Fortress & Military Installation

[Warm Beer]

Originally posted by UberKruX
i always found that funny, the AI built fortresses on grasslands one spot away from a mountain-bottleneck.

and more times than a few they build a bunch of fortresses in their own land, and they DONT EVEN USE THEM. SO I DO.

You know, you are comeletely correct...the best thing the AI does for me in Civ2 is to build all of those fortresses so close to thier cities that I could stack my weak-defenced, high-offence units in 'em and put a defencive unit or two in to protect them... Thanks AI! Well, at least untill RRs rolled around and then I could pick one enemy fortress as a base and use the unlimited movement of the tracks to blitzkried my AI opponents into submission...

... I hope this changes in Civ3.

[TechWins]

cities with barracks repair units there for a full turn to 100% hp.

Yeah, exactly. This would enable mis to become very valuable. It shouldn't be too easy to get through a mi. You will have to continue to attack the mi continously, like a city with a barracks. I don't understand what's the big deal about having it be this way.

The mis should cost as much gold per turn as a barracks does (3 gold in Civ2). This would also counterpart the fact that mis are so powerful. Fortress would cost only 1 gold because they are strong but not near as strong as a mi. That's to clear up the gold per turn issue.

Warm Beer and UberKrux, how you are talking about how the AI has so many useless fortresses, having the fortresses/mis cost gold per turn would reduce the amount of fortresses/mis built. Hopefully leading to the AI only wanting to build a few fortresses/mis in key places. If programmed right that problem would be solved by fortress/mi system.

[Rommel393]

In civ2 fortresses did become obsolete and useless at a certain point. When cruise missiles are invented and constructed they render all fortifications obsolete. When you attack even the most heavily fortified unit with a cruise missile you are almost sure to win. Realistic? I think so. As for fortresses being completely obselete in the modern world, I don't agree. Air power can devestate a well built fort but only so much can be done from the air, especially if SAM's are placed within or near the fort. When forts are attacked the average infantryman is at a major disadvantage to the gunfire from the fort and armor will be able to destroy the fort but will be damaged from artillery fire being returned from the fort. The only other thing that could doom a fort (other than air), is long range artillery which can soften up and damage a fort and its defenders to the point where armor and infantry can take it easily. But wouldn't the artillery firing at the fort only lead to an artillery duel with the fort's artillery? In the end, fort's have and always will have the potential to allow a smaller fort defend an area or delay an attacking force.

In the case of the maginot line its only fault was that it didn't go along the french/belgium border, so the Nazis just conquered Belgium and went through it to France. But during the attack 1/3 of the Nazi army was sent to tie up the troops in the Maginot line. Even after the rest of France was conquered the maginot line still resisted and continued to do so until French officials from the destroyed government were sent to tell the soldiers to surrender. The nazi army group which was assigned to the maginot line sustained heavy casualties in the while they were "tieing it down". The maginot line could have been succesful if it had also gone along the French/Belgium border.

In several other instances in WW2 forts were very succesful. For instance, during his invasion into Sicily with the Brits, Patton met 3 German divisions on his way to Medina. At an important pass, Nazi troops took control of a monastery on the top of a low mountain. They moved artillery up there and were able to hault the American progress by raining the valley below with gunfire and shells. Thousands of yankee troops died trying to take that monastery but only a few hundred germans were defending it. I'd call that a success on the german side.

Overall, forts have many weaknesses and strengths. If you like them its up to you. But they have their place in modern warfare.

[One More Turn!]

The zone of control feature for a fortress is a good idea as is the additional visibility. Was it a radar station of some sort in CTP that gave you significant extra visibility? This sort of feature in Civ3 would make defending your borders more manageable, especially if you have a civ that has a lot of land area and not a lot of cities.

[Mech Assassin]

I think, you should be able to build ABM and SAM batteries around the map. When enemy moves a missile unit (ABM) or air unit (SAM) near them, the battery should fire (air unit could engage the SAM). This would make the AA defense easier and missile defense more realistic.

[meriadoc]

I'm sorry to say, but forts just don't have much use in modern times. Yes, the Maginot Line was formidable and would have cause Germany a lot of problems if they had not simply gone around it. However, that's exactly what they did - they went around it. Hitler's Atlantic wall was devastating not so much because it was a great fort but because the Allies couldn't land anything on the beach much bigger than a jeep for a long time. There are the occasional examples of places, such as the monastary in Sicily, where a fort might work, but then again it might now. If the Allies could have called in air power to attack the monastary then chances are it would have surrendered sooner.

The point is that while forts were extremely useful until only a century or so ago, they're much less effective now. So I suggest that forts be allowed in Civ3, give the units a defense bonus, repair the units faster, allow the player to see x tiles away, and cost some maintenance each turn. Then, when they're made obsolete they can be replaced by military installations. These should cost more to maintain, but can repair units, see x tiles away, and refuel air units. However, they shouldn't really give a defense bonus. After all, most modern military installations are pretty vulnerable to attack. They're major defense is a good offense.

[Mech Assassin]

The point in fortified defenses is that you must make the line to a choke point to prevent enemy from simply running around and force them to face it. Atlantic Wall couldn't reach it's potential because of a mistake from german lead. They estimated the landing place wrong (Allied trick worked here) and concentrated their defense to a wrong place. If the place had been right, there are very high chances that Allies wouldn't have ever gained a foothole.

Also, remember that Atlantic wall was a coastal fortress, not a fortified defense line. Defense line that it built to prevent from going around and enforced with SAMs, artillery and ABMs could really prove an overwhelming problem for any possible army. The thing is, that no big country needs a defense line now, so they don't build one. Our president dork Bush is building ABM defense thought and disturbing the balance of the force...