Civ7 City Walls and defense schemes.

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Should basic city walls require a technology to build?
In Civ games (and similiar civbuilding 4x games), city walls require a technology / advancements to build which generally becomes available by the latter stage of default 'Ancient Era' (usually 4,000 BC but the Humankind set the beginnings at 10,000 BC instead) and the technology in question is Masonry (Except Humankind where required tech to build First Wall is City Defense and the wall in question is Palisades). Archaeologists however had found that city walls were actually more ancient than standard 4,000 BC Game begins. Ruins of walls and towers of Jericho dated back as far as 8,000 BC. Even if game begins at 10,000 BC the first city walls should be finished in the first FIVE turns right after the settlement is founded.

Also graphical representations of basic wall in Civ6 is this

Cyclopean walls sans ramparts (or maybe not. but think of 'barbaric city walls' or Orc city walls in other games). and surely no crenellations. I'm not sure when did crenelations invented.

But since the Warcraft setting (This is the walls of Orgrimmar, Capitol of The Horde faction in World of Warcraft) is Fantasy with steampunk settings. I don't think the actual ancient city walls will have THIS Many iron bracings or supports like this one but cyclopean stone 'masonry' is correct. ANY ancient city built at the Game Begins should have walls that looks that way.
This came to the conclusions over in game techs requires to build Ancient Walls. or should such walls made available for build from the start? (If mankind learned to leave behind cavern dwellings into the open, and eventually learned to build a strong dwellings with walls and rooftops. then at this point the first settlements should already figure out how to build defensive obstructions to substitute the safety of caves they had left behind. in the same manner.

Well actually when did Tech Masonry first came to exists?
And regarding to wall developments, how should a wall that's as strong as Trojan Wall came to be? Should 'Classical era' has its own walls? Should in-game walls and city defense upgrade player's responsibility to order such construction projects? And what should city defense be when it comes to gunpowder with Big Bombards developed (This should take place BEFORE the first arquebuses invented)? Should diamondshape/arrowshape bastions be a separate buildings to the walls (building ones is not considered 'upgrade' ) or part of upgrade trees like in Civ6 & Humankind?
And when it comes to Contemporary Era with air attacks becomes real. Should Air Defense systems be built manually? and when AA Guns gave way to SAMs, what should upgrading schemes be? automatic when techs is researched or manual?

 

[Henri Christophe]

I like the walls just came after masonry because it give me time to attack the enemy cities before they are able to build walls, is way more easier to conquer cities in early game then after the walls are builded

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

^ So the reasons the city walls require Masonry is for balanced gameplay and realism has to be dropped?

 

[Henri Christophe]

^ So the reasons the city walls require Masonry is for balanced gameplay and realism has to be dropped?

I don't know, historical speaking, when the humankind start to build walls. Do you think it's start just in beggining of the times the humans are already able to do walls? I still thinking is need some kind of technology to build it, it's not that easy and some civilizations had their own unique way to build walls.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

^This depends on when should the First Era begins? 4,000 BC or 10,000 BC?
If the former choce is chosen then basic 'cyclopean' city walls should be buildable at the beginning. otherwise a prereq tech is valid.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

City Walls were built almost as soon as people started building cities.
Jericho, founded around 9500 BCE, had a stone wall around it by 8300 BCE at least, 10 feet (3 meters) thick at the base and estimated to be about 4 meters (13 feet) high. By 6000 BCE several other settlements/cities in the modern areas of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine also show signs of major stone fortifications around them.

By 4500 BCE at Yalangach in Central Asia there is evidence of round towers protruding from a stone wall to provide flanking fire against anyone trying to attack or climb the wall.

By 3500 - 3000 BCE the Yangshao culture in China was building rammed earth walls around its cities, because they had no access to good building stone in the Yellow River floodplain they lived in - any stone was buried under feet of deposited mud and silt.

There is a great deal of later (2300 - 1500 BCE) evidence for timber or timber and earth palisades and walls around settlements in northern and northwestern Europe, and earlier ritual sites surrounded by massive timber palisades (as in post holes indicating timber pillars over a meter in diameter!), so it is probably safe to assume that any 'city' or 'proto-city' in that area would be surrounded by a wooden or wood and earth city wall at least as early as the stone and rammed earth walls elsewhere.

So, basically as soon as you start concentrating people into 'cities' (my definition: an early city is more than 200 households, or over 1000 - 2000 people living sedentary lives in one place) those cities will have some kind of protection. This is almost so universal that one could almost simply give every city a 'built in' City Wall Defensive Factor from the start, and reserve the city wall technologies to provide 'Improved city walls' - like the towers that came later which enhance the defensive fire of any Garrison - the earliest walls certainly provide a height advantage for anything shot or thrown, but there's little evidence of any other enhancements.
Note also that 'city wall' does not mean Stone City Wall: mud brick, fired brick, rammed earth, timber, and timber and earth were all used either because stone was not available (China) or because it was not required to negate the attacking forces likely to threaten the city, as in northern/northwestern Europe.

 

[ManoftheHour333]

I think that masonry or some similar tech should be required to build walls BUT I don't think that walls are required to have a city attack; at least to adjacent units. Civilians in ancient cities could still throw stones and I dunno, sheep at invading armies from their rooftops. Yeah walls could increase the power of this city attack/charge (Or make it be able to hit further units-2 tiles-like it does currently) and make it *slightly* harder to take the city, but walls are just beyond OP in Civ VI and it really sinks early conquest IMO. I know this was more of a historical debate but gameplay is also a thing that is arguably more important...particularly when sources vary like this.

