The Point of forts?

[Azragaul]

Actually Speciou5 has a great point. I could see putting some forts along a border, garrasoned with a couple siege weapons and a couple defensive units. It will either slow down invadeing forces if they attack the forts or if they go around you can bombard them. This would force your enemies to keep units spread out or be bombarded. Which would make damaged units easier to pick off. either way it give you time to react if you play like me whre I usually have only enough units avaiable to to deter until I am actually attacked. It give me some ideas to try in the next could games at least.

I would definately agree however about the Zones of control. It would be really nice to have that as some kind of upgrade for some types of units or something.

 

[Geon]

The point of forts isn't to make a wall of defense, it is to create a frontier outpost that is not a desirable target of the enemy from which you can take pot shots from and have a safer place to heal.

Place a fort at a 3 tile wide chokepoint, force the enemy to either expend more units than what it is worth to take the fort, or bypass it from where you can weaken his stacks(I've noticed the ai usually comes in stacks of at least 2) without exposing your units to more unfavorable counter attacks.

 

[Geon]

oops double post

 

[CitizenCain]

Or, if you get math early, they can be quite useful against the barbarian hordes... who tend to attack you at the first oppurtunity, regardless of whether or not your archer being fortified on a hill with a fort gives you a +100% defensive bonus or not.

In my current game, a couple strategic forts and 4 archers let me keep the barbarians at bay long enough to expand and then conquer both their size 6 cities. (Almost 50 turns.) A deranged barbarian axeman isn't so threatening when he's at a 5:6 disadvantage and facing a couple first strikes.

 

[Kolyana]

Idea to stop that: Go to the options, choose "Automated workers don't change existing improvments"

Good to know! I saw this, but never considered the fort to be an improvement, but rather a structure on top of an improvement ...

 

[Mat777]

Hey. I gots a question.

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?

Hey sometimes enemy can pass only by 1 square . I was blocking huge army with fort .

 

[BlytZ]

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

 

[Nyvin]

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!


BlytZ

The Great wall of China did work to some degree, it was more internal politics that caused the mongol invasion to be successful.

The Maginot Line was successful in deterring a German offensive directly through the line itself, it's flaw was that it didn't cover the entire eastern border, so all the German's had to do was go through Belgium. Once again, the Maginot Line was successful in defending the border for the location it was in.

Also the long line of walls in WW1 on the western front worked with great success, the defender was almost always the victor.

 

[jetsfan]

Also the long line of walls in WW1 on the western front worked with great success, the defender was almost always the victor.

While this may be true to some extent, 1: they werent really walls they were trenches, and 2: it wasnt so much because of the walls it was because of poor tactics of the generals who would send their troops full on at these defences instead of say, oh i don't know, going around? i would have to agree that forts do not have much of a point in civ games, or for that matter in real life. You can say what you want about the maginot line but it failed and so did the great wall of china.

 

[BlindEyedJack]

I just played a game with a great example of how a fort *might* be used. I was attacking an aztec city which was surrounded by two peaks and a river on all but one side. I was attempting to capture it during the middle ages.

Needless to say, still having catapults as a siege weapon made an amphibious attack across the river hard, even after bombard the city to 0% defence. So, I moved my units to the one tile I could safely attack from. I couldn't help but think taking the city would have been impossible if the AI had built a fort on that one tile. The would mean a 25% defence bonus (50% since I'd have to cross a river to take the fort) just to get into a good attacking position.

 

[Nyvin]

While this may be true to some extent, 1: they werent really walls they were trenches, and 2: it wasnt so much because of the walls it was because of poor tactics of the generals who would send their troops full on at these defences instead of say, oh i don't know, going around? i would have to agree that forts do not have much of a point in civ games, or for that matter in real life. You can say what you want about the maginot line but it failed and so did the great wall of china.

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

They did try going around, it's a common tactic called "out-flanking". This didn't work though, and all that happened in ww1 was the front was pushed both Northward and Southward, with neither side getting 'around'.

Forts have huge importance, even today, in Iraq the US has over 100 forts for the war. That's modern day, in real life. And in Civ games you sometimes just need to add some extra defence to some point in the game, so what's wrong with having forts?

Once again, it was mainly internal matters that caused the Great Wall to be overrun, it stood and protected the border for well over 200 years before the mongol invasion of the 12th century...If that's not success then I don't know what is.

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.

 

[Phoenix]

While this may be true to some extent, 1: they werent really walls they were trenches, and 2: it wasnt so much because of the walls it was because of poor tactics of the generals who would send their troops full on at these defences instead of say, oh i don't know, going around? i would have to agree that forts do not have much of a point in civ games, or for that matter in real life. You can say what you want about the maginot line but it failed and so did the great wall of china.

Going around? I was of the impression that the lines covered the whole front and the only chance of a flanking manouver was when we attacked Turkey (in the dardinels?) though that didn't turn out too great either.

 

[jetsfan]

Sorry, i chose a bad word. I didn't mean to necessarily "go around" the defences. Nyvin and Phoeniz both make good points about this. i was simply trying to point out how hopeless and semi-******** the military commanders of WW1 were and their stupidity when dealing with the new technologies. These forts and defences made it so no side would prevail and many would die.

 

[ytsejam02]

The point of forts isn't to make a wall of defense, it is to create a frontier outpost that is not a desirable target of the enemy from which you can take pot shots from and have a safer place to heal.

Good points. In my efforts with the Civ games, I tend to post many units near my borders close to someone I'm about to attack, but I'm not at war with yet. In this case, I can post them in forts for extra protection. Not to mention, when I'm eventually at war, I can post artillery (as previously mentioned) and a mix of defensive/non-defensive units so that I can take shots at any enemy units on the way in. Course, the units should be expendable in this case, as they will often not survive a large enemy task force.

Assuming I've planned things correctly, a large enemy task force is unlikely simply because they'll be too busy defending from my task force.

Anyway, forts aren't extremely useful, nor are they exciting, but they have some merit.

 

[TheDervish]

I never tried building a fort in enemy territory? Is it possible? If so, it may be a good tactic to set up a troop rendevous point, or staging ground for siege.

 

[King Jason]

I've noticed that the enemy won't usually just "go around" for example, I had a wee stack of swordsmen in my land pillaging all of my improvements, so I sent out some archers along my road towards them, they made it 1 tile away.

the next turn, the sword people attacked them.

Similiar situations occur.

Another example is I had a city -> my territory -> AI territory -> AI city city, in that line if you will.

I placed the fort inbetween where our borders met and my city, any force that came to attack me always went after the fort first, I never had one unit go around until they finally sent a huge swarm that overwhelmed the 3 units I had in there.

(city -> my [FORT] territory -> AI territory -> AI )

So, I could just be lucky, or, it's programmed that more often than not - they don't ignore fortifications.


I play on noble difficulty

 

[TheDervish]

That sounds right. When I have my military units outside of cities, i try to keep them on hills whenever possible, for the defense bonus, and enemy units will suicide against me

 

[King Jason]

Oh and am I missing something? can seige weapons still bombard in this game?

 

[Kolyana]

Yes they can.

 

[MosquitoE]

Unlike in Civ3 artillery units can no longer bombard units passing by without exposing themselves. They can only bombard city defenses.