Barricades

ZargonX · November 6, 2003, 12:34

Looking things over, it says that when a fortress is expanded with barricades, that units within it will exert a ZOC. Does this function like the old Civ2 ZOC in that enemy units will no longer be able to just run around them?

MrWhereItsAt · November 6, 2003, 17:43

I imagine it would be the ZOC that already exists in Civ3 - you know, where armies etc can take a free shot at enemy units moving past them.

However, a confirmation from someone with the game would help...

vmxa1 · November 6, 2003, 19:26

I have not tried that yet, but I wanted to throw this out for Arrian:

Armies heal so fast now, it is too scary. I had a 3 elite horsemen army down to 1 hp (one crummy horse did it) and put in in the city. The city had a barracks and two turn later it was fully healed.
I do not know if that is the norm or I lost a turn, but either way...WoW.

I am going to have to check out a mil civ next.

Inverse Icarus · November 6, 2003, 23:54

units in fortresses get free shots at units moving past them, and they call that ZOC, i assume it's the same thing.

i miss civ2's ZOC.

Tiberius · November 7, 2003, 03:05

Quote:

Originally posted by Uber KruX
i miss civ2's ZOC.

Yeah, me too. Even if not for units, but at least fortresses/barricades should have a civ2-style ZOC. Armies don't bypass fortresses just like that.

EzInKy · November 7, 2003, 03:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Tiberius

Yeah, me too. Even if not for units, but at least fortresses/barricades should have a civ2-style ZOC. Armies don't bypass fortresses just like that.

The forces manning the Maginot line didn't even get a passing shot when Germany bypassed them.

Tiberius · November 7, 2003, 03:57

I'm not saying that you shoulnd't be able to bypass fortresses, but make it one tile away from it. It's not that I can't defend against the AI, but it greatly annoys me when it continuously enters my territorry and I can't do anything about it, except for declaring war.

asleepathewheel · November 7, 2003, 09:46

barricades look fairly useful, just that they take so damn long to build. build a fortress and then a barricade on top of that?: I think the barricade takes 16 turns? I wish they had a cheaper early version that would keep the ai out. by the time I have worker power to barricade my lines, I don't really need to, due to army strenght.

Willem · November 7, 2003, 13:55

Fortresses already had ZOC so there's not going to be any difference in that regard. What's changed it that units can no longer sweep past your position, they lose all movement until the next turn. Nice adition IMO.

ZargonX · November 7, 2003, 13:58

Quote:

What's changed it that units can no longer sweep past your position, they lose all movement until the next turn. Nice adition IMO.

Ah, that's what I was looking for! No more cavalry run-bys! Fortresses may finally be useful. Are building barricades that expensive, though? That may require some mod adjustment...

asleepathewheel · November 7, 2003, 14:28

Quote:

Originally posted by ZargonX

Ah, that's what I was looking for! No more cavalry run-bys! Fortresses may finally be useful. Are building barricades that expensive, though? That may require some mod adjustment...

I think a barricade is 16 turns. add in the fortress build time and thats a lot of turns.

PogueMahone · November 7, 2003, 14:33

Does that mean AI units won't be able to pass BY the barrcade in one turn or THROUGH it?

Inverse Icarus · November 7, 2003, 14:49

right, they lose all movement points on it, BUT when they get onto it, they get +100% defence. this does nothing but push the invasion back a turn, and get them 1 move CLOSER to your cities. a savvy player will drop 15 horsemen and 2 spears in that tile (with a defence of 4.2), and if it's on a hill (defence of 5), forget about attacking them.

so you're going to be stuck manning all the barricades with piles of units anyway. the only way i can even BEGIN to see the utility of these is with a large bombardment force waiting behind the lines, ready to bombard the hell out of the unattackable stack.

RobC · November 7, 2003, 15:11

Quote:

Originally posted by Uber KruX
right, they lose all movement points on it, BUT when they get onto it, they get +100% defence. this does nothing but push the invasion back a turn, and get them 1 move CLOSER to your cities. a savvy player will drop 15 horsemen and 2 spears in that tile (with a defence of 4.2), and if it's on a hill (defence of 5), forget about attacking them.

so you're going to be stuck manning all the barricades with piles of units anyway. the only way i can even BEGIN to see the utility of these is with a large bombardment force waiting behind the lines, ready to bombard the hell out of the unattackable stack.

