Forts: the "starbase" of elemental

Fort should be an important part of the game, and it requires more discussion.   I like chokepoints, fort belongs part of the chokepoint mechanics.    Strategic map Zone of Control is necessary, and its importance with any multiplier game is vital too.

Shameless promotion here, pls check my older post about Roads, Fortress and the Great wall on the Strategic Map

I do not like your 2nd and 3rd idea.  But I do found that a discussion of Fort Placement interesting.  How best to avoid fort spam?  If I have surplus money and stone (material), I should be able to fence off my country with walls and forts, by extending outward from my major cities .  But when is it too much?  Even in TBS, having too much defense structure will bog down the game.     What kind of mechanism will be good for EWOM?

Fort capture dynamics you mentioned... should be included along with any normal city capture situations.

Racial Forts is always great, but maybe a robust fort mechanism should be established first.

I love the idea of forts.  Look to Kohan as one of the best implementations.  Free garrison that replinishes over time.  Great for temporary defense but can be easily overrun with a sustained effort.

To reiterate some points above with my own spin added

Forts are a problem in games like Civ because they do not provide a Zone of Control plus they need to be manually garrisoned. The result is that you are essentially immobilizing a group to provide a defensive bonus that won't generally see use since the enemy can just go around - true chokepoints on the maps are exceedingly rare.

To be a useful component of gamplay Forts either need to provide an automatic garrison and/or a Zone of Control mechanic. The ZOC represents an abstract mechanic where patrols from the fort are constantly harrassing opposing forces. This could be modeled by movement speed penalties or unit attrition or provide bonuses and penalties to forces engaged within the ZOC (like GalCiv). Fort spam could be controlled by tying their limits to resources or research or just disallowing overlapping ZOCs.

I Agree with imbiginjapan.  That is what Kohan did.  Free garrison, ZOC, and no overlap with other forts or cities to prevent spam.  Incidentally forts did grant access to resources within the ZOC which helps reduce city spam and provides an upkeep free source of defense.  Overall it worked very well.  Kohan was RTS but the mechanics still apply to Elemental.  You can't guard resources with standard troops when upkeep is required.  No one will do it.

I hope Stardock gives this idea considerable consideration.  We NEED reasons to fight outside of cities. 

Lets not forget. Choke Points will be creatable with Magic and unless your attacking force has a Channeler within its ranks, (assuming Hero's will have essence but not Mana, those Rivers and Mountain Ranges my Channeler put up, to protect on my Lands, will most certainly choke you off.

A Fort should be limited to being an Upgraded Outpost. The Outpost is created to gather resources, then if it is decided to have a Military presence as well, then add Towers and Fence the whole thing in.

The construction materials used would dictate how long it takes to have a protected space. Hedges would build quickly, but be of minor defensive value. Wooden walls would build slower but provide much better protection, while Stone Walls take considerably longer to build but provide Max protection.

That way, depending on your choice of materials, if I catch you during said Wall production, your defensive  bonuses would be a % based on the % of completion with a completed protection scheme with a completed structure providing the additional +30% to get to = Max of the total Defensive Bonus alotted.

That is a very good point, and I had almost forgotten about the Kohan system! Excellent contribution!

Yes, Kohan had a very good implementation of forts. Military presence; resupply locations; zones of control. Three major facets that made a tactically placed fort MATTER!

I still like the idea of upgrading and specializing forts -- call me crazy. I draw on some of the forts during the colonial era as precedent. Basically, some forts were literally just trading posts for fur trappers and miners. Sure, there was an armory in those forts, but they were specialized trading locations. Economic priorities with military capabilities just for good measure.

As has been mentioned...   if you want to see a great implementation of forts, check out Kohan.  You built a fort, for a price - and it was somewhat expensive.  But once built, it had a lot of HP and a (slowly) regenerating garrison.  IIRC they kept your nearby troops "in supply" so that they would gradually heal wounds, too.  Perfect for a hardened defensive position, and usually worth the cost!  But not something you could afford to spam.  Besides, they took a while to build, so it was virtually impossible to build one in territory you did not control (at least temporarily).  Unfortunately, you could not actually garrison normal troops inside them in an emergency.

