What's the point of Forts?

[T.A JONES]

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.

Your right. in this game technically based on the random epic they don't. However, that does not mean the AI in game he paid money for, will never show up on a planned D-DAy style invasion.
When he plays what all say is better and more complete then a typical packaged 'conquests' scenario, hes in for one big surprise!

Spoiler :

Surprise!!!! Arr!! Rood of the Dragon

Also you can't get away with leaving you coast citys unprotected all the time. SOmetimes in the epic mode They will bring enough to take out 3 or 4 high ranked guard units. THey also may bomabard your city with 6 boats worth of cannon fodder then reforments that make you pay a tax of unit maintence just to counter

Examples? Sure! Just like this!

 

[iguana1]

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.

Don't forget:

C - Culture/borders. From reading your posts, what most of this discussion boils down to is that forts in Civ 3 are not what they were in civ 2. In Civ 2, you had to build forts near most of your borders to stop the AI from roaming freely through your lands and ploping new cities inside your "established borders". Now, cultural borders help stop that from happening. Granted, constantly demanding the enemy to remove his troops from your lands will eventually lead to him declaring war, but the cultural border establishes what is yours verses what is his and where troops are "supposed to be" manuevered and where new cities can be created.

 

[agonistes]

Now if forts created the civ ii type of zoc, and had auto lethal bombard too, that would be great.

 

[swift_like_wind]

Does anyone know if ZoC from forts is lethal? Also, can forts placed on the coast ZoC hit a ship? If it can, is it lethal?

 

[againsttheflow]

The answer to the second, and thus the third, is no. Not sure about the first.

 

[pol1]

AFAIK : i haven't seen lethal free shot... i'm pretty sure that it is not lethal.

 

[CEO Daedalus]

If there is a 1 tile bridge to another piece of land, that would be the best time to put a fort up.

Being that we'd be blocking, with added defense.

 

[swift_like_wind]

It's also a good idea to put a fort on enemy resources. Also, if you are in terrain that wheeled units can't cross (mountain, jungle, marsh, volcano) and there is only 1 wheel friendly square, I'd put a fort there so enemies can't send artillery at you.

A note on the 1 tile bridge, I'd rather put a city there because then your boats have a shortcut across a continent (synonymous to Panama Canal). Even if you are not going to use that city, keep it as a "naval shortcut".

 

[Akalabeth]

I did put a city on just such a landbridge in one game, it produced well until 7/9 countries declared war on me. And then two-three nations attacked the city for a few turns and razed it to the ground. I guess the AI doesnt like land bridges.

 

[swift_like_wind]

I think they might just have wanted the terrain. Also, the AI beelines for your weakest city. Did you have very few defenders there? I build them all the time, the AI rarely goes for them.