NEVER Build Walls!

[Bandobras Took]

Yep.

maybe the body of evidence given by high level play over several years

I'm genuinely curious where to find a body of evidence like this -- the same body of evidence I'm familiar with demonstrates that you cannot win on Deity by Wonder-spamming.

Here are some questions I would like answered by high-level players -- links to games are fine, and bonus points if you can answer without loading up a game of Civ.

1) How early can you consistently research Engineering (number of turns/game speed)?

2a) How early can you consistently research Economics (number of turns/game speed)?

2b) Do you always get the free Great Merchant?

3a) On average, at the time of the answer to question #1, how many cities do you have?

3b) How much commerce are you generating/turn?

3c) What percentage bonus commerce does an extra trade route give you in the best city? The worst? Assuming a Castle in each city, what is the overall bonus?

3d) When running an espionage game, does the extra commerce from a castle's extra trade route synergize with the +25% espionage? Is there an optimum slider level?

4) Assuming that you have sought Engineering early, what are the other potential builds in the bulk of your cities?

5a) What is the cost of a Castle relative to these other builds?

5b) With Stone?

5c) With Protective?

Answers to these questions would suffice for start of evidence from high-level play.

Asking rhetorical questions and assuming they're answered does not suffice. I'll gladly shut up once somebody gives some high-level evidence other than "because I said so."

 

[The Snug]

Here's a rhetorical argument. I'm the best to ever play. If you need proof, I'll hit you. Hence, I'll prove my righteousness through trial by combat!--even though I'm a peacemonger.

 

[ori]

Moderator Action: moved to Strategy and Tips

 

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

wall whipping for protective civs!!!

 

[r_rolo1]

That is past waters in 3.19, due to a admited screw up in the code from the part of Firaxis

 

[The Almighty dF]

That is past waters in 3.19, due to a admited screw up in the code from the part of Firaxis

We knew it was a screw up for awhile, but some people still claimed that it wasn't, and therefore Protective wasn't in need of balancing.

 

[6K Man]

Lately I've found it easier to capture banks instead of building them. They're damned slow to build in your best commerce cities, but you need several for Wall Street. On the other hand, they produce no culture, so they frequently survive when you capture an AI city. Grab 4-5 and Wall Street will usually be enabled.

I may never build another bank.

 

[The Almighty dF]

Lately I've found it easier to capture banks instead of building them. They're damned slow to build in your best commerce cities, but you need several for Wall Street. On the other hand, they produce no culture, so they frequently survive when you capture an AI city. Grab 4-5 and Wall Street will usually be enabled.

I may never build another bank.

I see what you tried to do there.
I'm ashamed for both of us. You for having written it, me for having read it.

 

[r_rolo1]

We knew it was a screw up for awhile, but some people still claimed that it wasn't, and therefore Protective wasn't in need of balancing.

Not sure if you understood what I said. Regardless of being a screwup before, the 3.19 code is also a screw up because it doesn't count with whipped or chopped hammers in terms of overflow gold. Said in other way, if you chop 3 forests for a 40/50 pro wall, you will see a lot of hammers simply vanishing in the air, not going to the building or to cash . And before someone says something like "this is balanced" , alexman ( one of the Firaxians ) already posted here in CFC saying that it was a screw up and that they wanted to simply cap the overflow gold at wealth ratio, like in 3.17 UP

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Lately I've found it easier to capture banks instead of building them. They're damned slow to build in your best commerce cities, but you need several for Wall Street. On the other hand, they produce no culture, so they frequently survive when you capture an AI city. Grab 4-5 and Wall Street will usually be enabled.

I may never build another bank.

I dunno, man, you may want to build a bank in that Wall Street city. +50% is nothing to sneeze at!

Oh.... sarcasm....

 

[shyuhe]

Izzy's citadels can be well worth building walls and castles, especially if you have stone. Just change around your tech order to prioritize engineering and delay economics. Then have fun with highly promoted siege!

Also, walls come in handy on deity. Same with castles.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I think most versatile players would agree that Izzy is the one exception to the castles/economics argument. Her playstyle is so different from most other leaders. Early religion, emphasizing castles for ultra-siege and, therefore, also utilizing the extra in high cities... with stone, is there really a question of whether to build walls/citadels with Izzy?

 

[shyuhe]

Walls and castles in border cities are also immensely helpful if your neighbor is about to declare on you. The AI wastes a LOT of time taking down the defenses which can buy you a lot of time to build up a defensive stack. So I would not write off walls/castles as useless. They're just far more situational than most other buildings.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

True. Problem is, my border cities continuously become interior cities If only it were that easy...