[GS] Ancient Walls now provide 100 outer defense?

[Lord Yanaek]

True enough, and i've always been an advocate of "play the way you have fun" but ideally the game should be balanced so that you don't have to choose between "having fun" and being efficient. That would mean that peaceful or military should be both equally valid (apart from domination obviously) and tall or wide should both be viable and approximately equally strong when played well.

Currently wide conquest is way stronger than any other approach, largely due to how easy it is to conquer cities and i hope the changes in GS will make conquest harder so it's not always the obvious approach for anyone trying to be competitive/efficient. I also hope it doesn't become too hard as more military inclined players shouldn't be left with a game they don't enjoy but ideally the benefit of a conquered city should more or less balance the cost/effort of conquering it and it's definitely not the case in the current state of the game.

I hope this makes my PoV clearer.

 

[Pietato]

If catapults have 3 range, then artillery - which can shoot much farther in reality than puny catapults - would have to have an even greater range.

Like machine guns and archers?

 

[Arent11]

Like machine guns and archers?

Hey, I didn't design this game, Firaxis did! Don't blame me

Obviously, the idea was to have a nice classical front line, archers in the back, spearmen & swordsmen in the front, horsies at the side. And that works well - until renaissance. Then you suddenly need to explain why musketmen would be a melee unit with less range than archers.

Honestly, I'm open to suggestions. If you would ask me, I would probably make archers/catapults simply support units that can be stacked.

 

[Inhalaattori]

They did say that they want to push science, culture AND domination victories farther to future. I guess this is one way to do it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

They did say that they want to push science, culture AND domination victories farther to future. I guess this is one way to do it.

It's hard to justify such a design rationale, given the time where outcome is likely decided vs time outcome is seen is already long in IRL terms.

I disagree with this change in general. If you want to defend yourself decently, there's nothing wrong with the notion of needing to build some units to do so.

 

[agonistes]

It's hard to justify such a design rationale, given the time where outcome is likely decided vs time outcome is seen is already long in IRL terms.

I disagree with this change in general. If you want to defend yourself decently, there's nothing wrong with the notion of needing to build some units to do so.

Hmm. My first thought was 'ah, a boost to city-states! Great!' I have trouble regarding this as a significant boost to players, because it seems pretty rare that a player's city is in jeapordy - I mean, the old ancient walls are pretty much a guarantee that your city is safe, no?

 

[Leyrann]

ideally the game should be balanced so that you don't have to choose between "having fun" and being efficient.

As long as there's a difference between a normal playthrough and a speedrun playthrough, this choice will exist.

 

[Victoria]

It will be much harder to capture cities by archers, so eliminating a Civ in ancient becomes more difficult, therefore you'll be more likely to face a normal/dark classical instead of golden/normal ones on random maps.

If you take the pure archers route, I found sword with Ram is quite good but yes it wiil be more likely than before. For a while I have been avoiding the first rush anyway and finding other ways to get golden classic.
The key point I think is while it is harder for the player it is much harder for the AI, they seem to come with catapults rather than rams. They really need to fix rams so only the unit in the tile gets the benefit.

I mean, the old ancient walls are pretty much a guarantee that your city is safe, no?

On Deity If have seem Mamaluks attack my walls with no support troops. It is more about the city defence strength than the walls. But yes, they seem to be a lot safer initially.

 

[Leyrann]

They really need to fix rams so only the unit in the tile gets the benefit.

Are you sure that's what's intended?

I mean, it might be a good nerf, but I thought that it currently works as intended.

 

[Victoria]

I mean, it might be a good nerf, but I thought that it currently works as intended.

Its probably working as intended... but feels wrong that a ram which is used to knock down a gate can be used all around the walls. It makes taking cities too easy and the AI does not use them.
Just my view.

 

[agonistes]

If you take the pure archers route, I found sword with Ram is quite good but yes it wiil be more likely than before. For a while I have been avoiding the first rush anyway and finding other ways to get golden classic.
The key point I think is while it is harder for the player it is much harder for the AI, they seem to come with catapults rather than rams. They really need to fix rams so only the unit in the tile gets the benefit.

