What's the point of Forts?

[Akalabeth]

So I just picked up Civ3 today, started playing. Early on the game's not going good, I'm on the defensive. The Russians are running rampant pillaging my lands, their peace proposals are unacceptable so I decide to build a line of forts in conjunction with my cities to provide a wall of protection. Forts supposidely give units inside Zones of Control, allowing them to attack nearby units without fear of reprisal. To take "cheap shots". I've seen Russian horses do it before, I look forward to my units doing it as well.

I build my first fort, in goes a bunch of Spearman and Archers. The Russian Horseman, spearman and archers run right past it. My troops sit inside the fort, doing d*ck-all. What's the point of a Fort? It says it gives zones of control, if it only gives zones to certain units it should say that in the stupid civipedia. Or if some units are immune to zones of control, it should say that too. Or does a unit have to be as fast as the enemy to attack or something? If so, again the dumb game should say that before I waste time building the fort in the first place.

Basically all that I have is a strong square that the enemy is no longer interested in bothering with. In order to even hurt the enemy (aside from Catapults) I have to leave the fort, at which point they pounce on me. Nevermind the fact that the whole area of denial thing is completely moot.

What's the deal??

 

[Tasslehoff]

Most of the time, Forts aren't useful. As stated, enemies will run around it. What you do, instead is find strategic places to put it. After all, a RL fort in the middle of the Desert isn't much strategic use, but a fort in the only mountain pass is. Find choke points, where there are only one or two squares for passage, and build forts there.

 

[MAS]

Welcome to the forum Akalabeth.

Forts increase the defense bonus of the tile a unit is standing on. So a spear has a defense of 2, on a grassland, he has a modified defense of 2.2, fortified, he has a modified defense of 2.7, and inside a fortress, a modified defense of 4.7. However this only helps in defending that one tile that has the fortress.
Having a fort on a border is nice, but how long will that border lay at a certain location? if you are conquering, your borders will move forward all the time, so the fort will become obsolete quickly.
The worse thing that can happen is the AI moving a unit in one of your forts, then you will have extra difficulty removing them from your land.

4 tips:

Tip1
When you are not in a position to fight a war, you should cave in to any demands of tribute the AI makes, and work on improving your offenses after that. Only exception is if the offending AI is himself also not able to really hurt you, such as when he is on an other island.

Tip2
Do not put X amount of defenders in every city, defend only your borders, and don't even let invading forces get anywhere near your inner cities. But don't build a wall of defenders across a large border. Thats a waste, and very costly, instead, use a mobile defense force. Read on:
Unless you are playing at very high difficulty levels (SID, maybe deity, but not lower) You should not build defensive units such as spearman/pikeman/muskets. At least not until the enemy has cavalry, then you should build a few rifleman or infantry (Industrial age units) And they should still be the minority of your military.
Instead, build fast moving offensive units. Such as horseman/knights/cavalry. If you can't build horseman, build swords, if you can't build swords either, build archers.
Besides the extra movement, horseman are also better than swords because they have a retreat chance, resulting in smaller losses, and thus also less war weariness.
There are 3 reasons for this:
#1 the AI values offensive more than defensive. If you have 10 archers, the AI will see you as stronger than if you have 10 spearman. The stronger you are in the eyes of the AI, the less likely they will declare, or demand tribute. If you are strong enough, they may even give tribute.
#2 attacking invaders is more efficient than defending from attacks.
If war is declared, use your offensive forces to take out any would-be invasion force, at your borders! There is no reason to let hostile units wander around. Attack them on your turn.
A horseman has 2 movement, and roads multiply this by 3, so your horses can move 6 tiles on your land, but the enemy invasive forces can move no more than 1 tile a turn (maybe 2 if they use horses) you can use a nation-wide smaller army than the AI and move it around, quickly, so to locally outnumber the AI invaders.
#3 once you successfully defeated the invading force, defensive units would be no longer needed, but a defensive force made of offensive units can be transformed into an invading force the very moment you decide so.
So after defeating the invading enemy force, you can counter invade them right away.

Tip3
If the AI declares, and you don't feel like taking them on, you should find allies, preferably on the other side of the enemy. This will distract them, and weaken them. If you wait a turn, you run the risk that your enemy is going to ally them against you instead.

Tip4
When at war, focus on the war, build more units to replace losses, do not build city improvements or wonders when you should be building more units. (unless you know what you are doing) Don't stop building units until peace.

 

[anaxagoras]

Everything MAS said is good advice, but it doesn't really answer your question: "What's the point of forts?" As you noticed, forts make the enemy go around, rather than through. Interestingly, that's also the point of forts in real life. So build build forts either where there is no place to go around (the chokepoints that Tasselhoff mentions) or where you WANT them to go around (i.e. to set up kill zones).

For example, lets say you are on the middle of a continent, and you have two opponents, one on either side of you. REX is over, and you are looking to start you first war. But you can't fight both ways at once. One possible solution is to build a couple of forts on the side where you DON'T want to fight. Put defensive units in the forts, and a small stack of your own fast units behind the forts. The enemy will almost certainly bypass the forts (especially if you lure them with a bikini babe - search on that term for relevant other threads), then your own horseman can advance along your roads, hit the enemy, then retreat out of reach of a counter-blow in a single turn. Most of the time, the AI will retreat when injured, and since you didn't want to fight on this side of your continent anyway, you can delay the enemy until he's ready to talk, and get good peace terms using a scratch force, while your main offensive arm conquers the other opponent.

