Wonders Strategy Article: The Great Wall

Probably the most versatile wonders in my book, alot of people have different vuiews of the thing! So let's take a look at this thing

Requirements

Masonry
+100% production with Stone.

Abilities

Prevents Barbarians from entering culture borders of your empire (not just the graphic Great Wall) on your continent.
+100% Great general production within cultural borders.
Generates +2 Great Spy Points
NEVER goes obsolete!

Strategies/Synergies

1) Keeping barbarians out, what's not to like! No pillaging of resources and the barbs will hit the AI especially if you keep burning their cities! Helps later in the game if you have alot of those unihabitable ice/tundra regions you need alot of fog-busters to keep clear! The Great Wall does NOT work on water, as far as keeping barb galleys out.

2) The +100% GG bonus has some nice synergy with certain traits. IMP will get you GG points at 4X speed inside their culture borders, so 1 promotion becomes 2 from IMP and that 2 becomes 4 from the Great Wall (pretty neat, huh!). Protective get's a bonus because you can mock your rivals and let them break their armies on your well fortified border cities. Charismatic has nice synergy also for gaining faster promotions within your culture borders and thus more GG points which are multiplied by teh GW! Agressive I have found is soso as you should be sending your troop OUT to battle and not play defense. For these reason the following leaders have big Great wall benefits will I will discuss at the end

3) THose 2 Great Spy Points are the major way to get an espionage game going. Popping an early Great Spy (I think only 4 wonders produce GSPY points) is very valuable and can change the game's direction more than any other early Great Person (not always but often enough). If you miss the Great Wall you have to wait until courthouses to run 1 Great Spy. Sometimes this reason alone is a good reason to build the Great Wall. Also a PHIL leader could benefit from this wonder to run an espionage economy.

4) Capture the Great wall? Well you have instant extra GG production as the AI tried to recapture their city! Bring along a few defense promoted units to secure it while the enemy triies a failed counter attack.

5) About other wonder synergy, there is not much. Spoiler other wonder pools with GSpy points or vice versa is not much good here. So teh great Wall is a wonder that does very nicely standing on it's own!

6) Building it! well, it's cheap enough to build straight, yet delayed enough where you can get close stone on-line (since the Great wall needs masonry enyway). You can also chop it out fairly easily.

Now, about those leaders with good Synergy

Cyrus (IMP/CHA), 4X GG points (within culture borders) for a leader that get's promotions 25% faster! Need I explain!


Genghis (IMP/AGG), again 4X GG (again culture borders), but the GER also indirectly pertains here. You can easily build 9 XP mounted units in several Mongol cities which can patrol your defensive border durign battle which you stack of doom rumbles along. Again, faster GGs.


Charlemagne (PRO/IMP), again 4X GG (again within culture borders), but you got a protective leader with a UB decreasing costs even more! That means you slam more and more cities aginst your neighbors's border (preferable on a hill and behind a river) with walls and castles and start name calling! Toss in the UU which is the best defensive UU in the game and watch your enemies power numbers drop.

Churchhill (PRO/CHA), fast promotions of defensive units is cvertainly a GG production help! But he shines with drafting of redcoats. Takes a little longer to establish but a defensive war with CHuchill redcoats can produce ALOT of GGs ready to go to work during the later infantry/tank era!

and Tokugawa (PRO/AGG) post gunpowder. The master of the gunpowder units, drafting a gunpowder units with a base combat I, CGi, drill I PLUS the Great Wall is pretty nasty. even if you have only a barracks and get 1 XP, those units will pop out GGs like crazy in defense. Getting to that points is sometimes a challenge though!

OK, I probably said more about the Great Wall than I should have, but it's a great and powerful wonder!

So let's hear it!

MS, Imperialistic Leaders only get the 4x bonus when fighting inside their borders.

Unless we're looking at a Snaaty challenge, or an RPC where defensive war will be at play, rarely will most players have stacks inside their territory, considering the AI's incompetence at war.

Great Spies are useful in the early game and when one is prioritizing war (infiltration, et. al), but in the mid-to-late game, I've found that the Great Spy dilution of the GPP pool makes it a bit risky to build the GW in the capital; when I'm trying to grab Scientists for a Mass Media, Biology, or Liberalism run -> I don't want Great Spies.

Gooblah said:

MS, Imperialistic Leaders only get the 4x bonus when fighting inside their borders.

Unless we're looking at a Snaaty challenge, or an RPC where defensive war will be at play, rarely will most players have stacks inside their territory, considering the AI's incompetence at war.

Great Spies are useful in the early game and when one is prioritizing war (infiltration, et. al), but in the mid-to-late game, I've found that the Great Spy dilution of the GPP pool makes it a bit risky to build the GW in the capital; when I'm trying to grab Scientists for a Mass Media, Biology, or Liberalism run -> I don't want Great Spies.

