The Great Wall and Dynamite

[blackcatatonic]

A very minor point, this, but it has always amused me that the Great Wall goes obsolete when the builder discovers Dynamite.

I would have thought it would be the people on the other side of the wall having the explosives that might be the problem

 

[Zaimejs]

That is dumb. i thought it was as soon as anyone discovered it. Meh.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

No no no, it makes perfect sense! Once the guy who built it discovers dynamite, he decides "Hey move these god damn bricks outta the way!" and blows up his great wall.

 

[kaspergm]

Yeah, I think someone said it was made this way because having a check the other way around - each time an offender moves in your territory, it has to check whether they have discovered Dynamite - would consume a lot of computing capacity, but really it's just so dissatisfactory. Surely there must have been ways to work around this.

 

[Olleus]

It's the same thing with roads. Once you discover machinery you can walk through others people's roads faster.

 

[Greizer85]

I remember in Civ 2 you could use your enemies' railroads with impunity. I can imagine the conversation when my troops arrived at the border...

'Mr foreign train driver, take me straight to the capital!
-Aye aye sir, make sure your tanks are strapped in securely!'

Good times... Not so funny when they did that to you, though.

On the GW issue: In a game where you can shoot arrows over the English channel and do not need Flight or Computers for a space program (before patches anyway, maybe it's different now), this particular problem is decidedly minor in scale. Just think that the wall obstructs your soldiers' movements in the new artillery-based war doctrine, or smth.

 

[turingmachine]

It's because having wonders obsolete when someone else researches a tech is a bad idea. In general, all it would do is give another bonus to someone in a tech lead, increasing the gap that becomes harder and harder to catch up, while also minimizing the investment of the original builder. It's why almost every game except Civ Rev had it when the builder researches the tech (and Civ Rev was designed only around offensive play with constant war, quick games, no open borders, etc. etc.). Stop thinking of it in a real world sense and think of it as a game mechanic. It is a world wonder, world wonder's follow certain rules (only one can build them, they obsolete when the owner researches, etc.).

 

[kaspergm]

It's because having wonders obsolete when someone else researches a tech is a bad idea. In general, all it would do is give another bonus to someone in a tech lead, increasing the gap that becomes harder and harder to catch up, while also minimizing the investment of the original builder. It's why almost every game except Civ Rev had it when the builder researches the tech (and Civ Rev was designed only around offensive play with constant war, quick games, no open borders, etc. etc.). Stop thinking of it in a real world sense and think of it as a game mechanic. It is a world wonder, world wonder's follow certain rules (only one can build them, they obsolete when the owner researches, etc.).

Well I disagree then. From a game perspective, I also think it should be when the offensive person researches it. That will give him an incentive for researching it and rewarding him for his progress - and remove the absurd case of penalizing the defensive player for tech progress.

 

[Browd]

I guess I disagree with your disagreeing (???).

Anyway, researching Dynamite already effectively neutralizes the GW -- if you follow through and actually upgrade your cannons to 3-range artillery. To have it become obsolete just after researching Dynamite, allowing you to take down GW-protected cities with cannons, seems inappropriate to me.

 

[turingmachine]

Well I disagree then. From a game perspective, I also think it should be when the offensive person researches it. That will give him an incentive for researching it and rewarding him for his progress - and remove the absurd case of penalizing the defensive player for tech progress.

Because the tech leader really needs another bonus against someone and another bonus for researching more tech. There's already enough incentives and rewards for the player for researching it without also adding in penalizing the defensive players investment in building the wonder.

And taking the control of when it obsoletes out of the defensive player's hands to the whim of the tech leader is a bigger penalty than making him avoid researching an offensive tech (which, if he was playing defensively, wasn't probably a huge goal anyway).

The point of the wonder is to aid in defense, not offense. How does it help you defend against another player if it obsoletes when they choose it (aka research something)? It's annoying to the attacking player? Well, yeah, it's a defensive wonder!

 

[kaspergm]

Obviously that's a matter of taste. I know run-away civs is currently a balance problem in the game, but I don't think adding free stuff to those who fall behind is the correct way to solve the problem - which is also why I dislike the current espionage system. If you are tech leader, you have played your cards (figurally speaking) well, you should not be punished for that. If you find becoming tech leader too easy and want more challenge, you should increase the level of the game. If you find becoming tech leader is too easy on Diety ... well, I guess you need to mod the game to give the AI more advantages on Diety ... or look around for a different game. But from a principial point of view, I think punishing someone for doing well is bad game design.

