Civil Engineering and the Perma-walls

[DrJambo]

Hi,

Is it anyone else's feelings that this perma 200/200 city defence ability comes a little too early in the game?

• It effectively renders all previous wall buildings redundant and you can effectively build this before you've even researched Renaissance walls.
• The AI loves to build all the wall types which can be a massive waste of production given the difference between them and the Civil Engineering tech can sometimes only be a matter of a few turns.
• I have often skipped all of them to rush this easy to acquire tech.
• When the human and the AI gets it, it really hampers the AI's ability to take cities.

I think it would probably sit better with the later Urbanization civic tech. Thoughts?

 

[Ferocitus]

• The AI loves to build all the wall types which can be a massive waste of production given the difference between them and the Civil Engineering tech can sometimes only be a matter of a few turns.

That's a very big, sweeping claim.

Under what conditions (i.e. game pace, map type/scenario, number of other
civs and city states) have you observed that to be true?

How many games have you played in which it is a problem?

It certainly isn't a problem in dozens of games I have played with YnAMP
at marathon pace with 20+ civs and 30 - 60 city states, pre-patch and after.

 

[Zuizgond]

Walls should not exist past industrial eras. It doesn't make sense historically. And how can you build walls around a city with 10mio people (unless you play as Trump)?

 

[Bro]

Walls should not exist past industrial eras. It doesn't make sense historically. And how can you build walls around a city with 10mio people (unless you play as Trump)?

What about the Berlin wall? I do agree at some level that the city should not be able to do ranged attacks without some kind of a military unit inside it. The reason for ranged city attacks IMO is the districts. You need to be able to defend then somehow.

 

[PYITE]

Hi,

Is it anyone else's feelings that this perma 200/200 city defence ability comes a little too early in the game?

• It effectively renders all previous wall buildings redundant and you can effectively build this before you've even researched Renaissance walls.
• The AI loves to build all the wall types which can be a massive waste of production given the difference between them and the Civil Engineering tech can sometimes only be a matter of a few turns.
• I have often skipped all of them to rush this easy to acquire tech.
• When the human and the AI gets it, it really hampers the AI's ability to take cities.

I think it would probably sit better with the later Urbanization civic tech. Thoughts?

I completely agree. Move it back an era or two. I'm also not a fan of how you get full strength walls the same turn you conquer a city. It should at least wait until the city is at full health.

Hopefully someone who knows how to write mods will agree and post a mod that changes it's civic tree location.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

I wish they would just get rid of this altogether and force the player to build them. It's one of my top gripes atm and it's a big advantage for the human player against an already shaky AI.

 

[Disgustipated]

I admit I beeline for this tech, that said, if they moved it back, I'd adjust my gameplay accordingly. Currently, I defend most of my cities with units, and only vulnerable cities get any walls. But I've had some unfortunate incidents when units were out of position.

 

[kaspergm]

I completely agree. Move it back an era or two. I'm also not a fan of how you get full strength walls the same turn you conquer a city. It should at least wait until the city is at full health.

Hopefully someone who knows how to write mods will agree and post a mod that changes it's civic tree location.

That fact that you get full walls the turn you conquer town feels like a bug more than anything. Is it still so that, even if you actually destroy the walls with a siege weapon, you will get the walls when you conquer the city? That's not just poor for balance, it's completely counterintuitive.

At first I assumed that you'd only keep the walls if you conquered the town using a siege tower (thus not actually destroying the walls), but if that was the intention, it didn't work as intended at launch. Not sure after latest patch.

PS: Yes, I agree with OP, perma walls come too early. I don't think I've ever managed to actually build renaissance walls because I always get the free walls before I actually research the tech for ren. walls.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What about the Berlin wall? I do agree at some level that the city should not be able to do ranged attacks without some kind of a military unit inside it. The reason for ranged city attacks IMO is the districts. You need to be able to defend then somehow.

The Berlin wall was not exactly designed to resist dedicated period artillery fire or other military force effectively.

 

[Sumorex]

I agree the walls come too early. I can't think of very many times I've put Renaissance walls up because Civil Engineering is coming so soon.

I've not had a problem considering CE walls as something other than a physical barrier. Plenty of factors could make capturing and controlling a city more difficult in industrial+ eras.

 

[joncnunn]

What about the Berlin wall? I do agree at some level that the city should not be able to do ranged attacks without some kind of a military unit inside it. The reason for ranged city attacks IMO is the districts. You need to be able to defend then somehow.

The Berlin wall was not exactly designed to resist dedicated period artillery fire or other military force effectively.

Indeed, they were pointing the machine guns in the opposite direction of what would have been needed to keep those already outside out.