 

[Buktu]

I would not mind walls beeing build right from the start of the game if they work different than in 6. Rushes should be possible but risky in a game like civ. 6's walls right from the start would basically deny any rush.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

We only have archeological evidence for the earliest walled cities, since they show up in the physical record 1000 - 5000 years before writing systems, but it appears that there were not a lot of attacks on any walled city until much later - the earliest evidence of 'engineering specialists' attacking walls with rams, picks, and specialized equipment isn't until Egypt about 2500 BCE, several thousand years after the first walls.
However, it was never possible for walls to be built around all the farmland, so the preferred method appears to have been raid the farms, make it impossible to farm and harvest, and without food the walled city simply becomes a Mausoleum. The Cucuteni appear to have been driven completely off of the plains of modern western Ukraine by raids from mounted parties from further east, who show no signs of having any capabilities against walls and fortifications, but in the event didn't need them: a farmer on foot has no chance against a group of men on horseback with any kind of weaponry.
The way to 'game' this might be that Walls (Wall-type defensive Bonus) are a part of building any city, but without further Technological/Architectural advance, have no 'extra' ranged effects at all, and so provide no defense for anything outside the walls. Without a strong military, you cannot defend your farms, pastures, and other Food-Producing Improvements.
Another point to remember about walled fortifications that was inexplicably left out of Civ VI completely, is that they require constant Maintenance and the expenditure of resources of manpower and materials to maintain their effectiveness. Most of the walled cities of the western Roman Empire were not stormed by hairy barbarians, they collapsed after smooth-shaven ex-Romans stopped repairing them. And because Masonry requires both special skills and considerable capital expenditure (quarries, rock-moving systems, masons and their helpers) to maintain, the very expertise disappeared from lack of use and application, and it was about 1000 CE before stone walls and stone keeps or fortresses began to be built in western and northwestern Europe again.

Maintenance is the real limitation on Walled Cities, and the fact that to provide a Ranged Factor, the 'walls' require a lot of Extra design and construction in the form of Towers and gate fortifications of all kinds. Not to mention a Garrison that also has to be trained and maintained. This, in turn, increases the Maintenance costs associated with the entire system and starts making it too expensive for all but the largest cities . . .

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

^
1. And in European cities. the defense scheme would be a settlement with a castle watchong over but no walls ?
2. And to translate 'Walls not providing ranged attacks against nearby enemies' before certain conditions is met. What should be such conditions?
- Tech: (and should Archery be such technology?)
- Buildings: Guard Towers?

 

[Patine]

Should basic city walls require a technology to build?
In Civ games (and similiar civbuilding 4x games), city walls require a technology / advancements to build which generally becomes available by the latter stage of default 'Ancient Era' (usually 4,000 BC but the Humankind set the beginnings at 10,000 BC instead) and the technology in question is Masonry (Except Humankind where required tech to build First Wall is City Defense and the wall in question is Palisades). Archaeologists however had found that city walls were actually more ancient than standard 4,000 BC Game begins. Ruins of walls and towers of Jericho dated back as far as 8,000 BC. Even if game begins at 10,000 BC the first city walls should be finished in the first FIVE turns right after the settlement is founded.

Also graphical representations of basic wall in Civ6 is this

Cyclopean walls sans ramparts (or maybe not. but think of 'barbaric city walls' or Orc city walls in other games). and surely no crenellations. I'm not sure when did crenelations invented.View attachment 636827
But since the Warcraft setting (This is the walls of Orgrimmar, Capitol of The Horde faction in World of Warcraft) is Fantasy with steampunk settings. I don't think the actual ancient city walls will have THIS Many iron bracings or supports like this one but cyclopean stone 'masonry' is correct. ANY ancient city built at the Game Begins should have walls that looks that way.
This came to the conclusions over in game techs requires to build Ancient Walls. or should such walls made available for build from the start? (If mankind learned to leave behind cavern dwellings into the open, and eventually learned to build a strong dwellings with walls and rooftops. then at this point the first settlements should already figure out how to build defensive obstructions to substitute the safety of caves they had left behind. in the same manner.

Well actually when did Tech Masonry first came to exists?
And regarding to wall developments, how should a wall that's as strong as Trojan Wall came to be? Should 'Classical era' has its own walls? Should in-game walls and city defense upgrade player's responsibility to order such construction projects? And what should city defense be when it comes to gunpowder with Big Bombards developed (This should take place BEFORE the first arquebuses invented)? Should diamondshape/arrowshape bastions be a separate buildings to the walls (building ones is not considered 'upgrade' ) or part of upgrade trees like in Civ6 & Humankind?
And when it comes to Contemporary Era with air attacks becomes real. Should Air Defense systems be built manually? and when AA Guns gave way to SAMs, what should upgrading schemes be? automatic when techs is researched or manual?

I always wondered, as a sidenote, where the abundance of great, tusk-like spikes everywhere came from, as any monumentally-sized elephantines were left behind on Draenor, and not in Durotar or the Barrens or anything. And, to boot, Mag'har architecture on Draenor lacked the tusk-like spikes, anyways. Sorry to digress, but the picture was linked...