Does anyone use forts?

[Killazer]

Do any of you use forts or found any need for forts? If you do why do you build them and have they ever come in handy?

They may be useful as a front line harassment barrier that can weaken invading forces before they get to their targets. I don't know just curious.

[jshelr]

Forts are not used a lot, IMO, because most people are on the offense. It's also true that city defense bonuses are roughly the same as forts.

There are exceptions. Sometimes they are great to defend a choke point or key resources. This is particularly true if you can successfully hide behind the choke point and get an SS victory while the world is otherwise at war.

[Palaiologos]

I use forts a lot, actually.

I always have a strong neighbor who i can't invade so i build border forts with two-three defenders. The AI tends not to bypass them since the defenders take free shots at passing units. I prefer to build them on mountians and hills. Once a single musketeer on a jungle fort killed 6!!! invading cavalry before anInfantry unit stormed the fort.

[jabberwockysr]

I'd used forts in a similar manner in my first game, but that was when I had Civ2 ZOC understanding... Chinese cavalry took 2 of my border cities by simply marching past and taking the ZOC shot. Oops.

Since then I've used them in choke points to good effect, but haven't had any long-term borders that weren't choke points...

[Theseus]

I use them a lot. Chokepoints and Maginot Lines (more like Maginot Walls). Also for forward posts, and when elite-hunting.

[jabberwockysr]

Originally posted by Theseus
Chokepoints and Maginot Lines (more like Maginot Walls).

How can you afford the gpt to pay to man such a line? It seems this would cut into your science, but I've only played on Regent so far... I usually go for rail garrisons and a border patrol instead of a Maginot Line to save on the cost.

[Mattaba]

How about a war on 2 fronts, a line of fortresses with garrissons on 1 front and you can go on the offense on the other front.
It feels a lot safer when you have a line of fortresses near your border, especially in the industrial age with railroads you can reach them immediately in an emergency.

[vmxa1]

Never use them in Civ2 or Civ3, not saying they are bad, just prefer to be on attack. If I have a big time choke point, I will likely drop a city there.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by jabberwockysr

How can you afford the gpt to pay to man such a line? It seems this would cut into your science, but I've only played on Regent so far... I usually go for rail garrisons and a border patrol instead of a Maginot Line to save on the cost.

Depends on how big the respective border is... typically I only do this when I have to cover maybe up to 10-12 tiles. I don;t use all defenders, either... 1-2 strong defenders, and then I spread out my offensive units if not currently at war.

[alva]

Don't use them much, seems that ther's always some better use for the worker

If I use them, it is usally on the offensive (after rubber(double work-rate)). Building forts next to a taken city to protect 'stranded' units. And in case a culture flip does happen.

[Catt]

I don't use them a lot, but probably build several forts in about 40% - 50% of my games. Like others, I sometimes use them for chokepoints - I more often use them to build a defensive line on a border or front at which I do not expect to launch an offensive for some time -- by a "line," I don't necessarily mean a solid interdiction line blocking all access, but more frequently several forts in mountains or hills a tile or two in from the border as a good counter-attack point should the civ in question decide to get frisky before I'm ready to come for him. In effect, it serves to set up the killing fields well before hostilities begin.

Catt

[Chemical Ollie]

I have used them in a few games to block chokepoints against stronger opponents. But you need a solid line of them, preferrably on high ground.

Forts where better in CIV2, where units had a zone of control that the enemy could not pass. One option in CIV3 is to have a few forts on hills and mountains, then use plenty of artillery to hit enemies that try to pass in between, then use cavallery or tanks to finish off the wounded.

[XOR]

I use them A-LOT. One of the reasons is because I always end up with more slaves than cities + my own workers, so there's always a moment where there's plenty of idling (shift+A wating for pollution to come). Additionaly, I defend my strategic resources, not ALL of them, and I dont build fortresses on all of them.

On mountain/hill resources I simply fortify a unit w/o fortress.

On resources that are on the shore I build a fortress and fortify a unit.

On resources that are near land borders I build a fortress and fortify one or 2 units.