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Yep, I know that but was not clear in teh OP. I corrected it, thanks!

GW = Archery vs Masonary
GW is very high on AI must do list , you better be fast , on Immortal the AI can finish it around 2500 BC

On higher difficulties the AI gets the GW up pretty quick. Linking up Stone if you have build both the quarry and a few roads to it is pretty much not worth it (and any roads is bad if you don't have the wheel as a starting tech); it will gone before you get the stone up unless you also nerfed your expansion to get the GW.

As far as leaders, I'd also suggest that it is best with leaders who start with mining. This allows you to get it second tech (after BW). My personal favorites are Churchill - starting techs of fishing and mining so you have decent odds of a start where you can beeline a GW chop and Pro/Cha is nice for settling that hill city right next to Monty where you can flank away his siege and rack up massive GG points. QSH is another other favored shot with this, mining + ag gives even better odds of not needing any other worker techs before you chop the GW, you get the IND bonus, and you are again Pro for the nice defensive war for GG farming. Augustus also shines with the Imp/Ind, with the forum to boot for faster GSp; fishing/mining starting tech is nice, but prats are so good on offense that you will wait a long time before you get defensive wars.

Toko is in a bad position on high levels to gun for the GW. He starts with neither mining nor myst and often needs to tech Ag or worse AH for food. GK, likewise suffers from bad starting techs and further his UU pretty much begs for a massive offensive push.

mirthadir - what is your opinion on the Egyptian and Persian leaders? They both have early UU that are made for offensive pushes, so I doubt that the Great Wall would be useful if there is a close enemy nearby. Of course, for Ramesses II, you could try to hog all the wonders.

China, Summaria, Spain and Celts are optimal for the Great Wall.

The evidence is clear.

The anti-barbarian thing is great since it gives you one less thing to worry about in the early game and any barbs that do spawn near you will wander over to harass the nearest AI. An early Great Spy can let you grab some techs without having to trade from them, but I don't know if gives all that much benefits over getting an early Scientist instead and researching them yourselves. If there's enough fighting inside your own borders to make the GG bonus critical, there's something going wrong with your game to begin with, so that's rarely a major factor.

If I have Stone or am Industrious and can do some quick chopping, then I'll go for it, but it can be safely ignored without much effect on gameplay. It's more of a "fine" wonder than a "great" wonder.

DMOC said:

mirthadir - what is your opinion on the Egyptian and Persian leaders? They both have early UU that are made for offensive pushes, so I doubt that the Great Wall would be useful if there is a close enemy nearby. Of course, for Ramesses II, you could try to hog all the wonders.

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The GW is not that great for the Egyptians. Barbs are less of an issue with WC, if you are going to leverage anything civ specific you have a quick offensive war and you will get far more out of chopping WC than the GW. Hatty further benefits less from an EE than most leaders as Cre's discount on libs is worthless (the most common building you normally have to rebuild in conquests). Obels pretty much also do nothing to help leverage an early GSp. Ram is just far too useful at getting better wonders reliably; on immort and below he does good to get the GW, but also every other wonder, particularly if he has stone in the first 2 expansions of the cap or on a handy river at the first new city.

For the Persians, the UU is pretty much a gun and go type unit, also quite good against barbs for a long time. It becomes exceedingly useless once the AI gets some strong defenses (particularly swords and spears). If I'm rushing the GW is pretty useless (unless I'm rushing the guy who built it for me); also bad starting techs make the GW a rather sizeable side track.

Darius benefits from a quick EE as Fin is good for quickly hitting alphabet and FIN cottages are the best improvement in the game for raw espionage. Setting up an EE with Darius is pretty good, he's rolling in cash so if you can take or build the mids you can get an early US warmachine on the ground and just flip EP or gold while doing ICS with mad cottages. The AI will get banking for you pretty early so you can run US/(FS/Nat)/slave/(SP/FM)/Theo with only two sets of buildings (one of which is cheap) and all of which come off common AI tech lines. Cyrus isn't so hot overall for the GW, yes you can generate a large amount GG which you can settle for mad promoted units, but frankly he's a promo machine anyways and the opportunity cost is thus much higher.

If there's enough fighting inside your own borders to make the GG bonus critical, there's something going wrong with your game to begin with, so that's rarely a major factor.

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Meh, depends upon how you set things up. If it is you Shaka and Monty on a continent, odds are you are going to war. Pre-construction this is virtually a gimme for stock up a walled city with defenders and get free GG points (of course all those sunk into units ain't all that fun). Also, do recall that when the AI counterattacks your newly taken city that counts for GW purposes; amphib warfare doctrine is all about two things: leveraging mobility and abusing the CG promo to eat AI stacks (CG III MGs being the ultimate abuse thereof).

