensive units.

You need a few defensive units for defending the fort and it's inhabitants, but also offensive units for skirmishes, idealy units with 2 or more movement points.

If placed correctly, i.e. in a desert or other terrain with zero defensive bonus, you just wait till an enemy stack comes within range, and send a few offensive units against it. You don't need to kill all the enemy units, just kill as many as you can without killing the last one, and when you kill off an enemy unit, you send your unit back to the fort to heal.

This greatly reduces the amount of attack power your enemy has by the time he reaches your cities, and I allways like to have a few roaming troops in my areas to finish off the enemy units that do make it past my forts.

The whole point is to weaken the enemy - take out as many defensive units that you can in this zero defense value terrain, so that by the time the enemy reaches your cities with it's hills, and forests, etc, your enemy will only have offensive units left.

 

[Yahzi]

25% isn't a very hefty bonus in this game.

Exactly. You have to give up the tile as a working square, it takes time to build the fort, and it only gives a 25% bonus?

It's a dang fort. It should be 100%. Now that would be something to think about!

 

[ytsejam02]

On my current map, I was attacked by Montezuma. He came after a single city in particular. I noticed that the he was taking 2 routes to my city, one out in the open (he sent very few people this way), the rest of his troops he sent through a 1 tile pass that involved a river. So if I were to let him pass into my territory next to my city, I would be forced to attack across the river and he'd get a 25% defensive bonus.

If I left him alone, he'd pillage my territory.

So I setup a fort there with only a couple of units. Granted, he can still go around, but now he has to go out into the open and my odds of winning the matches went from about 1.5 to nearly 2 with the same defenders vs same attackers.

Anyway, they have their uses, albeit small ones.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Forts blow goats by giving a tiny bonus and stopping other defensive improvements on the tile - can't even have a forest if I remember correctly.

Give me a forest anyday of the week, better bonus, good resource bonus and health bonus and it looks good. Actually so do forts which is the only real reason for building them with the exception of terrain such as deserts.

 

[Captain Murphy]

I think forts are fine as they are. But then, I've always used them as a hedgehog defense (in Civ2 and 3). In the current game I'm playing, my hedgehog forts provided the depth of defense I needed to beat back Alexander's troops - troops he had positioned inside my borders (open borders agreement) while we were still at peace.

In addition to being able to harrass attacking troops coming in, going out, or traveling around, forts are also helpful to me when I need to reinforce a city quickly - I can take a unit or two from one or two forts to help a city under attack resist.

I actually like the game design decision to force players to choose between an improvement or a fort. It prevents people from creating forts everywhere to protect resources from pillaging. You have to balance your military needs with your development needs. I think it makes combat more realistic and more interesting from a game design perspective.

 

[abbamouse]

Referring to the Maginot line, Nilrim says:

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.

Most of what Nilrim said makes sense, but this part is wrong. Nilrim is thinking of the Belgian forts like Eban Emael, which were seized quickly by gliders because of the problems Nilrim listed. The Maginot line was never really cracked, although at the very end of the war in France some German units pushed through light resistance south of Paris (the Line was being denuded of troops to cobble together a defense of central France from the Germans in northern France). So the Line was breached in a way, but only after military events had rendered the accomplishment trivial.

Incidentally, the Maginot Line was supposed to funnel the numerically superior Germans into a small front which could be fully covered by the French forces. It worked. However, the Allies' active defense policy in Belgium led them into a trap, leaving limited French reserves to face the full might of the Wehrmacht.

 

[KAuss]

Forts are not for barricading, but for sheltering offensive units.

Offensive units don't receive defense bonus...

You can garrison units in the open just like a fort, because the AI will not attack you in the open... It'll always make you attack... If you're in a stack, they'll ALWAYS walk past you unless you're in front of their capital...

I've had stacks of 2 raiding the AI and they rather send counter raiders than to kill the raiders I have in their territory...

