Fortresses: A Quote for Jeffrey Morris of Firaxis!

[Jason Beaudoin]

Originally posted by Jeffrey Morris of Firaxis:
In this game you need to defend your TERRITORY, not just your cities, or you will be swiftly punished. I find myself building hillside fortresses more in this game than Civ2/SMAC et al. One advanage of this terrain improvement is the zone of control it gives units normally without one (read: most ancient and middle ages units). But it's their ability to protect vital trade roads, colonies, and goods that makes them invaluable.

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This is so cool! It's like building castle fortresses in order to protect your land... giving you a zone of control over an area is so important for defence!

This game is going to be so incredible! There is so many possible strategies, that it's mind boggling!

[Hugh Janus]

[Executor]

What about if you're under a democracy? Does that 3 space rule still apply or else you get discontent?

[Jason Beaudoin]

Executor... I think you need to re-read my thread.

[KrazyHorse]

What thread? The quote says nothing about discontent.

EDIT: I found the thread. Could you point to a specific quote, please? It's 5 pages long.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Executor
What about if you're under a democracy? Does that 3 space rule still apply or else you get discontent?

What 3 space rule?

[Asesino_Virtual]

The fortresses are now much more useful than in previous editions. Now they are strategic sites that must be defender until the END!





Yep.

[Haphazard]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


What 3 space rule?

Units create unhappiness in Democracy or Republic unless they are in cities, or fortresses within 3 spaces of a city.

[Jason Beaudoin]

I'm sure that has been changed to be within a civilization's borders.

[Crouchback]

Originally posted by Jason Beaudoin
I'm sure that has been changed to be within a civilization's borders.

Nice summary, and I hope you're right for the sake of my precious roads.

David

[Inverse Icarus]

hrm. in a civs borders you say.

well if you are a democracy, changes are you got tons of moneyt to throw around on culture, and to spend supporting a military. and if you have huge cultural borders, you could, in theory, enroach on an enemy and bombard them with cannons/catapults/battleships from within your own borders.



and i hope your not able to bombard from INSIDE a city.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by UberKruX
you could, in theory, enroach on an enemy and bombard them with cannons/catapults/battleships from within your own borders.

And the problem would be..........? Is it the fact that I can now engage in combat with my democratic forces while my citizens remain content because said forces are within my borders? That seems reasonable to me. Americans only get upset when the infantry goes marching in. As long as we engage from a distance (and thus incur no casualties), people seem relatively content.

and i hope your not able to bombard from INSIDE a city.

Because...........?

Sorry, Jingo, but I'm not seeing your point. If located in a city, why would I be unable to train my cannon/artillery/battleship guns on an enemy outside of the city?

[cort]

by the way, hope bombarding will be more effective this time.. i never find the heavy artillary stuff in SMAC useful..

heard that it will again not be possible to kill an opponent just by bombarding.. ;(

[Sarxis]

Very nice

I don't think artillery bombardment should allow for unit destruction- not historical, and too unbalancing in the game. I for one wouldn't build any other ground troops, since I can take out everything from afar with 'ultimate artillery'.

But the fortresses- now that is very kewl. Everytime I play CivII or SMAC I want to build forts and bunkers, but they were never very effective. Plus there was always that possiblity of the enemy capturing them and using it to his advantage. Even though enemy capture may still be possible, the fortress bonuses will be too good to pass them up.

[Akron]

Yeah, in SMAC building artillery was useless, except for defending against ships, IIRC.

[Sarxis]

Originally posted by Akron
Yeah, in SMAC building artillery was useless, except for defending against ships, IIRC.

OT

The thing that really hurt artillery in SMAC was the damn defender bonuses- you got +%50 for being in open land against artillery (for being able to maneuver well), but you also got +%50 for being in the mountains (for being well covered). Artillery bombardment was only calculated as one combat round, so it sucked.

I hope its better in CivIII.

[Crouchback]

What about being able to bombard once for every movement turn? That's got to have an effect when using battleships with a movement of 4.

But I'm dying to see how the airstrike systems works.

David

[TechWins]

But I'm dying to see how the airstrike systems works.

As am I, after hoping for great improvements in this realm I surely better not be dissapointed. Actually it does seem as if Firaxis spent some time on coming up with a better air warfare system.

In regard to fortresses I sure wish some of my idea's were taken into account. If they weren't I will still manage to get over it. Below is a quote from my first post of this thread.


"I think the modern day fortress should be something like a military installation(x) (I'm not the person who came up w/ the modern day fortress idea, the specifics of the idea are mine though). The MI would help repair your units at the rate of 50%and do the same thing as a fortress unless the MI can do it better(*). If you wanted a MI inplace of a fortress a worker would have to upgrade it the same way roads are upgraded to railroads. I also think to help prevent so many fortresses being built the fotress & MI should cost money to maintain. The fortress should cost 1 gold per turn. Therefore, the MI should cost 2 gold per turn.

