Defense bonus for being in a city!!

[Urban Ranger]

That's silly. Many large Chinese cities had walls, and they had a bit more than 300,000 people.

[player1]

DOES anybody remember a City View screen wich teared doen City Walls?
I think that walls stay in the city but don't give def. bonus (maybe a culture after becoming obsolete)

[Ralf]

City walls only provide a defense bonus of 50%, and disappear once your city reaches size 7. Size 7-12 cities have an inherent defense bonus of 50%, and cities larger than 12 have an inherent bonus of 100%.

I think I like this.

Civ-2 style citywalls, with its tripled defence-bonus, was a little too powerful for its own good. A peaceful player could often get away easily with only 2-3 potent combat-units per city. Now, thanks to the reduced defensive citywall-bonus, one is forced to watch ones back, more then before it seems.

[Hophead]

...you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.

I always thought city walls were a little silly in modern cities. Instead of disappearring after a certain population limit per city, they should disappear after you enter the modern age.

[TVA22]

Great Wall?

I remebered hearing that Firaxis scrapped the idea that the Great Wall among a few others would be placed on the world map... Did they just go back to the original bonus it gave in civ2? That it gave city walls to every city...? If so, don't you get the Great Wall when you get the aqueduct? So that would make the Great Wall a REALLY worthless wonder, since you'd probably just opt for making the aqueduct, as you need them eventually anyway?
Any thoughts?

[Urban Ranger]

I still don't understand the rationale behind having city walls becoming obsolete when a city reaches population of 7. Can't they just push the damn walls outwards?

[Roman]

I don't like this at all. Sure , cities providing inherent bonuses after size 7 is a good idea, but city walls should not become useless. Maybe, they could provide +1 defensive point to all units in the city instead after reaching size 7. This would solve the problem with modern units as against them such a bonus would be insignificant.

[SerapisIV]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
That's silly. Many large Chinese cities had walls, and they had a bit more than 300,000 people.

Civ cities of size 6 are considered to having 210,000 people:
Lyons city-screen

Civ cities of size 7 are considered to have 305,000 people:
Eisenstein city-screen

At some point it's easier to defend house to house then to man each portion of an increasinly expanded city wall. The size6/7 cutoff seems pretty good to me and is pretty darn close to your own historical facts

[SerapisIV]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I still don't understand the rationale behind having city walls becoming obsolete when a city reaches population of 7. Can't they just push the damn walls outwards?

But then how many troops are required to man those walls effectively? With a finite number of troops and a dramatically expanding perimeter, it's easier to fight house to house using main avenues that armies would be forced to take then to use city walls.