...or if they allowed the option at least of modding it so you could build barricades without building forts first...

Kull · November 7, 2003, 15:28

I first encountered these things in the Middle Ages scenario, where there's a line of three between England and Wales. I garrisoned the one in my territory, but the AI ignored the ones on his side, which were on hills and would have made my life miserable. Instead, they turned into a nice staging area for my invasion force.

This is a major AI problem IMHO, because if they fail to use these it's just one more advantage for the human player. It's also worth noting that I had a veteran spearman (D2) fortified inside my barricade (on grassland), and yet an AI Vet Swordsman (A3) wiped him out easily. That's not much of a sample size, but it definitely raised an eyebrow.

justjake73 · November 7, 2003, 16:16

Quote:

I first encountered these things in the Middle Ages scenario, where there's a line of three between England and Wales. I garrisoned the one in my territory, but the AI ignored the ones on his side, which were on hills and would have made my life miserable. Instead, they turned into a nice staging area for my invasion force.

Wow - you beat Edward I by 400 years in conquering Wales!

I have yet to get very far in C3C, but my strategy would be the following -

1. Start out as Industrious.

2. Dedicate three workers to building forts.

3. Build a barricade from every OTHER fortress so they offer support to 2 neighboring fortresses.

The naming seems off - a barricade sounds less than a fortress. You don't see a castle and say "what a barricade!"

Willem · November 7, 2003, 17:38

Quote:

Originally posted by ZargonX
Are building barricades that expensive, though? That may require some mod adjustment...

Yes they are, 16 turns to complete. I'll definitely be modding that number.

Willem · November 7, 2003, 17:41

Quote:

Originally posted by PogueMahone
Does that mean AI units won't be able to pass BY the barrcade in one turn or THROUGH it?

That's right, they'll have to wait until the next turn until they can proceed again. Which means we be sure of getting in an artillery attack before they continue on. We finally have a feasible way of building a defensive line! I was already building Fortresses every other square around my front line cities, this will make my "Maginot Line" that much more effective.

Willem · November 7, 2003, 17:44

Quote:

Originally posted by Uber KruX
the only way i can even BEGIN to see the utility of these is with a large bombardment force waiting behind the lines, ready to bombard the hell out of the unattackable stack.

That's kind of the point of having Fortresses to begin with isn't? They're not much good if you don't have some bombard units in them already. This will mean that we're guarenteed to get in a shot or two at any invading forces.

PeaSoup · November 7, 2003, 21:30

Well, they do take 16 turns to complete, but that's including building the fortress, so 8 turns for fort, 8 more for the barricades.

I know the AI uses forts (and maybe now barricades) in bottle-neck situations, but I gotta say I like barricades a lot since the human player will be able to use them in various situations.

Building barricades has helped me with defending my only source of wines a breeze against a KAI who just happens to be twice my size.

The barricades do stop movement, so it's prevented the AI from successfully pillaging the undefended square, though I'm unable to move workers safely out to clear the jungle, even with escorts..

So with a couple of Swiss pikes holding the line, the AI has no chance of ever taking the city away from me..

MrWhereItsAt · November 8, 2003, 11:31

That's a good point, PeaSoup - using barricades to stop the AI from pillaging. Is there any type of terrain improvement that is impossible to have in the same tile as a Barricade? If not, then we have just found a job for all those workers left lying around after terraforming all your terrain as far as RRs - build Barricades on every terraformed tile at risk from pillaging, and you get an extra turn to stop the pillaging!

Willem · November 8, 2003, 16:00

Quote:

Originally posted by PeaSoup
Well, they do take 16 turns to complete, but that's including building the fortress, so 8 turns for fort, 8 more for the barricades.

