I think walls and castles were poorly implemented in civ4

[paydro]

If building a city wall cost me 1f for each tile... heck, even if it simply didn't raise base production of the tile, I would never, ever build them. If walls are added as worker improvements, they shouldn't hurt the city's production, or they'll be just another useless mechanism that we complain about later.

Madscientist: Your suggestion for walls would make barbarians basically a moot point after masonry, which would be extremely unrealistic. Cities with walls were raided and destroyed by barbarians for thousands of years after that. The suggestion that castles obsolete barbarians is okay, but by then it's irrelevant because all the land will be gone.

The real problem with walls is that the implementation of siege in Civ IV is unrealistic anyway. So it's hard to improve walls or make them more realistic without a complete overhaul of the system.

I don't see the walls as being terribly poorly done, except that siege weapons are too easy to get, and that walls can be utterly destroyed too quickly. It should be a major ordeal to siege and defeat a fortified city with a castle before gunpowder, and a pretty big deal after that until cannons. That can be done any number of ways, but to me making siege harder to build would be as good a solution (or better) than beefing up walls.

 

[paydro]

Diamondeye... so gunpowder units have trouble raiding castles, but KNIGHTS don't? Mounted units should be pretty much worthless at attacking castles.

 

[Diamondeye]

Diamondeye... so gunpowder units have trouble raiding castles, but KNIGHTS don't? Mounted units should be pretty much worthless at attacking castles.

Sorry but the idea is that units fighting in melee has a shot at enemy castles once the gates are down. Gunpowder units tend to rely more on formations on open fields while the knights would be better off at a charge through the gates, imho.

 

[Florian]

It wouldn't make any sense to enclose the whole BFC with a city wall. No city wall in history ever did that. You're talking future-tech force fields with that suggestion.

 

[Florian]

Bhavv,

And city revolts should remove cultural bonuses, but not wall / castle bonuses.

Many a city has fallen because someone inside betrayed it and opened a gate.

 

[bhavv]

Well, castles are actually a lot more useful for their +1 Trade Route then they are for their defence anyway


But I find the whole idea of sending a spy into a city, inciting a revolt, and the cities defence dropping to 0% right away crazy. I simply dont like it.

 

[Maestro_Innit]

Personally I think walls and castles are OK.

Castles only last 5 turns if you're on a beeline to economics and are on normal speed. If you have a different tech path, and preferable marathon speed then the benefits are massive! It's just another tool to use; a different strategy. If you want to leverage the extra spy points and trade routes then you can....

 

[bhavv]

I normally build a castle in every city I already have as soon as I get engineering, it only takes 1-4 turns for a protective civ. It takes longer for non protective though.

I hate Castles and Monasteries going Obsolete, it puts me off wanting those techs but if I dont get them I fall behind.

 

[iamnleth]

I think it would be interesting to see some collateral damage done to attackers from walls/a castle (done by ballistae/onagers on city towers, or even longbows/crossbows) for each they spend adjacent to a city ala the coastal fortress of Civ III. This would surely make them useful. This may even be better suited to a fortress. It seems more realistic that a group of enemy units would only be bombarded by a fortress with cannon (making the ability available to fortresses with steel). Think of how tough an invasion could be to launch against an AI with these forts lining your common border.

I think it would also be interesting to see a charge promotion for mounted units (free to the knight) giving it a bonus when attacking from a city.

Whether those would be balanced or not is an entirely different question.

 

[Krazy]

Personally, I'd nerf artillery as units

Cats strength 1
Trebs strenght 2
Cannon 4
Artillery 6

and to cause collateral damage they'd have to win the fight first. The idea being that they should be used to lower defences not be used as (amazingly overpowered suicide) offensive weapons in their own right.

And since seige weapons make a breach as opposed to removing wall defences entirely they should only be able to halve the defensive bonus at best, ie Wall goes from 50% to 25%.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

reading this thread someone reminded me there are bunkers in this game. I always forget that building exists

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Alot of this stuff would demolish game balance. The easiest way to make walls/castles usable is to NOT OBSOLETE THEM INSTANTLY.

Tell me how exactly a castle is weak against musket or rifle fire? I haven't heard of any rifles from their time that can fire through a foot of stone. Free market economics depends on property rights...and castles enable that to some extent!

Military forts are very common. Castles could be considered revamped versions of forts or something. Regardless, find me a pre-modern artillery weapon that could actually fire through a well-built castle wall as if it were NOTHING (siege obviously can take a castle down, but having a stone blockade providing cover is hardly USELESS...!) Even cannons would take a long time to destroy a castle. Hell, some material was such that cannon balls would tend to bounce off.

