Forts useless without Zone-Of-Control? Yes.

[Dr,ape]

I liked the idea of ZOC back in Civ1, but it was still useless even back then.

Fly a bomber over it, wait, and let your 10 other ground units to pass under the bomber. Or, if you don't have a bomber, use a diplomat or spy unit.

[Sarxis]

ZOC would make forts awesome.

[ElConejo]

Is there any way of making this into a mod tho? ZOC for forts? and would every unit within a fort get ZOC then?

[Sarxis]

No clue. I don't think there is any ZOC in the game at this point, so it may take some serious moddifying to even implement that functionality.

[ElConejo]

Originally posted by Sarxis
No clue. I don't think there is any ZOC in the game at this point, so it may take some serious moddifying to even implement that functionality.

NO ZOC AT ALL? How is that? Who removed that?

Once again I cant even play it and I am losing faith...

[FrostyBoy]

I don't think it would take a lot of work to implement ZOC for fortresses, but it will take a lot of effort for the AI to understand it.

I also think Fortresses are useless.

[Skanky Burns]

I don't think they are completely useless. I use them on hills I don't need to mine (if the hills are out of all city work areas but within my borders) to make my country look more aesthetically pleasing. A nice fortress in the middle of nowhere looks quite good.

Other than that they are useless though.

[Akaoz]

Skanky Burns is 100% right.

They still suck donkey balls though.

[Kc7mxo]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
I don't think they are completely useless. I use them on hills I don't need to mine (if the hills are out of all city work areas but within my borders) to make my country look more aesthetically pleasing. A nice fortress in the middle of nowhere looks quite good.

Other than that they are useless though.

heh, i do that too. not on hills though, i mine every hill hoping to find a resource.

[polarnomad]

The 2 "useless" forts I have protecting my civ from barb attacks are doing an amazingly good job.

[Sarxis]

lol figures

Truth is, I haven't used them yet, tho I have built one just for kicks. I should try them out to see firsthand what they can do.

[polarnomad]

I find that it is extremely useful to place a fort so that the enemy has to cross a tile or two of plains to get to you. Outfit the fort with some good archers and a couple good offensive units. Once the enemy enters the plains attack with your offensive units, and if that fails then you are still covered by the archers who have a weakened opponent to deal with. If one of the archers has a heal promotion, then you also recover from battle faster.

Before I built the forts, I was struggling with both maintaining tile improvements that kept getting pillaged, and losing units in the process. After I built the forts, I could basically move on to more important matters.

[Akaoz]

Got a screenie of how you used them?

[polarnomad]

I'll post a screenshot soon, but I have to go to work now. So, you'll have to wait for a bit. Once I get back, I'll slap one in though.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Saurus
It would certainly be intresting to hear the view of firaxians and/or the betatesters (to the extent they can discuss matters) as to how they use forts in their strategies.

So far I consider forts utterly useless whitout any clear function whatsoever and it would be intresting to hear how to really take advantage of them.

I think I already posted mine... here it is in more detail though since you ask.

If someone invades you, you have movement advantage on your roads. This allows attacking stacks before they can reach a city in many cases, with survivors able to move back into cities on subsequent turns. But they have to survive till their next movement to get away.

The drawback to attacking away from the city is that you may end up leaving your units out in the open after the attack. If you didn't wipe out the invader completely, then you will be open to counterattack. If you can attack from a Forest or Jungle, that's best, but that's not always an option. While +25% might not seem like that much, it's +25% defense. That's like a free (and additional) anti-unit type promotion for every unit while defending. Don't be fooled by past combat models in Civilization either. Every little % advantage means more than it used to due to how combat is resolved.

What's the cost? A tile that doesn't have an economic improvement for as long as the Fort is there. But you don't have to have the Fort there forever, just as long as it will be of use. You can task Workers to only build the Fort when it's necessary to use, and then once it's served it's purpose for the forseeable future, return it to an economic improvement. On Standard speed, a Worker can build a Fort in 6 turns. With Serfdom, that's 4 turns. Hagia Sofia, 3 turns. So generally speaking, you should only need 3-4 Workers to get a Fort built in 1 turn.

The other use I have for them is to force invading stacks to stick to lower ground, by putting Defending units in Forts on Hills, especially ones with fall outside any city's workable 21 tile radius but inside your borders.

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That said, I do like some of the ideas in this thread for Forts. Forts growing in % defense, effects on borders, and healing increases all sound interesting.