City walls. Are they worth the bother?

[Steve Clark]

What kind of barbs are clobbering your pikemen?

I've been building more walls lately. But only on coastal and frontier cities which I can't fortify quikly (not connected by roads etc). But even with them the barbs have been tearing me up. I had a pikeman within walls on a city on a hill and they still got wasted easily from barbs. I was quite mad. I still need offensive units to take these guys out. But I need walls for the coastal cities because the barbs land and attack in the same turn.

[mindseye]

Hey, the Chinese did a LOT with gunpowder!

During the Ming dynasty they had cannons, firearms, sidewheeler riverboats equipped with fireball-hurtling catapults, concussion bombs, smoke shells, beautiful bird-shaped incendiary rocket-bombs, and - coolest of all - anti-ship cruise missiles!

I saw a model of one of these two-stage missiles in a Hong Kong museum. The name translates as "dragon rising from the water". It looked like a torpedo with an elaborate, carved dragon's head and finned tail. Attached were four angled rockets which allowed it to skim above the water's surface. Once it neared the target vessel, a volley of rocket-propelled arrows streaked out of dragon head's open mouth. What a terror weapon!

For a short period in the early 1400's the Chinese could muster fleets of hundreds of ships. The largest were 12-masted giants, triple the size of the biggest American clipper ships. Imagine if one of these fleets, equipped with cruise missiles, had shown up off the mouth of the Thames in 1430! Probably we Americans would now be saying "Ni hau" instead of "Hello"!

- mindseye

[arii]

Almost never build them. I prefere to expand, and have a few offensive units on hand for when the opponent gets close. Also I never attack cities with walls; I use dips to get the wall down 1st. So when you feel all safe behind your walls, the next thing you know the wall is down and 3-4 crusaders are coming at you (and you wasted a lot of shields building the wall).

[The Mad Monk]

You delay metallurgy too???

Ever consider how fitting that is, considering the original builders of the Great Wall and what they did with their gunpowder (or didn't do...)?

[The Mad Viking]

I don't build very many. (vs AI)

I build the Great Wall. What no-one's mentioned is the tremendous diplomatic advantage it gives you. People fall all over themselves to offer cease-fires and treaties. It lets you concentrate on growth and research.

It also lets you build a city in enemy territory, because the wall is there instantly
I delay metallurgy, have embassies to check if another civ is researching it, and only then build walls in perimeter cities. By then I'm more than ready to kick @$$. If I lose an odd city to Barbs its easy to take back, but I hate giving up an advance to another CIV.

[inca911]

I enjoy building up the heart of my empire, a dozen perfect cities, and will build city walls only in chokepoint cities unless an imminent threat makes a rush-built wall a necessity. This happens very seldom since I use a lot of fortresses to prevent anyone from approaching my cities, and stacked units on the front line to prevent bribery. My opinion is if you've let anyone get so close to your cities that you are counting on walls to save you, you have a poor defense which is inviting trouble. There is no doubt that the Great Wall is very nice if you are building/ conquering tons of small cities and rushing off with minimal defense for them. I simply dislike the micromanagement aspect of so many small cities so I never bother with building the Great Wall. I think your civ style largely dictates how much you like this Wonder or city walls in general. Perfectionists love walls to keep them safe. Conquerers don't like them since they have no intent on staying put in any one place for a period of time.

[Steve Clark]

Since I only build 10-12 cities, I always build walls (usually by the Great Wall and then individually in most of my cities after Metallurgy). The reason? Put a couple Pikemen behind those walls and you don't have to worry about defenses for a long, long time (against the AI of course). The GW is not the first improvement I build. I usually wait until I can use caravans to built it all. Once the GW or walls are built, I just concentrate on building up my science city, cranking out millions of caravans and then enough units to clobber the enemies.

[tobyr]

Build city walls, but do not build them too soon!

If you build them early, the cost in lost turns, when you could have built something else, is too great. The biggest potential cost is that you could have founded a number of additional cities instead of building walls. I would rather build four more cities and lose one, than put up walls to protect the six cities I already had.

A great feature of the great wall wonder is that by the time it expires, it only costs you a few turns to build real walls.

I play the ToT 4-map fantasy game, in which the considerations for building walls are somewhat different:

Underground and undersea, you can postpone walls a long time unless under heavy attack.

On ground level, you need walls usually before 1AD to deal with powerful barbarians.

In the sky, you need walls a little later, also to deal with very powerful barbarians.

Many of the tribes in the fantasy game have a good defensive unit that can really hold a city if it has a wall (unless attacked by dragon or Kraken barbarians early in the game).

The great wall ("Excaliber") expires earlier in the fantasy game, sometimes right after you build it. Also, in the fantasy game you are relatively likely to want to bribe a few expensive barbarians (250 to 500 gold each) around 1 AD. Where do you get
gold like that? When desperate, you can sell some city walls!
- toby


------------------
toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

[Sieve Too]

In SP against the AI, don't bother. Build two more Settlers instead. Get Elephants/Crusaders and Diplos early. Connect your cities with roads. Rush units to the attack point and take out the AI before they strike even once at your city.

You should make it a habit to engage the AI outside of your city radii. There's nothing more annoying or harder to get rid of than a fortified AI Phalanx sitting on your mined hill. And if you're really unlucky, the AI and barbs will pillage all your hard-earned mines, irrigation and roads.
What good is a wall protected city to you if it can't produce anything?

[War4ever]

KhanMan you hit the nail on the head..... expansion is a must in MP..... if you don't your dead......especially in a small map..

[KhanMan]

aM: Uh, I hate to ask this, but:
How many mp games have you played? My limited experience has been that, when a human player wants your city, (s)he will normally send at least ten units, timed to attack the same turn. You're risking alot my not expanding...

-KhanMan the paranoid expansionist

[adaMada]

I ALWAYS build city walls, in every city. The 3x defensive bonus is worth it, and I generally don't build too many cities, and defend the ones I do build well. Most of the time, with city walls, only two or three units can hold a city agianst multiple hit-and-run raids.

------------------
adaMada

[War4ever]

because while your building walls i have two more settlers per each wall you build thus i have a larger and more powerfull empire including more troops in and out of the field.... these troops will prevent you from reaching my cities

Yes, walls are worth it. I build them in all cities. No maintenace, why not?