Does anyone use forts?

[Meshelic]

I mostly used forts in CIV2, not really in 3. I find that it takes a worker too long for my patience to complete a fort when generally I'm on the offense anyway

[bbaws]

I tend to have buckets and buckets of workers and so I end up building maginot lines. I build/warmonger. Once any city has the infrastructure it needs it builds units. I prefer to have those units on the border (a) watching the AI (b) deterring any attacks. When I go to war I aim to destroy an opponent completely. I generally secure any new border with a fresh maginot line b4 improving conquered lands beyond necessary road/RR links. Given the time it takes to build up the infrastructure in newly conquered lands (my main focus) a line of forts gives me a nice feeling of security and in my experience delays the next war indefinitely.

[Laertes]

As well as defending scarce resources near borders, as described above, I also sometimes build forts on mountain tiles if the mountain is right beside one of my border cities and prone to sneak attack. I fortify a unit in there to stop the invader occupying it instead

[Explorer579]

I attacked the capital of the Iroquois yesterday, and it was fortified. It was going to be a long battle. I had 20 units at a time at their wall gates but still was difficult to catpure because my units could not attack in full strength as the enemy weekens them with the bowmen. Only after I landed workers and built a fort did I dominate. He could no more effectively attack me on his turn; and on my turn, my knights were attacking at full strength after landing in my fort which is next to his capital and close to seashore.

[vmxa1]

Explorer579 that was good thinking.

[aaglo]

Yes, I use quite often forts at my borders and choke-points. They are useful. I like to stack there one defender, one attacker and one artillery (at least).

About Older forts - shouldn't they create some kind of culture? In real world old fortresses are also culturally valuable. Could this be done in a mod?

[Tattila the Hun]

I figure any improvement over 1000 years old should create culture, be it marketplace or barracks.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Tattila,

How much culture do we get from the WW I battlefields these days. Other than making for a solemn view in a Rememberance Day service, a 1000 year old fort is just an archeological site to me.

Now things like marketplaces, courthouses, banks and things like that should provide minimal culture and harbours should produce about half of what a temple does. In many sites, the harbour was the focus of the whole city with news, goods and ideas moving around as fast as you could move them. Venice in Renaissance Italy would be a good example since commerce was importing and exporting from one end of the Mediteranean to the other, and even into Persia, India and China. Marco Polo and his brothers for instance were traders first and explorers second and they brought numerous ideas back from China.

I've been toying with the idea of adding a cultural value to improvements, but haven't had a chance to test it yet.


D.

[Tattila the Hun]

Well, castles and fortresses build in the medieval days are culture rich today. What differs archeological site from cultural site is the architecture, be it baroque or whatever. Are the ruins in Athens culture?

[mrmitchell]

Adding cultural value to tile improvements would make it too easy to get culture, but if you just raised the culture victory requirement it'd work out. For example, you have a stronger feel when walking on a 4000 year old road than that of cruisin down a 20 year old hi way. Forts too, but it takes enough time for people to forget the hideous death and destruction surrounding them.

And as far as the question posed by the thread, not unless it's a chokehold or very short border, i.e. less than ten tiles. (Or if I've undoubtedly going to win and feel like wasting time on the Xerxes (Maginot) Line...)

[King of Rasslin]

Forts are inferior to forests. Forts allow the useless "free shot" but forests take all of a unit's movement points. You should plant forests to slow an enemy advance, as well as get a defence bonus. Forts on forests could be done later.

[Catt]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
Forts are inferior to forests. Forts allow the useless "free shot" but forests take all of a unit's movement points. You should plant forests to slow an enemy advance, as well as get a defence bonus. Forts on forests could be done later.

Problem with forests is that they give the enemy a defense bonus. In many cases I will trade the defense bonus for the ability to slow the enemy advance (particularly when my territory is RR'd), but in other circumstances I want a fort on high ground and am happy to let enemy troops penetrate 2 or 3 tiles into my territory on lowlands.

Catt

[Jawa Jocky]

In the early game I'll use forts at choke points or on hills and mountains adj to my border cities. It the AI wants to attack I force them to use flat land. However, in the early game I'm usually on the offensive so I don't get around to building forts in most games.

In the late game I will build them on resources and keep units fortified there to protect resources from bombers. However you don't really need the fort so I only build them when I have excess worker capacity.

Forts are probably more usefull for builders who haven't taken their entire continent and don't plan on attacking any time soon. And this just isn't my gameplay style anymore.

[Arrian]

I only occasionally use forts until late in the game (usually while razing my way through someone else's continent, using slaves to build them as I advance). If I have a chokepoint early on, I will sometimes invest in a fort and stock it with a unit or two. But I'm usually spending my time and effort building up an attack force that will make the choke point irrelevent anyway...

If I have a situation where I have local numerical inferiority, and see the opportunity to create a kill zone, I will. Otherwise, my workers always seem to have better things to do.

-Arrian

[TbTimVa]

I use them when I have only one source of a resource near a stronger opponent. I will build a fort and station
at least two defenders for protection.