Barricades

[justjake73]

I first encountered these things in the Middle Ages scenario, where there's a line of three between England and Wales. I garrisoned the one in my territory, but the AI ignored the ones on his side, which were on hills and would have made my life miserable. Instead, they turned into a nice staging area for my invasion force.

Wow - you beat Edward I by 400 years in conquering Wales!

I have yet to get very far in C3C, but my strategy would be the following -

1. Start out as Industrious.

2. Dedicate three workers to building forts.

3. Build a barricade from every OTHER fortress so they offer support to 2 neighboring fortresses.

The naming seems off - a barricade sounds less than a fortress. You don't see a castle and say "what a barricade!"

[Willem]

Originally posted by ZargonX
Are building barricades that expensive, though? That may require some mod adjustment...

Yes they are, 16 turns to complete. I'll definitely be modding that number.

[Willem]

Originally posted by PogueMahone
Does that mean AI units won't be able to pass BY the barrcade in one turn or THROUGH it?

That's right, they'll have to wait until the next turn until they can proceed again. Which means we be sure of getting in an artillery attack before they continue on. We finally have a feasible way of building a defensive line! I was already building Fortresses every other square around my front line cities, this will make my "Maginot Line" that much more effective.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Uber KruX
the only way i can even BEGIN to see the utility of these is with a large bombardment force waiting behind the lines, ready to bombard the hell out of the unattackable stack.

That's kind of the point of having Fortresses to begin with isn't? They're not much good if you don't have some bombard units in them already. This will mean that we're guarenteed to get in a shot or two at any invading forces.

[PeaSoup]

Well, they do take 16 turns to complete, but that's including building the fortress, so 8 turns for fort, 8 more for the barricades.

I know the AI uses forts (and maybe now barricades) in bottle-neck situations, but I gotta say I like barricades a lot since the human player will be able to use them in various situations.

Building barricades has helped me with defending my only source of wines a breeze against a KAI who just happens to be twice my size.

The barricades do stop movement, so it's prevented the AI from successfully pillaging the undefended square, though I'm unable to move workers safely out to clear the jungle, even with escorts..

So with a couple of Swiss pikes holding the line, the AI has no chance of ever taking the city away from me..

[MrWhereItsAt]

That's a good point, PeaSoup - using barricades to stop the AI from pillaging. Is there any type of terrain improvement that is impossible to have in the same tile as a Barricade? If not, then we have just found a job for all those workers left lying around after terraforming all your terrain as far as RRs - build Barricades on every terraformed tile at risk from pillaging, and you get an extra turn to stop the pillaging!

[Willem]

Originally posted by PeaSoup
Well, they do take 16 turns to complete, but that's including building the fortress, so 8 turns for fort, 8 more for the barricades.

Are you sure about that? The way I understand it, you have to build a Fort first, then the Barricade. That's 32 turns in total. I could be mistaken of course, I haven't actually built one yet.

[Faboba]

Originally posted by Kull

This is a major AI problem IMHO, because if they fail to use these it's just one more advantage for the human player. It's also worth noting that I had a veteran spearman (D2) fortified inside my barricade (on grassland), and yet an AI Vet Swordsman (A3) wiped him out easily. That's not much of a sample size, but it definitely raised an eyebrow.

The trouble, I'd imagine, is this;

The AI isn't smart enough to know whether a fortress or barricade should be garrisonned. It probably has instructions to ignore barricades to prevent it garrisonning it's troops in the middle of enemy territory during an invasion. Instead what I assume is happening is the AI has a formula to tell it where a good place to put defensive installations would be and when it builds them it will keep them staffed. If this is true then the problem is probably that the computer doesn't recognise the border installations as its own and therefore refuses to use them.

[PeaSoup]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
That's a good point, PeaSoup - using barricades to stop the AI from pillaging. Is there any type of terrain improvement that is impossible to have in the same tile as a Barricade?

Ya, in the screenshot I posted above, the AI has opted to move its attack units into the defensively superior jungle tiles next to the barricades, if it moves it's SOD into the undefended square, I still won't be able to prevent it from being pillaged.

And I found out that barricades do stop movement when the enemy moves INTO them, so it will not stop movement for moving across. You still have to man barricades since the AI can land/move any units into unmanned barricade tiles and thus gain the 100% defensive bonus.

Originally posted by Willem
Are you sure about that? The way I understand it, you have to build a Fort first, then the Barricade. That's 32 turns in total. I could be mistaken of course, I haven't actually built one yet.

Ya, I noticed that the civilopedia and the editor both say 16 turns for both the fort and barricades, but in my current epic game as the Dutch (who are not industrious), the fort and barricades each only takes 8 turns to complete on flat terrain. A bug perhaps? I don't mind..

[Sarxis]

Something I am curious about: how does stacking forts/barricades over colonies work out? I had built a fort on a luxury, and then colonized it. After the colony was overrun by the AI, the fort was still there.

[MrWhereItsAt]

PeaSoup - where you Democracy or some other Government where worker speed is doubled (Fascism IIRC)? If so then that explains your twice-speed forts and barricades.

And Anun Ik Oba - that seems to tally with normal Civ3 behaviour - a colony is like a city of yours in some respects, and the fort/barricade just a terrain improvement. The Colony can be captured by the AI or eliminated when it is absorbed into a larger cultural radius, but the fort/barricade is not, like roads, irrigation, mines etc.

[PeaSoup]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
PeaSoup - where you Democracy or some other Government where worker speed is doubled (Fascism IIRC)? If so then that explains your twice-speed forts and barricades.

Ahh, I forgot to mention that my civ is in monarchy, so no worker bonuses.

[Sarxis]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
And Anun Ik Oba - that seems to tally with normal Civ3 behaviour - a colony is like a city of yours in some respects, and the fort/barricade just a terrain improvement. The Colony can be captured by the AI or eliminated when it is absorbed into a larger cultural radius, but the fort/barricade is not, like roads, irrigation, mines etc.

But will any of my units stationed to protect the colony get the fort/barricade bonus?

[Willem]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
PeaSoup - where you Democracy or some other Government where worker speed is doubled (Fascism IIRC)? If so then that explains your twice-speed forts and barricades.

No, it has nothing to do with Worker speed. I built a Fort during Monarchy, and I noticed the same thing, they only take 8 turns to complete. Add 8 more for Barricades.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Anun Ik Oba


But will any of my units stationed to protect the colony get the fort/barricade bonus?

Of course, that's what they're for.