If a resource is abundant (I have many and I'm not selling any) I just leave it unprotected, unless I have too many idle troops and workers.

On borderline strategic positions (artillery ranges and offensive deployment routes) I build a fortress, fortify a few good defensive units and a couple of artileries. This does not mean every tile in the land border, in a 20 tile land border, 4 are usually enough.

Borderline fortresses are for peace time only, to get ready for a sneak attack. At war I dont build fortresses, I invade. But I've been getting a huge lack of sneak attacks compared to what other's here claim to get, most of the time I'm only attacked by huge multialiances, seems like the AI wants to attack me all the time but wont go unless it can put it's buddies in trouble with them.

[Bella Hella]

i've mainly used fortresses as a hangout spot for soldiers so i don't have to find them when i need them. also as a hangout spot for idle workers. i imagine they'd be good for a builder style game when you're done with expansion/warring. i haven't had much experience with using them to snipe at enemy units, although i hear good things.

[alva]

idle workers?? ther is always something to do for the little buggers!!! or you just have too many(not good for your income).

[XOR]

Originally posted by alva848
idle workers?? ther is always something to do for the little buggers!!! or you just have too many(not good for your income).

Slaves, a few dozens of them, from razing a few overgrown cities owned by insignificant opponents. Slaves dont cost a dime to have and are very easy to get by dozens.

I keep them and dont join them into my cities because each time I conquer someone I take like 3 or 4 transports full of them to quickly improve all the pillaged (or unimproved) tiles. Fast, cheap, usefull.

[Bella Hella]

Originally posted by alva848
idle workers?? ther is always something to do for the little buggers!!! or you just have too many(not good for your income).

that late in teh game, and after terraforming everything i can, i usually join them to my cities. but i like to have a work crew hanging around (i call them my union workers ). this is in case of major pollution outbreaks so i can clean that crap up in one turn and maintain the production rate of that city (metropolis). sometimes i use them to replace a mine with a farm if there's not enough food, or vice versa.

[Palaiologos]

I have the same "problem" with XOR. After my slaves reach a great number i just order my own national workers to join cities, leaving the slaves to do the work.They cost no maintainance.

[alva]

Even if you buy them from another civ, they don't cost any upkeep, so well worth the 25-30 gold.

One sidenote tho': Other civ's don't look upon using their people as slaves as very favorable. Just keep that in mind.

[vmxa1]

Do not forget they work at half speed. I use them until my RR are up and then dump them in favor a natives, less for me to manage and I no longer care about money. The half speed hurts when I need to get a connection back up or built.

[NeOmega]

yup I use them on rough terrain, especially junction points of roads on rough terrain.

Also they are great for holding an agressive enemy at bay with long borders during cannon/riflemen times.

In fact my first game I had an awesome fort in a lone mountain against the indians, from which I would bombard riflemen coming in through the plains around it with a slowly growing cannon force, and a couple of riflemen stationed inside.

Then I would send in my samauri to clean up the straggling wounded riflemen. It was an awesome game, and the samauri, even though were 4 attack vs 6 defense, and were somewhat obsolete, still did a great job of finishing off the wounded riflemen....

[Bambul]

I build forts in part because they add a bit more 'feel' to the game (the same reason I like to keep some battlefleets near hotspots). I will usually build forts near my borders on highground, for the view and to stop enemy units moving onto the higher defence tiles, and on my resources to stop them being pillaged.

Forts near the borders also restrict enemy movement, the best example was one game where there was one big continent with me on the central north and three lakes on my borders. There were two chokepoints of 2 and 3 tiles across which I guarded with two defensive units and one bombard unit. Then I could concentrate my offence on the two other, longer land bridges.

I was also able to keep some ships in the lakes, which kept some carriers and transports with marines in case I needed to make an amphibious assault on a key coastal city before moving my tanks in.

