Fort! Heh! What is it good for? Absoultely nothing!

[Rook]

The only use I have for them so far is blocking up places like mountain passes or isthmuses (sp?)

A better, and more realistic use would be to have forts give some kind of protection to the surrounding tiles. This could be a defense bonus, but I would like to see an immunity to pillaging. This way, the enemy must first take out the fort before they can pillage the surrounding countryside.

[Zoid]

I´ve never built a fort yet. But I might do it if they worked as you propose, a bit like the Sensor Array worked in SMAC.

[GeoModder]

I find them a nice and visible feature to put my workers in once they don't have a task anymore.

[gilfan]

There are several modpacks out there, a few of which change the way forts work. Here's a link to one of them, and the text of the post the creator made...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140957

RealFort was designed to deal with the lackluster benefits of building forts in vanilla Civ IV. It provides extra bonuses for units that are within the fortifications.

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

These bonuses are granted via promotions. Unfortunately, adding (or removing) promotions causes savegame incompatibility. So RealFort will not work with existing games. You need to start a new game to take advantage of it.

RealFort should NOT be installed in your main Civ IV location, as it will overwrite necessary files. Instead, it should be installed at: "My Documents\My Games\Civilization 4".

[Urban Ranger]

Re: Fort! Heh! What is it good for? Absoultely nothing!

Originally posted by Rook
A better, and more realistic use would be to have forts give some kind of protection to the surrounding tiles. This could be a defense bonus, but I would like to see an immunity to pillaging. This way, the enemy must first take out the fort before they can pillage the surrounding countryside.

You mean forts should give the units inside ZoC. That would be a cool feature IMO.

Cities too.

[Rook]

Re: Re: Fort! Heh! What is it good for? Absoultely nothing!

Originally posted by Urban Ranger




Cities too.

If cities had ZoC though, it would again make forts less useful. Perhaps the city would need a castle improvement first?

I just think if they are going to have forts, they should do something.

I saw the fort mod awhile ago. I think its good, but still could use something that helps prevent rampant pillaging.

I notice the AI doesn't handle it well when you got men running around their country destroying all their lovely improvements. With improved forts (If the AI was taught to use them), this would add an added complexity to the player as he would need to strategize more.

[Urban Ranger]

Re: Re: Re: Fort! Heh! What is it good for? Absoultely nothing!

Originally posted by Rook
If cities had ZoC though, it would again make forts less useful. Perhaps the city would need a castle improvement first?

Cities in Civ 4 are these massive, imposing things. Forts are a lesser version of cities. Forts are to be used in outlying areas to protect against barbarians (including other, lesser civilizations ).

Both should give ZoC for units stationed inside.

[MikeH]

I actually used forts for the first time the other day to block up a bottleneck to stop my war hungry neighbour pillaging my land until my invasion force was ready...

But it went quicker than expected and I accidentally captured one of his cities beyond the pass before I'd finished building them.

I have considered putting them down where I've stationed units to try and prevent barbarian spawning but the workers normally have much more important things to do at the times that's relevant.

[jonta]

You are absolutly right

There need to be a change in the way forts work

I think the best way is to make it usefull, is to allow to build forts on improvements, as that is what you want to protect.

Would make it harder to pillage, so they will have to take very long to build
(about 5 times the build time of a mine)

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by jonta
I think the best way is to make it usefull, is to allow to build forts on improvements, as that is what you want to protect.

Dunno about you, but I can't think of any famous forts that protect lumber mills

[Last Conformist]

I suppose useless forts is part of the fabled "civ legacy" by now.

[VetLegion]

Didn't they have the "forts add ZoC" rule in Civ3? It probably didn't work well, so they got rid of it.

[Last Conformist]

They had, but ZOC in Civ3 was quite weak, so it was kinda irrelevant.

[marvinkosh]

Forts are more useful in longer games where you will need to repeatedly hold a particular position which has a limited natural defence value.

I do think though that they ought to change with the times.
So for example, in the time immediately following the discovery of Mathematics (which enables Forts) they might be small and constructed from stone in the same way as a city walls. Later, with the discovery of Engineering, they might be more secure and imposing structures not unlike castles.

However with the advent of gunpowder which allows for rapid-firing weapons, such walls only serve to draw out the length of a siege, and when attackers finally breach the structure you will need a similarly fast and versatile weapon to defend with in close quarters (a pistol, for example).

In the modern era an underground bunker could protect units within from bombings, and secret tunnels and elevators would allow them to pop up unexpectedly and attack marauders on adjacent squares.

[xenophile58]

Forts shelter units that would be overwhelmed by an invading force. Forts allow them to survive and threaten pillagers, or the main invading force if it becomes weakened or divides. Forts block chokepoints. At least until the advent of long-range guns, those were their main defensive functions (they also helped hold down conquered or restive peasants of course). Why should they exert a ZOC? Isn't the cultural bog an invader has to slog through much more powerful?