In short, forts are a force multiplier. Use them sparingly and they can serve you well. Use them often and you are wasting worker turns and other resources best spent conquering.

 

[EvilConqueror]

I haven't had the need to build one yet. I find that offense is the best defense.

 

[Akalabeth]

Well in Civ 2 there's that whole, annoying, area of denial thing. Where if adjacent, you can't move adjacent again to a hostile unit. That to me made forts valuable in the game. But they seem to require a different use in Civ3.

I ended up abandoning that game, and then instead starting over as the Iroquis (only playing Regent, I'm never good enough for Diety). And I'm doing okay, not leading the pack, but holding my own. Just wish the buggers would start fighting one another. Eight countries, no war. It's just not right.

But yeah, I usually just have like 3 military units per city for the sake of martial law, making people content sort of thing. And tend to mass my units where I need them. I eventually intend to subdue the yanks, then we'll see if the AI in this game actually knows how to do a naval invasion.

 

[Theryman]

I eventually intend to subdue the yanks, then we'll see if the AI in this game actually knows how to do a naval invasion.

I can answer that.

No. They don't. Unless by invasion you mean two troops dropped of near your capital and killed immediately. Cause they are good at that.

 

[Akalabeth]

Actually I saw one of the other factions drop off like 6-8 horseman out of a transport in an attack. Not against me, but against those poor yanks. Also in that same game, there was like a 10 Frigate strong Russian Armada sailing around. So it seems AI is a bit smarter . . . maybe . . .

 

[againsttheflow]

I ended up abandoning that game, and then instead starting over as the Iroquis (only playing Regent, I'm never good enough for Diety). And I'm doing okay, not leading the pack, but holding my own. Just wish the buggers would start fighting one another. Eight countries, no war. It's just not right.

But yeah, I usually just have like 3 military units per city for the sake of martial law, making people content sort of thing. And tend to mass my units where I need them. I eventually intend to subdue the yanks, then we'll see if the AI in this game actually knows how to do a naval invasion.

Remember that you don't know if the AI are at war w/ each other unless you have embassies. And 3 units per city is a lot for Regent. Unless their are rebellions breaking out all the time you could spare at least one from each city to help you're war effort.

 

[D0NIMATRIX]

@Anaxagoras

What is REX?

@Akalabeth

Forts are only meant to be used to defend strategic locations, such as resources or chokepoints. Their only other use is to "herd" the attackers into a favorable location for you to massacre them. Search "kill zone" or go to Warmongering 101 to learn about this.

 

[Aabraxan]

What is REX?

Rapid EXpansion

 

[Sargon II]

I pretty much use forts for chokepoints and I will also
put them on mountains near borders just so attacking
armies cant get the defense bonus.

 

[Quintillus]

Rapid EXpansion

Thanks. I was wondering what that was, too.

If I remember correctly, forts only give a Zone of Control (free shot at passing units) to units fortified in the fort - it doesn't give it to ones simply passing through. So if your units weren't fortified, they wouldn't get any free shots. Also note that they don't always get a free shot - it's about 1/4th the time. Still a signficant amount, though, especially if the enemy has to go by multiple sides of the fort.

 

[Akalabeth]

Well, I can say there are two major improvements in Civ3 over Civ2.

A - Don't need to rebuild Barracks every time you get a new major infantry unit, man that was a pain in the a**.

B - Armies don't have home cities. (like the whole Republic/Democracy thing where your city B&moans because their armies somewhere else. . .)

But anyway, I'm getting a bit better. Lost the other game, stupid diplomatic victory . But in my new game, history was reversed as the Greeks conquered the Romans (save one off-continent city which I didn't bother to kill. I know in previous games total extermination usually got bad looks from the other countries, dunno if that's still the case). And I've reduced my garrisons quite a bit, only got one hoplite per city now that I've switched to Republic for some peace time.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I'm also not sure if it shows the free shot if they miss.

Removing a civ from the game has no effect on attitude, I think. Razing cities, that's a no-no (from an attitude point of view)

 

[Lord Emsworth]

I ended up abandoning that game, and then instead starting over as the Iroquis (only playing Regent, I'm never good enough for Diety). And I'm doing okay, not leading the pack, but holding my own. Just wish the buggers would start fighting one another. Eight countries, no war. It's just not right.

There are only few things which are easier and more effective than making the AI war each other. Just go and declare on some and get MAs with the others.

 

[pol1]

I'm also not sure if it shows the free shot if they miss.

IIRC free shot is shown and i'm not sure about only one free shot per turn... i think i've seen one unit shooting more than once.

 

[Taras Bulba]

all i use them for is to put on resources close to borders in the beginning of the game, or in times of war, to prevent the AI from capturing and pillaging the resource away... other than that, i don't use them.... or i build them to give the crusaders something to do since they don't really help against Mech Infantry

 

[Headbanger]

Sometimes I'll wall a certain line of squares with forts to block off other civs if it's on a thin strip of land.

 

[AznWarlord]

But yeah, I usually just have like 3 military units per city for the sake of martial law, making people content sort of thing. And tend to mass my units where I need them. I eventually intend to subdue the yanks, then we'll see if the AI in this game actually knows how to do a naval invasion.

That's partially a good idea, but it really depends on the circumstance. Like if you're using Monarchy or Communism, which allow for military police AND high unit support rate. You don't want to use up your military support on defense, unless you're really early in the game and Barbs are a threat + you city risks Revolt once it hits size 3 (in Regent). Still you don't want to waste more than 2 units stationed as military police.