On Deity If have seem Mamaluks attack my walls with no support troops. It is more about the city defence strength than the walls. But yes, they seem to be a lot safer initially.

I'm having trouble understanding that, but what I mean is, even the old walls buy you enough time to reposition your troops if somehow you get caught with your pants down. So I agree fully that it impacts the ai (much) more than the player.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

If you take the pure archers route.

The aim of the archer rush is to eliminate a Civ to get 9 golden age points and emergency gold before classical era. Sword with ram comes too late I guess. Sword needs iron, which is not automatically given if it is not a sword UU. It needs to build a settler and move to the position, which takes too long time for a rush.

Only Macedon/Rome can use sword rush.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Its probably working as intended... but feels wrong that a ram which is used to knock down a gate can be used all around the walls. It makes taking cities too easy and the AI does not use them.
Just my view.

I have to agree with that. Rams are a bit stupid in the way they work right now. They are probably working as intended but were badly designed.

In the latest Deity 6otM (Kongo-Domination-Classical Era start) i basically eradicated 2 civilizations with sword (UU)+Ram (Archers played a very minor role in eliminating the 2nd), then another one with Knights and later Muskets + Ram. In the end of the game i had 2 lvl5 Helicopters using the Escort promotion to quickly move ... those 2 battering rams. Can you imagine anything more stupid than modern combat helicopters dropping battering rams next to a modern city to destroy it's fortifications?

 

[thecrazyscot]

I've been wondering whether it would be worth it to provide a city-combat buff to all AI players when they're fighting the human player. A super gamey way to make them more threatening to you, but would put your cities in real danger of falling to any AI attack that involves multiple units. Plus, this wouldn't make them any more or less effective vs the other AI or CS factions.

 

[Cuneiform]

We don't yet know the full amount of changes to Unit strengths that may have accompanied this.

It could just be to provide a larger defensive scale to fine tune Siege Units against, and push back Urban defences even further in the Tech Tree because of some even more powerful unannounced Future Tech Units.

 

[Leathaface]

As @bbbt says, this is going to make it harder for the AI but if they have not fixed rams it will make little difference to the player.

I agree, when you use a ram and attack a city with a couple of melee units the city might as well have no walls at all. Rams need a nerf.

 

[Cagarustus]

Hey, I didn't design this game, Firaxis did! Don't blame me

Obviously, the idea was to have a nice classical front line, archers in the back, spearmen & swordsmen in the front, horsies at the side. And that works well - until renaissance. Then you suddenly need to explain why musketmen would be a melee unit with less range than archers.

Honestly, I'm open to suggestions. If you would ask me, I would probably make archers/catapults simply support units that can be stacked.

Gedemon has created a mod which does exactly that. It’s called ‘Combat and Stacking Overhaul’. It’s available on this Forum.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I agree, when you use a ram and attack a city with a couple of melee units the city might as well have no walls at all. Rams need a nerf.

Cities need units to make an effort defending them. Rams are fine.

 

[Disgustipated]

Cities need units to make an effort defending them. Rams are fine.

Agreed. Maybe it's the Civ4 lover in me talking, but you wouldn't leave your cities undefended in Civ4. Improving the AI to defend their cities would be more effective. Although they do a halfway decent job putting melee or archer units in the city. But I would like to also see them surround a threatened city with units.

 

[Sostratus]

My big concern with making walled cities beefier is not whether catapults can crack them; but that catapults need 2x as long to break the walls means they will be exposed too long- and die in the process. Siege weapons are very very expensive in civ6 and have no defence from ranged strikes. This isn't just about the player - the AI sometimes brings siege with them to a city. The AI is also programmed to focus fire down siege units with ranged attacks. It's very unfun and leads to our current ram spam.

I would hope that they have pity on siege weapons and give us a trebuchet. Siege weapons should be something infantry or mounted can demolish easily- not pelted with arrows from afar. If you let the Sultan set up his bombards safely, even Constantinople can fall...