So for everyone that thinks forts are for housing units... It's pointless, because you can house them without a fort and it'll serve the same purpose...

Forts are useless end of story... A fort provides defense that never gets used... If no one can see that then it's pointless LOL...

 

[WetWarev7]

Offensive units don't receive defense bonus...

You can garrison units in the open just like a fort, because the AI will not attack you in the open... It'll always make you attack... If you're in a stack, they'll ALWAYS walk past you unless you're in front of their capital...

I've had stacks of 2 raiding the AI and they rather send counter raiders than to kill the raiders I have in their territory...

So for everyone that thinks forts are for housing units... It's pointless, because you can house them without a fort and it'll serve the same purpose...

Forts are useless end of story... A fort provides defense that never gets used... If no one can see that then it's pointless LOL...

Offensive units DO get a def bonus when they are attacked.

I've had the AI attack my stacks before, and forts are usefull for providing cover when there is no other cover available, such as deserts and treeless tundra. 25% def bonus is better than 0% def bonus.

It's only pointless and useless if you can't figure out how to use them.

 

[Dikaioma]

It's already been said, but forts are for garrison, not for defense. They are made to protect the garrison inside, and the garisson is on standby to respond to any threats. Just like the forts and castles of old. Armies always feared these structures not because of their great defense, but because they knew that they would have to deal with the armies inside sooner or later. Either you take the fort now, and probably loose a substantial amount of your army and loose the rest at the city; or take the city and with a weakened army wait for your empending doom because the defenders army are coming to take their city back. This could even be comparible to military bases/outposts today. They don't do the protecting, they just house the military that will be doing the protecting. Also, correct me if I am wrong, but I do not believe there is a promotion/bonus for attacking forts like attacking cities (city raider). So the defender gets a full +25% from the fort, +25% for being fortified (after 5 turns), and any bonuses from the tile. If they don't deal with you in the fort (and they probably won't be able to), they are going to deal with you outside of the fort. You just have to weigh your options. We may see forts more often in online games if you can use them for what they were made for, especially in the early game.

 

[Rhandom]

Forts need a minimum of two things to be useful:
a) not interfering with the other facility on the tile (so you could protect resources better, which is actually a historical use of forts)
b) protecting units from bombardment collateral damage.

c) zone of control with artillery or cavalry would be appropriate, too.

Actually, the whole thing with gun powder killing city walls is stupid. Ok, they aren't "walls" so much anymore, they are hidden and concealed bunkers, tunnels, minefields and trenches, which serve the same function as walls did against pre-cannon armies. Walls are still very effective against gun fire, just not artillery, rockets and bombs. Its an abstraction, but a sensible one considering the game.

Fortifications should work the same way.

 

[Innawerkz]

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...

Slightly off topic, but I almost ALWAYS attack a city from a hill if available... 3 reasons:

1) There are usually no forests left to use as they were clear cut.
2) A city-spawned counter attack (catapult/horses) is almost always assured and the defensive bonus is quite handy to minimize damage.
3) I go there anyway to pillage the mines they have established and hamper their unit generating ability

With the right Hill Defense upgrades with the era appropriate unit and you have a great counter-counter to protect YOUR stack.

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...

With the culture/border expansion toned UP from Civ 3, it is usually easy to find a point that is defensible that either:

1) Is three tiles wide due to coast or has mountains pinching it to the desired width
2) Steers him aways from 2 or 3 moderate to light defended cities to your more heavily defended city. Easier to heavily garrison ONE fort then 2 - 3 cities. Once his 'plan' is revealed, you can adjust your garrison approriately. Essentially it has made them commit to one city and therefore reveal where I should reallocate my force with TIME to do it provided I built the fort in the right place.
3) Oversees strategic resource(s) that creates a buffer of dissuasion.
4) If no threat looms, a staging area to strike from with a convenient defensive fallback if war goes badly.