Are you sure about that? The way I understand it, you have to build a Fort first, then the Barricade. That's 32 turns in total. I could be mistaken of course, I haven't actually built one yet.

Faboba · November 8, 2003, 16:16

Quote:

Originally posted by Kull

This is a major AI problem IMHO, because if they fail to use these it's just one more advantage for the human player. It's also worth noting that I had a veteran spearman (D2) fortified inside my barricade (on grassland), and yet an AI Vet Swordsman (A3) wiped him out easily. That's not much of a sample size, but it definitely raised an eyebrow.

The trouble, I'd imagine, is this;

The AI isn't smart enough to know whether a fortress or barricade should be garrisonned. It probably has instructions to ignore barricades to prevent it garrisonning it's troops in the middle of enemy territory during an invasion. Instead what I assume is happening is the AI has a formula to tell it where a good place to put defensive installations would be and when it builds them it will keep them staffed. If this is true then the problem is probably that the computer doesn't recognise the border installations as its own and therefore refuses to use them.

PeaSoup · November 8, 2003, 21:01

Quote:

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
That's a good point, PeaSoup - using barricades to stop the AI from pillaging. Is there any type of terrain improvement that is impossible to have in the same tile as a Barricade?

Ya, in the screenshot I posted above, the AI has opted to move its attack units into the defensively superior jungle tiles next to the barricades, if it moves it's SOD into the undefended square, I still won't be able to prevent it from being pillaged.

And I found out that barricades do stop movement when the enemy moves INTO them, so it will not stop movement for moving across. You still have to man barricades since the AI can land/move any units into unmanned barricade tiles and thus gain the 100% defensive bonus.

Quote:

Originally posted by Willem
Are you sure about that? The way I understand it, you have to build a Fort first, then the Barricade. That's 32 turns in total. I could be mistaken of course, I haven't actually built one yet.

Ya, I noticed that the civilopedia and the editor both say 16 turns for both the fort and barricades, but in my current epic game as the Dutch (who are not industrious), the fort and barricades each only takes 8 turns to complete on flat terrain. A bug perhaps? I don't mind..

Sarxis · November 8, 2003, 22:01

Something I am curious about: how does stacking forts/barricades over colonies work out? I had built a fort on a luxury, and then colonized it. After the colony was overrun by the AI, the fort was still there.

MrWhereItsAt · November 9, 2003, 08:32

PeaSoup - where you Democracy or some other Government where worker speed is doubled (Fascism IIRC)? If so then that explains your twice-speed forts and barricades.

And Anun Ik Oba - that seems to tally with normal Civ3 behaviour - a colony is like a city of yours in some respects, and the fort/barricade just a terrain improvement. The Colony can be captured by the AI or eliminated when it is absorbed into a larger cultural radius, but the fort/barricade is not, like roads, irrigation, mines etc.

PeaSoup · November 9, 2003, 09:23

Quote:

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
PeaSoup - where you Democracy or some other Government where worker speed is doubled (Fascism IIRC)? If so then that explains your twice-speed forts and barricades.

Ahh, I forgot to mention that my civ is in monarchy, so no worker bonuses.

Sarxis · November 9, 2003, 14:18

Quote:

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
And Anun Ik Oba - that seems to tally with normal Civ3 behaviour - a colony is like a city of yours in some respects, and the fort/barricade just a terrain improvement. The Colony can be captured by the AI or eliminated when it is absorbed into a larger cultural radius, but the fort/barricade is not, like roads, irrigation, mines etc.

But will any of my units stationed to protect the colony get the fort/barricade bonus?

Willem · November 10, 2003, 16:40

Quote:

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
PeaSoup - where you Democracy or some other Government where worker speed is doubled (Fascism IIRC)? If so then that explains your twice-speed forts and barricades.

No, it has nothing to do with Worker speed. I built a Fort during Monarchy, and I noticed the same thing, they only take 8 turns to complete. Add 8 more for Barricades.

Willem · November 10, 2003, 16:41

Quote:

Originally posted by Anun Ik Oba

But will any of my units stationed to protect the colony get the fort/barricade bonus?

Of course, that's what they're for.