GW is good for any industrious (Bismarck) and is good for Phi (Peter) with stone. Sometimes it goes late so you can build it if you have many hammers in your cap. It's very good for 'forcing' barbs on your neighbors, it's not good for close borders. If you time it right you can force barbs on a neighbor and follow up with an invasion of your own.

Charismatic has nice synergy alos for gaining promotions within your culture border faster!

It is extra GG points, not extra XP, right?

sfnhltb said:

Charismatic has nice synergy alos for gaining promotions within your culture border faster!

It is extra GG points, not extra XP, right?

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YEs, it's GG points. I will correct teh OP, thanks.

I think I remember testing this once, and the GW only gave me double GG points when I was attacking people in my own territory, not defending from them.

The other synergy with IMP leaders is it allows an easier settler rush.

2) The +100% GG bonus has some nice synergy with certain traits. IMP will get you GG points at 4X speed inside their culture borders, so 1 promotion becomes 2 from IMP and that 2 becomes 4 from the Great Wall (pretty neat, huh!). Protective get's a bonus because you can mock your rivals and let them break their armies on your well fortified border cities. Charismatic has nice synergy also for gaining faster promotions within your culture borders and thus more GG points which are multiplied by teh GW! Agressive I have found is soso as you should be sending your troop OUT to battle and not play defense. For these reason the following leaders have big Great wall benefits will I will discuss at the end

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This is flat out wrong. Everyone get +100% GG points within their own borders. IMP get +100% more for +200%(3 points per XP) and GW gives +100% as well for +200%(3 points per), GW+IMP is +300%(4 points per XP).

While it is true that with IMP and GW it pays off more to war within your borders, it is far from true that you get more great generals from building GW when you are IMP compared to when you are not(comparativly you get more if you aren't IMP, though of course you get more overall if you are IMP).

5) About other wonder synergy, there is not much. Spoiler other wonder pools with GSpy points or vice versa is not much good here. So teh great Wall is a wonder that does very nicely standing on it's own!

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It has very nice synergy with the other rex wonders, stonehenge and later on hanging gardens.

oyzar said:

This is flat out wrong. Everyone get +100% GG points within their own borders. IMP get +100% more for +200%(3 points per XP) and GW gives +100% as well for +200%(3 points per), GW+IMP is +300%(4 points per XP).

While it is true that with IMP and GW it pays off more to war within your borders, it is far from true that you get more great generals from building GW when you are IMP compared to when you are not(comparativly you get more if you aren't IMP, though of course you get more overall if you are IMP).



It has very nice synergy with the other rex wonders, stonehenge and later on hanging gardens.

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This I was not aware of and I need clarification.

Are saying If I am Shaka (without the great wall) amd sent a stack into enemy lands I get the normal 1 GG point per level obtained. If old Shaka fights within his own culture boundaries he get and extra +100% GG production or a total of 2 GG points per level obtained within culture borders???

I was never aware of this base +100% GG bonus for culture wars.

Yeah that is what i am saying, I started a thread on it (thought i thought it was something else that caused it) and dan confirmed this behaviour.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=289370 here is the thread.

i prefer my barbarians to be off, so if i have to play with them on, i like this wonder. its a pity about the GS points, although infiltrating can be used effectively (after playing EE games, i am not convinced that it is a good strategy for the longterm to use spies for teching however).

as for the defensive attributes, i would not rate them. unless you are playing an AW game, you should never plan to have to fight in your own territory... if you do have to then that is because something has gone wrong either diplomatically or militarily.

I believe this is the thread

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=289370

I am not the one for reading XML, but looks like you are correct here. Thanks and nice pickup!!!!!!

So GG points go

Base 1 (1 promotion)

Add Imperialistic 2

Add Imperialistic within culture borders 3

Add Great wall Imperialistic within culture borders 4

My only question is, are we sure it applies to single player and not just multi-Player?

My confusion was a similar thread a year or so ago which appartently showed a 400% GG increase for IMP/GW/within culture, it was assumed it's doubled twice. Your explaination also explains it just as well (and it makes alot of sense in gameplay).

tycoonist said:

i prefer my barbarians to be off, so if i have to play with them on, i like this wonder. its a pity about the GS points, although infiltrating can be used effectively (after playing EE games, i am not convinced that it is a good strategy for the longterm to use spies for teching however).

as for the defensive attributes, i would not rate them. unless you are playing an AW game, you should never plan to have to fight in your own territory... if you do have to then that is because something has gone wrong either diplomatically or militarily.

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Good point about BArbs on/off. The Wonder has less appeal if Barbs are turned off and should be mentioned.