still dont get coastal fortress

[Minmaster]

ok i got a swarm of ironclads that are blockading and bombarding a port city of mine. i rush a coastal fortress but it doesnt seem to shoot at them even when they are all over my coast. how do u make this thing work? i still havent seen it fire at ships yet! and what makes it even more annoying is coastal fortress seems to be one of the first improvement destroyed upon bombardment...why cant they just destroy a granary or something....

[vmxa1]

Ship have to traverse two squares in the radius of the fortress to activate the defense. The AI is aware of this and tends to either avoid those cities or not trip the firing. IOW I do not build them. I use art/bomber and ships to do the job. Bombarment will at least drive them off.

[Minmaster]

well those ironclads were in coast the tile right next to my city. they cant get any closer.

[vmxa1]

It does not matter how close thy get, did they cross through two tiles to get there? If they can avoide cross two tiles they will not be fired upon. IOW if they are outside of your city radius move inside next to you and only use one tile of the harbor area they will not be fired on. The AI will avoid the trigger. Just like you would, if you could.

[Jon Shafer]

Which is why people don't build them. They're essentially useless.

[vmxa1]

So true.

[Ijuin]

It seems that people are a bit mistaken about the functioning of Costal Fortresses. The real benefit from the Fortresses is from their defensive bonus against attack/bombardment by enemy ships, and NOT from any supposed "active defense". The bombardment of enemy ships in the radius of a Coastal Fortress works EXACTLY the same way as the one-shot bombardment that the Zone of Control of a land Fortress or a land unit provides, but with a Bombard attack value of eight.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Ijuin
It seems that people are a bit mistaken about the functioning of Costal Fortresses. The real benefit from the Fortresses is from their defensive bonus against attack/bombardment by enemy ships, and NOT from any supposed "active defense". The bombardment of enemy ships in the radius of a Coastal Fortress works EXACTLY the same way as the one-shot bombardment that the Zone of Control of a land Fortress or a land unit provides, but with a Bombard attack value of eight.

They are still useless, as they AI will continue to bombard until it has destroyed what it wanted to destroy, unless you hurt them in some way, by your ships, artillery or bombers.

[TacticalGrace]

much better off building artillery. If you have a rail network then having just 10 artillery is hugely effective. If used in conjuction with a few ships you can really cripple the enemy navy by sinking some ships and hopefully taking a few invasion troops with it.

With the advent of flight it gets even better for the defender. If you have lethal air bombardment against naval units things are even more interesting.

[aaglo]

You can mod the fortresses. Make them create 1 culture/turn, and add 1 gold upkeep. It comes closer to realism. Old coastal fortresses are currently regarded as 'landmarks' or such.

Then you have some use for them...

[aahz_capone]

coastal fortresses also help against marine invasions i think. But then again, what kind of brainless monkey attacks a town with coastal fortrees, city walls, hill and mech inf with a marine?

[Kingof the Apes]

...or even several marines?

I rarely use marines, and if so only to capture tiny island cities with a luxury or something of the sort. They are just target practice for MI.

[sgrig]

I found that marines can be quite useful especially if my navy and aviation brought the city defenders to just a few hp each and the city population to less than 6. In this case marines can be effective even against mech infs. I usually use marine assaults to open a 'second front' against my enemy - I capture a city with marines and then unload MA and MI from transports into the city and then launch a new attack with this force.

[DrFell]

Which is how they're meant to be used... they're purely specialist units meant for use in conjunction with bombardment against coastal targets. I very rarely use them.

[aahz_capone]

yes, I agree with DrFell. However, all the effort in building a navy (which is fun but not really practical)and a bomberforce (which takes ages to bomb with) can be put into makeing extra armour and mech inf and you just dump it a square away and drive into the city.

In short, there's nothing the "force" you to use marines (or paratroopers) which you can't fix with brute force. That I find a shame.