Walls, WTF?

[DrSpike]

I doubt they will now either, but you never know.

[Jaybe]

In my mind, culture defense represents more solidly constructed buildings (brick, stone, thicker stone, ... to reinforced concrete) and 'patriotism' within the populace supporting the defenders.

[MasterDave]

I like Chicken Itza for the Great Prophet points as much as I do for the cultural defense. Great Prophets can really make your economy hum in the critical early game.

[Eggolas]

Playing on Marathon speed, walls have some situational appeal. I'll build walls in these situations:

1. Taken a city from Napoleon, Alexander or Isabella (any of the resident psychos, including I guess Monty) and waiting for the counterattack. Napoleon will send a horde of horse archers against to retake the city and sitting with pikemen behind the walls is a nice way to get ready for the next attack phase.

2. Build a city into unfogged-busted territory to buffer more important city/improvements. The barbarians hurl themselves against the walls.

3. Ending an attack against a civ, leaving a close border situation with an aggressive civ and needing to move troops in a different direction.

I think these are most valuable on marathon speed though as the pre-gunpowder era lasts quite awhile.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Eggolas
Playing on Marathon speed, walls have some situational appeal. I'll build walls in these situations:

1. Taken a city from Napoleon, Alexander or Isabella (any of the resident psychos, including I guess Monty) and waiting for the counterattack. Napoleon will send a horde of horse archers against to retake the city and sitting with pikemen behind the walls is a nice way to get ready for the next attack phase.

2. Build a city into unfogged-busted territory to buffer more important city/improvements. The barbarians hurl themselves against the walls.

3. Ending an attack against a civ, leaving a close border situation with an aggressive civ and needing to move troops in a different direction.

I think these are most valuable on marathon speed though as the pre-gunpowder era lasts quite awhile.

These are good ideas and I will incorporate them into my own previously-rather-confused thinking on the subject, as I always play on marathon speed. Never noticed, guess cuz I used to play on epic speed before marathon came out and that was pretty long too, but yeah, your pre-gunpowder era lasts and lasts on marathon.

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by Jaybe
'Patriotism' within the populace supporting the defenders.

That seems to be the idea for cultural defense, the support of the local population in building/improvising defensive works, supplying and sheltering the troops (especially the wounded), providing intelligence based on what the locals have seen of the enemy, and refusing to cooperate with the attackers. Even as recently as WWII in Russia, this type of activity made a good deal of difference in hampering the German Army.

[jdchambe]

everyone seems to agree that walls are usually useless because they do not stack with the culture defense bonus, with the exception of specific cases where the culture bonus isn't going to be available for a while.

I have nothing against the cultural defense bonus. I like it actually. I have a couple suggestion regarding walls:

Another thing walls could be modified to do is to add their defense bonus to all units who defend in the city's fat cross rather than just when defending in the city itself. That would mean they still have value even after culture takes over. If that's too much there could be wall improvements that increase the radius as you build them.

1) basic wall. +25% defense bonus to units defending in the city.
2) castle: adds the normal castle bonus to units defending in the city but extends the wall's base 25% bonus to units defending in the 8 squares that neighbor the city (maybe do not want it to stack with the forests bonus though for the same reason that forts destroy forests).
3) something better than castle that comes later: extends the +25% bonus to the entire fat cross.

That is something that would be worth building, because it will help you to defend the improvements in the city's radius in ways that culture does not. (and would make up for some of the uselessness of forts). It would make pillaging a bit harder... but units already have the ability to fortify so would this extra bonus be too much?

as for the gunpowder issue: i don't see much point having walls loss their effectiveness in the gunpowder era. as others have said, since walls can be viewed as basic fortifications consistent with the era, there is no reason to expect that engineer's will loose the ability to come up with new forms of fortifications as weapons evolve and as others have said, engineers have in fact done that repeatedly as weapons evolve.

the other strange thing about having walls not work against gunpowder is that by the gunpowder era, culture in most cities has already taken over to the point that walls are mostly useless anyway.

I say, let them always work against all units, with the assumption that fortification technology is improving as military technology does. you could also force players to upgrade the wall just to keep the bonus, by making them build the "next era's" version of fortification to get the fortification bonus for that era. but as a gameplay mechanic that is a little boring.

Just some thoughts. I like the idea of the upgrades extending the radius of the fortifications. That makes it more interesting, but for that to be sensible, the fortifications would have to continue to be effective in some form past the gun powder era.

[smbakeresq]

Although I agree that fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man, I do believe that walls and castles should have some type of lasting value. I think that lasting value should be a change in the healing rate of units in cities with walls and castles. This would represent the true value of fortifications throughout history, extending manpower.

I believe they where put in the game for completeness and scenarios, however, I hate to see something in the build queue which I would never use. For a healing bonus though, I would definately put them on the list.

[ironbreaker_23]

Ok what the hell is a cultural wall? Is this a proverbial concept? How does your culture affect repeling enemy civilizations? That sounds like something made up to me. Walls are only useful early stages of game and become mediocre to near usless as the game progresses. So how does culture have the ability to stop an enemy from approaching or takeing over a city. Kird apes back!!!

[Generaldoktor]

Blau has a good point about the WWII experience, Leningrad was my example; something more than fortifications saved that city.

However, Ironman speaks from the heart. For fans of nuts and bolts games, "culture defense" sounds like a bleeding-heart sop.

JDChambe has some interesting ideas, (Baker too,) but as I saw his icon on the "Warlords" threads, he knows as I do, that the expansion pack is out this week and walls are among the things changed. Me headed to the store tomorrow , been a great thread, but it's a whole new game now.

I imagine they'll leave it up a couple weeks, let's all play "Warlords" with the new "walls" and if anybody has something further to say, we can maybe do it here.

Game On!

[Kc7mxo]

Originally posted by ironbreaker_23
Ok what the hell is a cultural wall? Is this a proverbial concept? How does your culture affect repeling enemy civilizations? That sounds like something made up to me. Walls are only useful early stages of game and become mediocre to near usless as the game progresses. So how does culture have the ability to stop an enemy from approaching or takeing over a city. Kird apes back!!!

i believe its sposed to represent the assistance of nonmilitary citizens in the defense of the city.

that said, i think it gets way too big, and i never liked it all and would rather it was removed.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

On further reflection, why not

1. cap cultural defense at 40%.
2. rename walls "Fortifications" and perhaps increase their defense value somewhat... for symmetry, let's say 40%. After all, fortifications were used long after gunpowder was invented.

[DrSpike]

Caps are a clumsy way of doing it though. Making it scales in 10%s to 50% with walls additional makes more sense.

[Generaldoktor]

Well, I played "Warlords" last night and am not seeing any noticeable changes to walls, (unless I missed something, didn't build too many up through 430 BC,) other than the addition of the "Great Wall" wonder, which is pretty interesting, but I think I'm going to start another thread with my impressions of "Warlords" in general.

So, I guess there's no reason this one shouldn't keep going. But the next expansion isn't going to be for awhile, so those that want changes are going to be looking at a bit of a wait.