So unless you want new walls to start reducing your own city defense ...

 

[Amrunril]

I wouldn't say it comes to early in the game. I'd say the no right time for such a dramatic and automatic bonus, especially one that obsoletes all prior investment in defense. I think a relatively straightforward solution would be to change the bonus to +50 defense and unlocking bombardment for cities that don't already have it. This would allow the civic to grant all cities some defensive bonus but force players to choose whether to invest production in making them true fortresses.

 

[Bro]

Indeed, they were pointing the machine guns in the opposite direction of what would have been needed to keep those already outside out.

So unless you want new walls to start reducing your own city defense ...

Trenches however became pretty popular once gunpowder was invented. Maybe we should see trenches instead of those walls.

 

[gberetfr]

I also fully agree with the problems raised here.
imho the best solution would be that walls become ineffective in terms of defence :
- above a certain city size (let's say 12 I don't know)
- and against "modern" units

You would need a certain tech to build a new kind of city defence (or like it's now give it free to all your cities but I don't like it much)
With that tech (or another one) walls shall give some culture/tourism/gold

 

[DrJambo]

Most people seem to acknowledge the current situation isn't that great and for me I'm just not keen on redundancy, in that if you go walls you are in effect wasting production, since you know there's a tech that bypasses all walls and replaces them with something much better. On top of that there are now three levels of walls so you can waste production three times. Granted, medieval walls I believe can provide a bonus to the Monarchy government so that is perhaps one saving grace, however, Renaissance walls you'd have to be a diehard wall fan to build these things.

 

[Tacgnol]

The problem I think comes from how fast you burn through the tech and civic trees. On Deity multiple AIs reaching the modern era in like 250AD is unavoidable. Civics aren't as bad as techs but they still go way too fast. So in most games you only have a few dozen turns when Renaissance walls are relevant.

Sometimes they can still be useful, if you're using limes and really need to hold a city they can be worth building one or two, they go obsolete fast but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, if the tech tree was balanced to move at a reasonable pace it'd be fine anyway.

While we're on the topic of walls. I'm not actually sure how this works, I haven't bothered with it in most games because it's such a pain and when playing Domination I'm steamrolling post-renaissance and can't really lose anyway. But when I was first playing, I'm pretty sure I observed that battering rams and siege towers, still have an effect regardless of unit or age. So if you're capturing a city with Mech Infantry they will do more damage to the city's walls with a battering ram, this might or might not help I didn't really notice but if you're attacking a city with a Mech Inf it will do more damage to the district itself if there's a siege tower. Now I'm not gonna slow down my tank offensive to wait for siege towers to get in position and I'm not even entirely sure if this is still a feature or if I just didn't know what I was doing when I first started but modern units using a classical era siege tower definitely should not be in the game.

 

[LethalLeigh]

The AI loves to build all the wall types which can be a massive waste of production given the difference between them and the Civil Engineering tech can sometimes only be a matter of a few turns.

I rarely see the AI build renaissance walls. It seems the AI knows to skip these and go straight for Civil Engineering.

 

[4N4C0ND4]

While we're on the topic of walls. I'm not actually sure how this works, I haven't bothered with it in most games because it's such a pain and when playing Domination I'm steamrolling post-renaissance and can't really lose anyway. But when I was first playing, I'm pretty sure I observed that battering rams and siege towers, still have an effect regardless of unit or age. So if you're capturing a city with Mech Infantry they will do more damage to the city's walls with a battering ram, this might or might not help I didn't really notice but if you're attacking a city with a Mech Inf it will do more damage to the district itself if there's a siege tower. Now I'm not gonna slow down my tank offensive to wait for siege towers to get in position and I'm not even entirely sure if this is still a feature or if I just didn't know what I was doing when I first started but modern units using a classical era siege tower definitely should not be in the game.

no offence but you are a bit slow ^^
They do work with any units since vanilla, completely OP as you can imagine. On the other hand I never could really like the tower, ram is easier for me to understand and safer.

Oh, and I just learned yesterday that ram also worked with melee ships!

 

[NukeAJS]

I think some of you are looking at this too literally. I always thought of the civil engineering tech "walls" as more of a civil defense force that makes it as hard as possible for an attacker, not an actual physical barrier (which would be silly in this day and age).

Anyways, I agree it comes too soon. Building renaissance walls is almost completely pointless, medieval as well. I think I've only build ancient walls to enable city attack. After that, it's almost always better to just build units.

 

[agonistes]

Just a heads up, if you start a wall before civi engineering, you can finish it later.

So 1 turn on Ren walls, stop and build something else, then come back when ready.

Really only helpful if you think the walls look cool.