All this assumes you have roads to AND around the fort to increase your strike area OR your now MANUALIZED Zone of Control.

2nd:

It's already been said, but forts are for garrison, not for defense. They are made to protect the garrison inside, and the garisson is on standby to respond to any threats...

So the defender gets a full +25% from the fort, +25% for being fortified (after 5 turns), and any bonuses from the tile. If they don't deal with you in the fort (and they probably won't be able to), they are going to deal with you outside of the fort.

Well put. If you permit, I would like to add at the end - On YOUR TERMS. Sorry for the long post. Sharing my use of them.

 

[WuphonsReach]

Thinking about forts some more. I've noticed that the AI rarely (never?) builds them in games that I've played so far.

Let's talk about forts as defensive hard points first and how they interact with the terrain. Most terrain (flatlands) comes with a 0% defensive bonus, but then there is terrain like:

Coast +10%
Hill +25%
Forest/Jungle +50%
Across river +25%

So, the questions. Ignore the special bonuses that various units get for defending while in forest/jungle or on a hill. I'm more interested in looking at the terrain for units that don't get special defensive bonuses. (Or do units like calvary not even get the advantage of terrain defense bonuses?)

Are the following bonuses to defense correct?

Coast w/ Fort = +35%
Coast w/ Jungle/Forest = +60%
Flatland w/ Fort = +25%
Flatland w/ Jungle/Forest = +50%
Hill w/ Fort = +50%
Hill w/ Forest/Jungle = +75%

If the above are correct, then a forest/jungle hill is better then tearing down a forest/jungle and installing a fort on that hill. A fort on a hill is better then a bare hill. And a fort on a bare flatland tile is better then nothing at all.

Most of my forts are placed just outside of the "fat-cross" area. So they're not using up tiles that could be worked or improved anyway.

I generally clear-cut the area around a fort if those tiles are flatland, and place roads on those surrounding tiles for faster movement.

 

[Skedastic]

Forts are useless because your automated workers destroy them. Yes, you can turn on the option to prevent this behavior, but then your workers won't replace any outdated improvements with superior ones. So you must choose to either: have forts and manually control your workers or not have forts. Since forts are of minimal value and I don't like micromanaging my workers, I never use forts. I wish there were a way of marking certain improvements as "historical" so your workers wouldn't destroy them. I also agree with the other posters who suggest that forts should be able to co-exist with another improvement.

Incidentally,

even with archers on every 5th hill throughout my kingdom. (Mostly to beat back the fog of war and prevent barbarian incursions.)

Barbarians appear in unclaimed territory, whether or not it's fogged territory. Those archers may be useful to draw their attacks, but archers won't prevent them from popping up. Also, I find that spreading early cities out as a land grab no longer works in Civ4 because maintenance costs will collapse your economy before you can get markets/courthouses.

 

[homersheineken]

There is a mod that helps make forts more valuable:

Fort Bonus I:
+10% healing rate
+10% strength

Fort Bonus II (requires Optics):
immune to first strike
+1 visibility range

Fort Bonus III (requires Steel):
+1 first strike chance
10% withdrawal chance

You can get it here http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=142803

 

[Innawerkz]

There is a mod that helps make forts more valuable:


You can get it here http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=142803

I like the ideas. It definitely puts more use to them. Anyone have any idea how mods work in multiplayer? I have friends that I play with regularly who I would send this too...

Question is - do they need the mod? Will it auto-download? Or are mods off-limits in multiplayer? Hmm...

 

[mrspank]

Another solution to making forts useful would be to give them a zone of control. It just doesn't make sense that enemy should just be able to walk around them. I would also suggest giving them a higher defense bonus. 25%?? That's pathetic.

The way forts are now, there's no reason anybody should build them.

 

[homersheineken]

The added beneits of this mod essentially give ZOC. You can attack with your cavalry units with a bnous (and assumingly with the roads you built). Zoc in combination would be too much. I think this system works well.