 

[adwcta]

Obviously that's a matter of taste. I know run-away civs is currently a balance problem in the game, but I don't think adding free stuff to those who fall behind is the correct way to solve the problem - which is also why I dislike the current espionage system. If you are tech leader, you have played your cards (figurally speaking) well, you should not be punished for that. If you find becoming tech leader too easy and want more challenge, you should increase the level of the game. If you find becoming tech leader is too easy on Diety ... well, I guess you need to mod the game to give the AI more advantages on Diety ... or look around for a different game. But from a principial point of view, I think punishing someone for doing well is bad game design.

I don't see why being the tech leader should be the only way to win/play the game. That's what balance is... it allows different ways to play the game.

Life is not painfully hard if you're low on culture, or gold, or even military. There are other systems that can compensate for that, which is what makes this game so flexible/great. But, it's already such a hassle to play from an era behind in tech, and the AI already starts with so much extra tech... do we really need to give tech leader more benefits?

I'm not the type of player who wants to do one thing well, then win the game. The game gets worse, not better, when tech leader always wins, because it funnels everyone into trying to be tech leader, which is only one (and currently already the most powerful) of like a dozen different systems in the game.

 

[Browd]

I'm bemused by the statement "I don't think adding free stuff to those who fall behind is the correct way to solve the problem." Exactly how is the Great Wall "free stuff"?

The civ that built it sunk a bunch of hammers into it and has to make the choice to stay away from Dynamite to preserve its benefits, potentially crippling its ability, e.g., to pursue a science victory or upgrade gatlings to machine guns and eventually mech infantry, since Railroad is now required for Ballistics.

You could have done the same, and chose not to. Frankly, it's not clear to me why the GW should ever go obsolete (do any other wonders go obsolete?).

 

[Matthew.]

I don't consider it that much of an issue beyond not making logical sense (which is OK, as many elements in games do not for the sake of balance or performance). I mean if it is a close game there shouldn't be that many turns between one player getting dynamite and another. Sure, you can try and game the system by avoiding dynamite (or shooting for it if it were flip-flopped), but it is still only a difference of a handful of turns.

If there is a huge difference in tech, the one move on Great Wall isn't going to make or break the fight. The tech leader will march his nigh-invulnerable infantry right up to your city and camp out with or without a movement penalty.

But I'm with Browd on this one. Probably shouldn't ever go obsolete, just because. End game military is so powerful as is, it doesn't matter either way so why not just let it persist?

 

[Biologist]

Frankly, it's not clear to me why the GW should ever go obsolete (do any other wonders go obsolete?).

I think the Colossus used to... or maybe that was in Civ IV.

As for why the Great Wall goes obsolete, I guess that is meant to simulate the fact that to a modern military, a large stone wall would be essentially meaningless. Somebody who has tanks, explosives, helicopters, and bombers would not be hindered even slightly by the Great Wall.

Technically the Great Wall could very well become "obsolete" even earlier, such as at Chemistry or Gunpowder. That would make building it almost pointless, though, so the game's creators compromised by making it obsolete at Dynamite (a tech that would logically remove the usefulness of a stone barrier).

 

[turingmachine]

Obviously that's a matter of taste. I know run-away civs is currently a balance problem in the game, but I don't think adding free stuff to those who fall behind is the correct way to solve the problem - which is also why I dislike the current espionage system.

But it's not free!!! There's a huge investment on the part of the defensive player to build the wonder in the first place. There's no adding free stuff here.

If you are tech leader, you have played your cards (figurally speaking) well, you should not be punished for that ... or look around for a different game. But from a principial point of view, I think punishing someone for doing well is bad game design.

How is the tech leader being punished? Is anything being taken away from him? The only one being punished is the defensive player for investing in the wonder.

 

[Xiao Xiong]

Or should become a tourist attraction after dynamite and produce some culture for all the cities that were within the wall when it was built.

That would be consistent with the real world ...

 

[Xahz]

Frankly, it's not clear to me why the GW should ever go obsolete (do any other wonders go obsolete?).

I don't think so, but Ancien Regime deactivates after steam power, which never really made sense to me either.

I'm guessing GW becomes obsolete because a modern era war against a player with GW would be pretty much a nightmare. It would take you a few turns to advance your infantry, tanks, and siege into position with them getting bombed and nuked the entire way there. Then you'd have no option for retreat.

I never build GW but its a huge pain in the ass when one of the AI's does. Unless you're Persia.

 

[Wulf38]

Fun fact: you can have infantry and great war bombers without obsoleting your great wall. People who are behind in tech aren't the only ones who can take advantage of this.

 

[Zaimejs]

I totally agree with the cultural aspect. It is a major draw! It should definitely produce bookoo culture later which would make it much more attractive to build.

I don't think I've ever built it.