It's ridiculous that those defenses obsolete so quickly, especially given their passive role to begin with. It's not a hard fix...make them last longer!!!!!!! !@#%$.

 

[J4Ck]

i dont build walls (or castles) hm... maybe i should? nah! ill beter build another sword or cat!
personally walls got their place in the game, except maybe they should provide more defensive bonuses, but ones the defense is down at 0% - no walls, and u must build new one.

... and u can build them the whole game.

 

[J4Ck]

But I find the whole idea of sending a spy into a city, inciting a revolt, and the cities defence dropping to 0% right away crazy. I simply dont like it.

yeah. this is somehow stupid as u don't need siege weapons at all, but i use the technique anyways..

 

[Peepers]

Personally, I'd nerf artillery as units

Cats strength 1
Trebs strenght 2
Cannon 4
Artillery 6

and to cause collateral damage they'd have to win the fight first. The idea being that they should be used to lower defences not be used as (amazingly overpowered suicide) offensive weapons in their own right.

I think this is going a bit far, but it's on the right track. Arty is so fundamentally useful for bombardment and collateral (both aspects I approve of as game mechanics) that they should cost more hammers to produce. If the hammer cost were increased 33-50%, perhaps it would not be economical to make the SODs comprised 60% of siege, and they would be treated less as suicide units.

I know this is not exactly addressing the topic of walls/castles, but at least higher expense for siege would make them less numerous (read ubiquitous) and increase the value of those city defense improvements, not to mention the value of swordsmen, say, for the offensive side.

Walls (and castles, I believe) already reduce the bombardment effect of siege, making those protected cities harder to assault, which was implemented in BtS and made them noticeably better.

What could be the downside of higher production cost? Well I see two pitfalls:
--The AI might use arty less than it already does
--The use of siege as city defense might suffer

 

[absimiliard]

@absimiliard

There are also the russian wooden wall system they made when recovering against the Tatars/Mongols ... combined they were pretty big

*Heads out to do some historical research*

I'm only moderately familiar with the rise of Tsarist Russia and it's conflicts with the Mongols and Tatars. I'll have to look this up. The history is intriguing in that time/place.

-abs

 

[PutCashIn]

I really really hate to suggest this, as civ is so original, even at mk4, but maybe a 'siege' function like in the Total War series?

Also, to elme, I think youll find theres a few 'ancient age' metropolis' that got totally razed, Carthage comes to mind. and, er, Genghi? sure he had gunpowder, but he was hardly handing out muskets to the troops...

 

[Calder]

Here's my 2c worth on the matter.
Walls: -50% damage from bombardment (pre gunpowder units). Obsolete with Rifling (except defense bonus)
I don't understand the "pre gunpowder units" part - we're talking bombardment; Seige, right?
I'd like to see it put like this:
WALLS (available Masonry)
+50% defense (pre-gunpowder units), -50% damage from bombardment/collateral damage (catapults only);
-25% damage from bombardment/collateral damage (Trebs only);
So, CATAPULTS have city bombard -8%/turn, and would only have -4%/turn when bombarding city walls, likewise Max 75% damage to units, only 37% damage attacking a city with walls. TREBS: -16%/turn bombardment, and -12% bombardment vs city walls. Max 75% damage to units + 100% city attack, and Max 50% damage to units +100% city attack against city walls.
Walls obsolete with Steel. Walls may have no effect vs cannon, but Castles do...
CASTLES (Available Engineering, req. Walls, +1 Cultrure, +1 Trade Route, +25% Espionage)
+75% defense (pre-Armoured units, -25% defense at Steel), -75% bombardment/collateral damage vs catapults, -50% bombardment/collateral damage vs Trebs, -25% bombardment/collateral damage vs cannon, -12% bombardment/collateral damage vs Artillary.
Obsolete with Industrialism (bring on the tanks!).
Well, thats just my 2c worth, and maybe too tricky to implement.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Yay, an armchair design topic.

I think it would be enough of a change to make them never become unbuildable. I'm sick and . .. .. .. .ing tired of having rifles, being rushed by a big medieval army, and not being able to build castles to take the edge off of their bombardment and make my defenders much tougher. CASTLES STILL WORK AGAINST MY OPPONENTS, DAMN IT. LET ME KEEP BUILDING THEM.

 

[Roxlimn]

There is always a cost that makes the benefit palatable. City Walls and Castles, IMO already have okayish effects. If they were as cheap as Monuments, everyone would build Castles. Extra trade route and such, and even overflow just from Stone could make it essentially free.

So at what hammer cost would YOU build a Castle or a Wall?