(*)- The fortress & MI would give a 200% defense advantage. Having a unit in a fortress any where in your borders will not cause any unhappiness at all (this is obvious if when a unit is in your national borders you are never caused unhappiness). Having a unit(1) in a fortress outside of your borders will not cause any unhappiness at all but as soon as the second unit(2) from that city leaves the borders, regardless if in a fortress or not, that unit(2) will become unhappy. So the city will inquire one unhappy citizen (variables such as gov., city improvements, luxuries, etc... could manipulate this system). [An example of this is that if you were to be a Republic (Civ2 rules apply here Republic). In London if you had a trireme out sailing the waters, therefore you wouldn't have any unhappiness in London until one more unit left the city. Your Civ has a fortress out of your national borders. In that fortress you have a unit inside it from London. You will still not be seeing unhappiness in London, even though you have two units out of London. But if a third unit were to leave London and go into that same fortress you would be experiencing one unhappiness.] MIs will support up to two units in the unhappiness realm, instead of one like the regular fortress. Fortresses & MIs will be able to be placed on any tile excluding ocean, mountain (to comply with city rule), and city tiles. Side Notes - MI's will be able to be produced at 100% slower rate than a fortress. Also, injured units in a fortress will be able to recover at the rate of 25% per turn."

[Falconius]

Originally posted by Akron
Yeah, in SMAC building artillery was useless, except for defending against ships, IIRC.

On the other hand, I hope we don't go too far in the other direction. The Howitzers in Civ II were way too powerful.

In Civ II, I would stop building everything else and build only howitzers and spies. The howitzers would take out the capitals until the AI could no longer afford a new capital. Then the spies would swoop in and buy up the AI cities for almost nothing. If the howies were blocked by zones of control, the spies would slip in and create a path to let them through.

The AI, by contrast, could never properly use its own howies. It would build very few and keep them in the cities as defensive units.

I hope we have balanced artillery in the new game.

[Sarxis]

Originally posted by TechWins
Actually it does seem as if Firaxis spent some time on coming up with a better airfare system.

You mean like, PayPal?

[TechWins]

You mean like, PayPal?

Believe me that's not the first time I've done that. I always leave out the 'war' part in 'air warfare'.

I'm glad to see all the feedback on my idea.

[Faboba]

Originally posted by Falconius
I hope we have balanced artillery in the new game.

From what I've seen/heard artillery will be purely for bombarding units/cities/armies meaning they'll be good for softening up a city prior to invasion as in realist, but you won't be able to actually attack them ( I mean whoever heard of a cannon group taking a city? It's absurd )

[Grumbold]

The strategy may still remain 90% artillery with a good attack unit or army to complete the assault. That would not be too far from the way the West like to fight modern conflicts. I'm more concerned that the movement restrictions inside enemy territory have been made to stop blitzkreig attacks mashing a lame AI. It's going to be a huge obstacle to overcome in MP.

I like the published plans for ancient forts but I think there is a strong case for them and city walls expiring in the modern era. Cities can now be reduced to rubble by air and artillery attacks and the only defence is to prevent anything getting in range. Fixed hardpoint defences have also virtually disappeared from military strategy because they are too easy to avoid, isolate or bomb. Army bases capable of repairing troops like an airbase but having limited or no additional defense modifier would be fine.

[Akaoz]

"I don't think artillery bombardment should allow for unit destruction- not historical, and too unbalancing in the game."

I agree. I also feel that this should aply to airwarfare. Even in '91 Desert-Storm the Americans had to go in with ground troops to actualy destroy the enemy units.

I'd like to see something along the lines of 90% reduction by air/arty and then move in for the kill with a 'regular' unit.

I'd also love to see a 'supression' system for air/arty, but now I'm really dreaming

-Alech

[Akaoz]

*bump*

[Jason Beaudoin]

On thing that I'm wondering about is whether the fortress will become obsolete later on in the game. Jeff Morris seems to hint toward that in this quote:

One advanage of this terrain improvement [the fortress] is the zone of control it gives units normally without one (read: most ancient and middle ages units).

When he says "most ancient and middle ages units", that seems to suggest that modern unit won't get that advantage. This makes sense as fortresses are useless against modern weapons. (No Maginot line for you. )

He also suggests in that quote that not all ancient and middle age units will be able to benefit from that zone of control, and I would imagine that it would be units like the catapult, warriors (possibly), workers and settlers.

[Akaoz]

I think you are reading that quote backwards... I think he is saying that most ancient and medieval units don normally have a ZOC. If you put them in a fort they get this ability. This would imply, that if any modern units don’t have a ZOC (rare as they may be), would get the ability and thus benefit.

But, do the forts offer a flat benefit to defense?

-Alech

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Grumbold
Fixed hardpoint defences have also virtually disappeared from military strategy because they are too easy to avoid, isolate or bomb

That really depends. If a fortress is built to overlook a mountain pass it is not easily avoided. You can't quite leave one behind since the defenders can come out and really disrupt your logistics. You have to put a strong force to guard against it, or reduce it eventually. As for bombing it, you can only do it if you have absolute air superiority. Now that fixed, mobile, and man-portable SA missiles are getting to the point that, unless you are facing a vastly technologically inferior foe (e.g. US vs Taliban), going against a well defended fortress is risky indeed.