[vulture]

Forts would seem to have a lot more use for the AI (or for humans in mulitplayer) to slow down attacks. Attacking with cavalry or MA in particular there is often no real limit to how many cities you can capture in one turn aside from the fact that you run out of attacking units eventually, since with 3 moves you can usually reach another city (okay, doesn't really hold true pre railroads). If the AI made a habit of building at least a few forts on the diagonals between cities, the attack would either have to go around and run out of moves, or commit quite a few troops against a good defender to break open the route to the next city. Ironically this calls for placing forts on open terrain rather than on mountains or hills, since that is the route the attacking hordes use.

However, I suspect that in most cases rather that have units manning the forts, you'd do better to have them in the cities you want to defend in the first place. It takes more attackers to kill a stack of 4 defenders than to kill two stacks of 2 defenders. Still, there may be situations where it is advantageous to use forts in your interior to break up good attacking routes.

[Jog]

the only use i ever had for them is to station a defensive unit inside a fort on that one single tile that isn't inside your 'cultural borders' before some bastard from across the globe puts a city there and makes things look unattractive...

[Bambul]

The biggest apparent problem with forts appears to be that static defense is useful only in situations such as the first turn of a surprise attack/war. After that the best defence is good offence to take out any incomming units before they reach your cities/resources. This removes a large part of the usefulness of forts, unless something is done to make them more dynamic or do other things while it's not your turn (like giving them Civ2 style ZOC, which would IMO make them much more powerful).

[Anglophile]

I play on very large maps and build very large numbers of forts; indeed my goal is that no enemy unit can cross my borders without taking a fort or at least getting hit by the free attacks from units in at least one and preferably two forts. In my current game, I have about 150 border tiles with the French, Germans, and Greeks in my homeland and probably 100 more in oversea colonies. Even if one is playing an offensive style - which I don't - no one can launch full offenses over such a broad area, two or more front wars are dangerous and inefficient and some sort of defense line is sensible if not absolutely necessary. I put my best attacking units in the cities along the border to counterattack weakened attackers or move to threatened areas. Having a large fortress network also provides a good source of reserves in extremis as units can be moved from peaceful borders to warfronts. I probably have 60 -70 forts now, and have plans for maybe 50 more to complete my empire's border defenses. When war comes, my cities will be protected, my reserves strong and my platform for offensive operations in place.

One final note - I have about 250 workers at this point (for 97 cities - none of which are mine through conquest) and maybe 10% of them are building forts; a cheap investment for the benefits provided.

[Explorer579]

I use forts much less than in civ2. When I decide to block an enemy/neighbour from entering my area, it is usually important to include a fort when you expect the enemy to attack. A month ago, this strategy allowed me to win the game because the enemy had only this strip of land to attack which was defended by that fort.

I wonder though why I use forts much less than in civ2?! Maybe the game has a much faster pace to it now (particularly with fast production). There is no time to build forts if you are on the move. Forts are for long wars with an established enemy. Just like the crusaders!

[Inverse Icarus]

multiplayer will give players more reasons to use forts on human-human borders, i'd imagine, ESPECIALLY when calvary come along.

[Bella Hella]

i used a fort last night to great effect. the persians razed 2 small desert towns of mine, one of which was right next to saltpeter. then they pillaged my road leading there. i was screwed for a while because i didn't have a great army to begin with, and i didn't feel like rebuilding the towns because they were so freakin' useless and would probably flip to either persia or france almost immediately. so after i recovered, i fortified a few defenders on the saltpeter tile and rebuilt the road, this time also builidng a fort. it worked great. when the french randomly declared war on me, they couldn't come close to taking the tile.

since the AI likes to pillage resources/luxuries so much, i would say definitely build forts and fortifiy defenders on important tiles close to enemy borders.

[CiverDan]

whether or not u use forts depends on your strategy and the type of map IMHO. If your going to a cultural victory for example, your probably not going on the offensive that much, and forts can be useful. If your a warmonger, they are almost never used.
As for the map type, on a water filled world..many attacks will be from the sea and its generally worth it more to have a good navy as opposed to fortifying the coast. On a pangaea, there are just too many border squares. It's really only very useful on maps with many choke points.