Kohan is a great game that people looking forward to Elemental should try out anyway.  As for Kohan 2, I don't know, as I've never played it.

I must add, however, that upgrading starbases in GC2 was a nightmare.  The mid-game tended (for my play style) to have 95% of each turn dedicated to moving starbase-upgrade ships around and choosing starbase upgrade options.  There were approximately 500% too many upgrades and the amount of tedium caused by each upgrade was way too high,

For anyone that wants a game with strategic depth, I suggest trying "Making of History" from 1933 onwards.

Its ... certainly an interesting style of gameplay.

I like this implementation of "forts." They should always be only an x4 tile big, so they don't city spam, but the idea of giving an AoE radius heal to nearby allied troops is fun. I would like though if you had to garrison real troops in them rather than the building having HP, which seems a little abstract to me.

I liked Sins' implementation of starbases, with a limited set of slots and some fine choices, with a good way to put in some minor economic upgrades instead of strictly war upgrades (there's a reason Civ 4 realized castles should have an economic bonus! It's because in late medieval times they were centers of secure commerce and essential throughout the crusades.)

For those intested find the original Kohan or better yet the stand alone addon.  But ignore Kohan 2 which greatly reduced the scope of the battle and in the process the made a mess of the game.  By the way, Kohan is a great co-op game.  You can find a level of difficulty that will challenge you.  Also, if one player is getting hammered the other player can gift cities,resources, and units to their ally.

Kohan 2 wasn't too bad, but I agree that it reduced the scope of battle which was a high point of the original game.

The more I think of this concept, I believe that it is possible to marry the two concepts together.

For instance, when you build a fort, you get the following instant bonuses:

1. Health regen of your troops within a radius of the fort.

2. Defensive bonuses when garrisoning the fort

3. Additional "vanilla" troops when enemy tries to take fort

You can then choose only one of three options (at additional, higher cost) to specialize the fort:

1. Increase innate troop levels, defensive bonus and make the health regen zone around the fort limit movement of nearby enemy troops.

2. Make the fort into a resource gathering structure that provides X resources per turn and increases the zone of health regen around the fort.

3. Make the fort into a magic structure that MAYBE might increase magic resources and/or increase research points.

What do you all think? Reduces the tedium of starbase upgrading, while still granting good bonuses and meaningful choices.

How about setting supply lines? Having outposts to host your supply base, so that outside of this range, your troops would slowly loose strenght because of no food, no arrows, etc..

Some units would be "self-sufficient", like Rangers.

These supply outposts would eventually be upgraded to defensive forts or trade centers, impeding the ennemy's troop movement, strenght, or increasing your own trade in the region. These outposts would be both a great strategic focal point for the attacker and the defender.

Just a note: Forts and overland military buildings have been suggested already. This should be a "must have" feature in a game like Elemental imo.

Indeed, it worked very well in Kohan. I've made a suggestion about forts and overland military buildings in the past, and IIRC I've mentioned that troops should heal faster there. Also forts should provide defensive bonuses of course, and -needless to say- in tactical battles they should be very important. First of all, the enemy armies must breach the walls in order to capture the fort. Secondly, the player should be able to upgrade these buildings. Example: Water moats, Traps around the fort, etc. etc. "Little" things like these would enhance the gameplay.

Forts are definitely a must have. I must say I honestly don't have a "perfect solution" post about forts right now, as I have done in previous threads about a particular game mechanic.

However, I think Forts should be able to be built in Barren/Forsaken lands, and not require revived land. However, I think that after the revived land spreads across a Fort's land, it should be able to be integrated into a city. What I mean is, perhaps The Fort could become the Castle in the inner "Keep Ring" of a city.

Of course, Forts that have grown into immense Citadels shouldn't be allowed to evolve into cities, I wouldn't think, however building a city next to a giant fort is certainly an option.

Forts should definitely increase the health regeneration of military units (as if they were in a city), however its rather a tricky proposition as to wether forts should be allowed to gather resources or not.

