Problem with China's Great Wall in Civ VI

[AtlantisAuthor]

I have a major concern with China in Civ VI: the design of the Great Wall. In Civ V it followed the borders of the outermost hexes of your empire, which allowed improvements to still be made upon those hexes. But with each section of the Great Wall in Civ VI literally functioning as a tile improvement, that could prove VERY limiting for a China player. Sure it's a nice defense mechanism (at least until, presumably, Dynamite is discovered), but just consider the trade-off for a moment. For each hex your wall occupies, that's another hex of farmland, resources, districts, and so on that you'll be denying your cities. Even with a single city of say, 12 hexes, you're potentially placing SIXTEEN hexes' worth of wall around it. You could literally build and create districts for another entire city with that.

Not only this, but from the images I've seen of the Great Wall in-game, the hexes it's placed in appear to be absolutely NAKED otherwise. I didn't see it going through any forested terrain or especially the undulating hills which give the real thing such an iconic visual aesthetic. Just empty green hexes, which makes especially given Civ VI's art direction makes it look like a bland eyesore. To me at least, the current design for China's Great Wall amounts to an immense waste of space and resources that could be far better utilized.

Just an observation (and again, one I'm concerned about in terms of practicality). I hope that Firaxis will take this into consideration if you guys haven't already realized this. And if it's a deliberate design intention, I frankly think it's a mistake and that it won't go over well in practice.

 

[Balkans]

I don't think the main feature of great wall is just defense - as i understood it, it provides gold and culture? - so basically it behaves like tile improvement ... it's your decision and tactics is it worth it over something else to build on a tile. So i think it's more like build it on some choke point, i don't think it was meant to be built around your 5 city empire... Plus, China's builders have extra builder charge so it's kinda doable on some nice places around your empire.

 

[boghog]

Supposedly the early game in Civ 6 will see much more warring among civs. That's when a defensive bonus is most welcome whereas space is not yet so scarce that you need every tile to feed your city. Later, when the political situation becomes more stable and new technologies make the wall useless as a defensive structure, you get to choose: Do I keep my wall around because I want the culture and tourism? Or do I tear it down to turn it into farmland or districts? Or maybe a bit of both?
The extra charges on your builders should more or less offset the extra build actions you would need.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Great wall provides a defensive bonus and gold to start with, gold is now a rather rare resource and is likely more valuable then in Civ V. Later the wall also provides culture and faith.

 

[ehecatzin]

As other mentioned, it's not useless, you get gold culture, and later tourism from it. It's not that diferent from the Moai Statues in civ5, except you get a defense bonus of course.

 

[King Jason]

By this logic I don't see how it's any more of a "waste of space" than the Sphinx, and nobody really complained about that.

The Sphinx gives culture and faith, and takes up an entire hex. So you need to choose between that, or a district or some other form of tile improvement in that hex.

The Wall gives gold and defense, and then eventually culture and tourism.

I really don't get all the complaints about the wall when the sphinx was relatively unscathed.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Defence bonuses could be more valuable given that districts can be pillaged.

 

[darko82]

Great Wall is very stratigic now. That said. Learn how to use it, and your concerns will go away.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

By this logic I don't see how it's any more of a "waste of space" than the Sphinx, and nobody really complained about that.

The Sphinx gives culture and faith, and takes up an entire hex. So you need to choose between that, or a district or some other form of tile improvement in that hex.

The Wall gives gold and defense, and then eventually culture and tourism.

I really don't get all the complaints about the wall when the sphinx was relatively unscathed.

My only complaint is that it feels like it could've been more than just a fort that gives culture, gold and tourism.

But that's just my opinion on the fact that unique gameplay could've been used (make it so it's expensive to walk through it, because, after all, it is a wall)

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

China is a boom civ, its early game is about wonder grabbing and the wall play very well into a defensive strategy.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

China is a boom civ, its early game is about wonder grabbing and the wall play very well into a defensive strategy.

But the defensive bonus is questionable. It's not hurting other units by default, you could only take advantage of the Wall's bonuses if you had units there. So you'd have to station unit every x tiles on the wall to take advantagfe of its' fort-like bonuses.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Yes you need to stations units on the wall but if the defense bonus is significant it can be pretty difficult to kill your units while you can cause huge losses with counter attacks.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I'm also skeptical about the early value of the wall. Gold may be a rare yield, but I'm not sure it's more valuable than food or production.

Also the Culture comes later like the Tourism. It's not part of the yield early on.

And the defensive value only supplements your units. It doesn't take the place of a good defensive army for protecting your districts.

So I don't see myself ringing my territory with walls. Maybe a few points along a troublesome border.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

We don't know which tech great wall comes with. It was only during the Ming dynasty that the Great wall got its current look.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Yes you need to stations units on the wall but if the defense bonus is significant it can be pretty difficult to kill your units while you can cause huge losses with counter attacks.

But that requires you to spend your production on an army instead of the wonders, hence my general issue.

 

[ehecatzin]

But the defensive bonus is questionable. It's not hurting other units by default, you could only take advantage of the Wall's bonuses if you had units there. So you'd have to station unit every x tiles on the wall to take advantagfe of its' fort-like bonuses.

I rather like that we great wall doesnt forgo the need to create units, sure you could add units on every tile, but I think archers spaced apart and some melee could work as quite the deterrent with the defense bonus.

Besides you could also build your military encampents adyacent to the wall, making it even more of a nuisance. I guess it will be much more useful when built closer to cities as oposed to far away.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Yes but not necessarily as much as you otherwise would need. It could also allow you to delay military techs for economic techs.

 

[ehecatzin]

I'm also rather interested in how an offensive China could work, rush military wonders, forward settle, build great wall, add military encampents, push even farther with a citadel, it could be a real pain to be on the recieving end of that.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

If there are even citadels.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

There is a fort but it is not built by builders. You probably have access to the great wall long before fort which is a strong advantage. If you put it around a city and have some units that city will be pretty much impossible to conquer in the early and mid game.

Great generals are in the game but how they work we do not know.