A Cheap way to defend your coastline

[Unconquered]

I don't know if this has been dicsussed before, but I was playing civ today and I noticed that I could build radar towers all along my coastline and that only amphibious units could make a landing. This could be a cheap way (the cost of a worker) to defend your coastline from most attacks. This could also be a cheap defense strategy in mutliplayer...

[alva]

hmm, that probably shouldn't happen.

Nice to know..

[Sava]

Another bug perhaps?

[Flandrien]

The moment you can build radar towers, amphibious warfare is not far away (or already there).
So, I consider this a rather (very) expensive way to defend your coast.
Especially if you take the massive population loss for building all those workers into consideration.

[Sava]

Well, if you are quite militarily active, it won't cost much since you have a lot of captured workers

[Unconquered]

Originally posted by Flandrien
The moment you can build radar towers, amphibious warfare is not far away (or already there).
So, I consider this a rather (very) expensive way to defend your coast.
Especially if you take the massive population loss for building all those workers into consideration.

Either by this point you have a lot of captured workers(like sava said). True what you said about Amp. War. being close, but this assumes you have access to rubber.

Using your captured workers along with some regular ones you could defend some of your coastline, if not all. You could funnel invasions to certain areas of you land (very helpful if you don't have the iron and coal required for railroads) and prepare for invasion there.

Like any strategy there are ways around it, but it is interesting to say the least and I believe it is unintended (bug?)...

I wonder if the same applies to observation towers. This would give even earlier defense against invasion without the use of a military unit guarding the coast.

[Unconquered]

Screenshot

Here is a screenshot...

[Unconquered]

It applies to outposts

It looks like it also applies to outposts... this allows for a much earlier funneling of sea invasions to specific points (exception being the Scandinavians Bezerker), with no offensive counter until Amp. Warfare is reached (and you have access to rubber). A very good way to use your captured workers (as slave coast guards) This must be a bug, I don't believe this was Firaxis' intent.

Also, offtopic, has anyone noticed that you can trade across sea tile before you have astronomy if you are a) At peace b) You have a continuous border. I had an island across one tile of sea and when I went to war I no longer had access to that resource. When peace was restored it was available to my main island again...

[Unconquered]

Airports

It also applies to airports...

[Spec]

Do airports cost money per turn? If so, radar towers are better IMO.

Spec.

[Sava]

sounds like a bug to me... unless Firaxis wanted workers to be able to form some sort of Atlantic wall.

[Dominae]

This is indeed a relatively major bug. Someone should tell Firaxis about it (although they should hear about it sooner or later by reading these forums...).


Dominae

[Spec]

Originally posted by Dominae
This is indeed a relatively major bug. Someone should tell Firaxis about it (although they should hear about it sooner or later by reading these forums...).


Dominae

I would'nt call it a bug. I call it " Playing with all the advantages you can take" The AI has advantages over us, then why dont we do the same?

Spec.

[Dominae]

Any unintended feature of the game mechanics that can be exploited by the human player and not by the AI is a bug. Sometimes these exploits are left in the game because they're popular, such turning the "no random seed" option, in which case it is no longer a bug.

Personally I get no satisfaction in using these exploits to win the game, and in fact I feel sort of dumb if I do. There is definitely a gray area here, as much of SP skill in Civ3 involves knowledge of the AI. But creating an impregnable island fortress with Outposts is clearly in the "non-admissible dirty trick" for me.

In MP, where you can argue that this trick is not an "exploit" anymore, there is still a problem since each island nation can just close themselves off from attack for 3/4 of the game (get a Worker pump going an you have no need for defense in your homeland!). This makes for very boring games (unless you're playing the Vikings).


Dominae

[Aramis]

Possibly not a bug. It's logical.
Only an amph. unit can attack by sea, so only an amph. unit can take a worker by sea.

Outpost, radar tower, airfield are just transformed workers: they occupy the tile just as a worker would.

And its not w/out precedent: Coastal cities. Only amph. units can attack a city by sea.