Use of Fortresses?

[geniemalin]

Other than very rarely using them on a 1-wide isthmus (and even then I usually use cities rather than fortresses) I haven't found fortresses or barricades to be useful at all. The enemy just bypasses them and I am left wasting military units sitting in them to avoid the enemy taking them!

I would appreciate any advice on how to actually use them effectively...

[pauli]

i often use them as a safe spot to let injured units heal, if i don't have a city nearby. this requires a pitched battle, however...

[Catt]

I've played peaceful games where I have no desire to expand offensively and used them to good effect along a border, even a long border. The hordes of workers used for RRing can be put to good use building forts and then barricades along borders - an infantry or two in each barricade basically makes your empire impervious, especially with a back-up of some roaming defenders and some defenasive artilleries. Just a question of whether it makes economic sense to pay upkeep on the barricade-manners rather than maintain a much smaller force capable of responding where and when needed.

I use them a lot less frequently before RRs if only because I don't usually have the gobs of workers needed to build them free and available (i.e., there are often more important tasks that demand attention).

Catt

[smellymummy]

more often than not i have no use for them except just a place to stack units in my borders. it looks nicer when the troops are in a fortress..

i have on a few occassions used them effectively:

offensively, when the AI has a much larger mobile force and I'm attacking with a slow moving force that constantly needs to be refreshed with reinforcements, a fortress helps.

another instance is when i can split off a large chunk of the AI's empire at a 1 tile isthmus

defensively i've used them (not with barricades/c3c yet) at key defensive spots, usually on mountains, within bombard range of where it would be the likeliest route to invade

[Puma]

They're great for single-source strategic resources. In one of my first games, the impis ran into my territory, bypassed a city, and destroyed my lone horse supply - right at the start of a war. Needless to say I was shocked : WTF!!!, but impressed. I had never expected this from the AI in any game.
They proceeded to overwhelm the city's defenders and later built a fortress on that horse, which broke my hopes of recovering horses. I quit that game as they proceeded to kill me with their golden age impies.

In areas of high corruption I let geography dictate my borders. Fortresses every two tiles along mountain ranges, with back-side roads and artillery ... woah baby! The terrain defense bonus and 3-movement point cost on mountains is too much for me to ignore. I must control those mountain tiles. In another early game, as the Aztecs, I decided to invade a continent fully controlled by England while this fortress technique allowed a small number of defenders to stave off an insane amount of Greek units. It was so funny seeing full stacks reduced to 1hp as they tried to crawl through the mountain ranges. But, this is very terrain dependent.
Nowadays I also employ Pauli's technique with railroads and when there are no settlers handy or I have waaay too many cities. I take a badly positioned border city, rush workers and some infantry into the tile where the injured units are, and also into the city tile, then I abandon the resisting city and build a fortress in both tiles. They still get attacked, but I prefer that to 1) leaving them out there, 2) only adding healty infantry to the stack of injured units, or 3) trying to suppress the city and risking a flip . Someone might be shocked to know that I do this much work, but I find it neccessary when armed units are in short supply. Eventually a set of fortresses like this develops into a relay chain and so on.

[zorbop]

I fing the most common reason to build fortresses is because you simply run out of things for your workers to do. This usually happens about 20-30 turns before industrial age. So I can get about 25 fortresses done before my workers have to build railroads. The fun part of this is that i can build sort of a "great wall" along my boarders. This really helps for trying to make cavalry assaults without having many units, you would be surprised how many units the AI will blow trying to take a fortress.

[bongo]

Fortresses look nice

Fortresses can be great for making 'kill zones' along your border. You cannot expect the AI(or humans) to waste his units attacking your fort, on a hill, across a river. By leaving openings in your great wall you can pretty much dictate where your enemy will go. Make sure it is in the open where they don't have any defensive bonus. Then you can waste his attackers at your leisure before they do any real damage, while you are safe in your forts.

Edit: The main reason for building forts/barricades/great walls/kill zones in the first place is that you lack the power(or desire) to start an invasion yourself. Great when you are outnumbered or fighting a two-front war(or any number of fronts larger than 1)

[Hrafn]

I usually stick a few forts on RR routes to block invasions using my own RRs to destroy me...also, I like to build my own RRs in enemy lands to use as supply lines from my invasion point...a few forts along it keep the enemy from using it against me.

[Space05us]

I like to build fortresses just because it gives me something to do during the late medieval/early industrial eras. They're also good for protecting your borders when you dont feel like conquering anything at the moment.

[Cookie Monster]

I build fortress/barricade networks on mountains to deny the enemy easy access to my lands. They can always bypass this system by taking a boat ride but I still find fortresses to be usefull.

[asleepathewheel]

Barricades can be nice to slow down the enemy. Will buy you that extra turn or two if your OCC goes south.

[Orz]

I have used fortresses rather rarely. I usually prefer placing cities on isthmuses or strategic locations than fortresses; especially during the ancient age.

Sometimes when I am attacking a large city with cannons and cavalry or infantrymen, then I have tried to build a fortress right next to opponent's city. Mostly I have resorted to attack from a hill or a mountain, though.

I have sometimes built a single fortress in a strategic location for keeping my armies in it. I *definitely* do not build my fortress right next to border, it is not wise to allow your opponent to gather sneak attack units next to your fortress. Maginot line - style thing is a not good thing, I am afraid, I'd prefer rather an mobile attack force because of the flexibility issue. If a city or a one of the fortresses falls, you do not need defensive units but FAST mobile units which could take the lost position back ASAP - so I keep also offensive units in my fortresses, when possible.

[bongo]

One thing that prevent me from using fortesses more often is the fact that you don't have 'ownership' of them. The AI will often plop down a city next to your fort, then demand that you leave their territory, worst part is that they get to keep the fort, you can't even raze it without starting a war

Of course, if a human did that, you could tell them exactly where to shove it...

[Puma]

heh, yeah, it sucks when the fort ends up on their side ...

[Cookie Monster]

Another use for fortress/barricade combos is to position them along key tiles of coastline. This way when the ai lands in an attempt to seize a coastal city or cut a nearby resource they will get held up by my fortressed defenders. This usually allows me the one turn I need to call up my mobile defense to deal with the threat.