I want a fortify command

from GalCiv3 Forums

At this time, we have commands like sentry and guard. For me, they're the commands I hand out when I have ships just sitting there, and I don't want them doing anything else. Unfortunately, commands like sentry and guard aren't good enough for that. They can keep ships just sitting there... unfortunately their very purpose is defined by what conditions will trigger their reactivation and prompting me for instructions. The sentry command wakes up the ship when any ship (any that is not yours) comes into sensor range. The guard command works the same, except the focus is narrowed to only hostile ships (so neutral and allied ships are ignored).

Neither command are what I want. I want a command that will never automatically wake up a ship. If I give a fortify order to a ship, I want it guard the location with its life, and don't bother me with news and reports. The very fact the ship is where it is at is important to me, not what it could be doing.

I'm a fan of building sensor ships. They're ships with a large sensor radius, large enough to detect enemies far away. If possible, I would like to be able to see the locations and movements of all ships. Unfortunately, the sentry and guard commands don't work for this job. They won't activate if their conditions are within sensor range, and will wake up if something does moves into range. The current best way to make this work for me is to click the pass turn button... every turn. This obviously gets annoying real fast if I have multiple ships I would like to fortify.

Likewise, I like keeping fleets in strategic positions on the map. For instance, I might keep a few fleet somewhere between my worlds and the enemy. I put them there with enough distance from my worlds, that if those ships fail to destroy or catch hostile threats, then I have a few turns (or more) to prepare my defenses. Of course, such fleets works best with a good sensor range, and when I don't send them chasing threats that would require more than a single turn to catch. This too would work better if I didn't have to tell a ship to pass it's turn until it is time to attack.

Anyways, I'm not super attached to the name "fortify". If giving it a different name improves the odds of this being implemented, for instance calling it "hold your ground". I've been asking for such a command back when GalCiv 2 was still getting updates.

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Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

This is the first GalCiv game i have played so getting to grips is hard but playing sid meiers civ i used the fortify button ALOT and was surprised not to have one on here it is a simple addition and one i hope is implimented

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I find these commands not quite working as I like, as well as you do.

however my experience is that "Sentry" means you cycle to that ship every turn needing to reset the "Sentry" command; whereas the "Guard" command never ever wakes the ship even when there is a 'hostile' a few hexes away [3 or 4 tiles].


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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Sure why not.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Second things first:  Fortify on Civ 3 & 4 (not sure about 5) worked pretty much identically to Sentry in GC3 (though it also came with a defensive bonus).

Now, to First things: with anything other than a small number of ships on a small map, having a mode which DOESN'T notify you of ships within sensor range runs the very big risk of you missing that approaching ship.  There's simply too many different ships to monitor, and it's easy to miss the graphic symbol of the approaching ship on the galaxy map (particularly if you don't play at maximum zoom out). Playing on huge maps is a big part of GC3, so anything that requires me to spend more time panning around the map looking for issues is a time-waster.

Thus, you run a very severe risk of having ships destroyed without you knowing why or being notified at all. That's a distinct possibility even with sensor ships (which I use).  In fact, using a sensor ship in fortify mode seems completely counter to usefulness, since the whole point of a sensor ship should be to inform you of your surroundings, and if it only does this passively, it loses a big bunch of its utility.

 

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Well that is you. If you don't find a fortify command useful (or even dangerous), I'm not going to make you use it. Just don't tell me that I shouldn't have such a command.

In GalCiv 2, I had the option to outright ignore ships that were idle. Not many ships slipped past my notice. I would agree that some people would miss enemy ships without commands like sentry. However, like everything else, you can learn the skill, and I have learned the skill. I also played zoomed out lots, so that might help.

What I don't like is to keep needing to keep pushing the pass button every turn for every affected ship. I often like keeping an eye on things I don't intend to deal with right away, or I don't have the means to deal with right away. I don't think I should be punished for doing that, by needing to push the pass button frequently.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Ditto the call for some sort of command like this, and also (as was mentioned a long time ago), if possible a wait button, where a ship is skipped for the moment, but you can come back to it later in the turn...  I don't think the game has this, but it would be nice at times (obviously not as crucial, and I feel like maybe there is a way to do this.... very tired right now).  "Fortify" would be the more useful of the two anyway, but both would rock.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Amen for Fortify command, I can say that function is very essential otherwise turns will become very tedious when AIs waste your time with pointless reports when you're hunting for important ones.