It would be kind of nice if Forts could grow into massive Citadels (which can no longer be integrated into a city) and that such CItadels can build a limited assortment of buildings, including housing and training yards, and be able to train units at limited rates. Just a thought, certainly not anything thats necessary. (only after essence has moved over, of course).

forts could be used to block hold coke points like through mountains, vallys etc..

should allow forts to gather resources depending on the condeiton of the land if its barren and there fertile land you will not to be able to gather it, but if theres iron you will be able to. If forsaken to a less productive degree.

Allowing a fort to become a city or Citadel would be a good feature of this game mechanic.

I don't know....imo forts shouldn't be allowed to gather resources, and they shouldn't be able to "turn into" cities at all.

I kinda like letting forts be able to gather nearby resources, they can provide a bonus to morale (assuming Morale is put in) as well as make the fort less dependant on being close enough to your territory that they won't be cut off from supplies. After all, nothing sucks worse than Fort 354 on the front between you and the guy you are warring no longer be able to produce Doomy Knights of Doom because the enemy looped around and cut off your supply line of Death Ore.

I'd be fine with letting forts evolve into cities as long as it lowers the boni incurred by having units trained at a fort and incurs a cost to upgrade to a city

Hey. Now that is a neat idea. How about having forts being a potential deployment location for your units?

I mean, you could build an addition to a fort, "Military Camp", which would be located in a strategic area.

Also, I'd rather have Outposts to be able to collect ressources than Forts. Forts are military in purposes, Outposts are there for supply and ressource in purpose.

I'll add in my 2 cents here.

There were two ideas I read that I like a lot.

Forts that can turn into cities.

If forts are treated bascially as small settlements without essense and revived land, then I see no problem with it happening. You would basically just go up to the fort, inject 5 essence into it and now its a village.

Let say you could research something call "forward outpost" in the military branch after researching wooden walls. It bascially allows you to start a settlement in the wastelands without needing to use essence. Its could act as "level 0" settlement. So it produces no prestige, no food, no money...nothing. It can only hold like 15 people and starts with zero population. Its just a block with walls. Later you could research tech, that allows free garrison in forward outposts, and bonus effects to units with a certian radius of the forward outpost. It then becomes a true military fort.

Maybe once you build a road to the fort, it starts producing minimal prestige, and a small population can be sustained there. Once you have established a population, you can build things on the fort, but since its a "level 0" settlement, it only allows, for example, 8 tiles to build on. Its enough to build a mine or some other resources gathering building (and be inside a wall), plus you could also have a house or two, a tower and maybe a market center. Its now not only a military fort, but also a small colony and a trading post.

Later, you could turn it into a city VERY easily. Just spend 5 essence. In fact you'll have a very developed little vilalge on your hands. It feels much more organic and it fits in better with existing systems...rather then having an artifical "FORT" structure, that is outside the current system.

Creating walls

I mean walls the radiate out past the fort, that allows players to create a hadrian wall type structure. So could have a huge wall with forts connecting them inbetween. This should be expensive and time consuming to create. You'll need a population at the fort, plus maybe a proper "engineering" type building at the fort. Only advanced factions with money to burn could errect one.

Hadrian wall? What is that?

What you describe look like the Great Wall of China.

 Here you go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian's_Wall

I know less about the great wall of china than Hadrian's wall. I know that hadrian's wall was a sting of forts connected by walls to create a very well protected and defined border. THe great wall of china seems more like a wall interconnecting watch towers in order to prevent calvary armies from the northern plains to enter China. Some of hadrian's walls forts were massive, and towns in their own right. Great wall of china didn't seem to have that, or at least much less. Again I don't know much about it.

Good ennough. But you could do either, right? the one with just a laaaaaarge wall costing a fortune in maintenant and overseeing, and the other on with forts interconnected.

I guess you do it either way. I like the interconnecting forts idea because it puts some order to the system, instead of just building walls willy nilly wherever you want. In the end they are both walls, and should cost a lot to build.

Indeed, forts should be "hardcore" military buildings, which is why I said, that they shouldn't be able to collect resources and/or they shouldn't be able to turn into cities. [In fact, forts should have different levels, like I've suggested it a while ago...here is the topic: https://forums.elementalgame.com/366248 ]