Problem with China's Great Wall in Civ VI

[Nick31]

To the OP:

I think you're thinking about the Wall wrongly. You likely won't need to build some long, lengthy wall around a massive space. You'll likely be building a quick stretch or 2, and that will take a builder or 2. And if the Gold is hard to come by, you quickly get the gold other civs will not. And since Districts likely are hard to fill for small pop cities, the wall in the early game isn't taking up space.

Quick gold, better defense than any other early civ early on, and the opportunity to move it/re-build it whenever you want... I think there will be a ton of tactical options. Particularly if you forward plant a city and use it as a defensive fulcrum.

Big point: don't snooze on the gold, and don't view it as some circular wall. It'll be fun to play with. And if early gold is hard to have, that wall will be key in allowing you a larger army without killing your econ.

 

[isau]

I think at least the wall should function like a hill. Units standing on it should get the "shoot over obstacles" bonus and anything standing on the city side of it should be untargetable by ranged units.

NOTE: This is assuming enemy units can move through it at all. Its possible the wall actually functions like a city center. Your units can pass through it but enemies need to tear it down first.

 

[stroypa]

I think it could be very useful. If you get declared on you can rush or buy, or use existing workers if you have them, to quickly build segments where you know the enemy will have to come by. Which essentially increases your army strength. That allows you to keep a much smaller army and you can use the production you save to build buildings/districts/wonders or whatever.

 

[Virdrago]

To the OP:

Big point: don't snooze on the gold, and don't view it as some circular wall. It'll be fun to play with. And if early gold is hard to have, that wall will be key in allowing you a larger army without killing your econ.

This.

A bit of gold from the Great Wall can pay for any units patrolling it. Thus, China can focus on other areas (like China in RL focused on consolidating their military/cultural influence south, west, and in Korea while deterring, if not always stopping, the "barbarian" nomads to their north/northwest). Add in the defensive bonus, the Great Wall has lots of potential in-game.

 

[Battlehelm043]

As we saw in the video, and this is my speculation on the issue, the wall is used strategically. So in choke points or as one poster stated troubled areas. The real Great Wall goes for a stretch but by no means encompasses the entirety of China. We still lack a great deal of information but my money is on the Great Wall playing in like districts and tile improvements. Something that can or must be attacked during a war with China. Yet for the Chinese player, as they expand territory additions are added to the wall or new locations of the wall are built separate from the original expanse.

 

[Ll1442]

so we don't know, but it does seems like you would have to invest a lot in building the wall (builders cant be that cheap) and the units to defend them, which kinda makes it all useless, as those resources should go to the development of your cities (& wonders).

The question is, will it be worth the investment? and is it as good an advantage as the others?

 

[Battlehelm043]

so we don't know, but it does seems like you would have to invest a lot in building the wall (builders cant be that cheap) and the units to defend them, which kinda makes it all useless, as those resources should go to the development of your cities (& wonders).

The question is, will it be worth the investment? and is it as good an advantage as the others?

I think this might be tied partly to the reading the map more and thinking strategically with your improvements/districts. We wont know really till Oct 21.

 

[darko82]

so we don't know, but it does seems like you would have to invest a lot in building the wall (builders cant be that cheap) and the units to defend them, which kinda makes it all useless, as those resources should go to the development of your cities (& wonders).

The question is, will it be worth the investment? and is it as good an advantage as the others?

Yeah, it will be worth as long as you make it worth it. That's where the strategy aspect comes from. Each game will be a bit different. Sometimes a short wall will be perfect 3-5 tiles? Yes, that should be enough. China has one more builders' charge - plus it can even get one more from the government (card choice). If your gameplay style needs it, it will offer it to you. That's about, not to mention the asthetics aspect. The Great Wall is totally optional; it is just about how you gonna make use of it. And it can depend on the map, indeed.

I like it that an unique improvement is actually unique and strategic to some extent (in terms of visuals and gameplay at the same time). You may not always need it, in fact.

 

[Galbias]

I think it's probably best thought of as an enhanced Fort, so you might drop one or two down at a choke point or other strategic defensive location. This might or might not be particularly useful depending on the actual numbers, but most of the time it's probably not going to look much like the actual Great Wall, which is a bit disappointing.

 

[Mort_Q]

If units can walk on the walls, like a road, they'd be able to defend/patrol a lot more ground.

 

[Cyon]

^agreed

I hope it works like a road, it would fit both thematically and mechanically.

 

[cakes]

i don't see how it's a problem to decide whether you want the trade-off for defense over yields, and similarly the builder charges for the wall over rushing wonders

 

[Karmah]

There is a problem with the great walll of china ? Is the game out yet ?

 

[theis81]

Make it work like Road for china and a river for the enemy. That would be awesome!

 

[von_Wurttemburg]

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.

But you could build other improvement in the same tile of your GW. Couldn't you?
Everything wouldn't be a problem.

 

[ToothedBomb]

I was a bit worried as well after seeing the video, but it's too early to really say, isn't it?

Thinking back to Civ V, you'd farm pretty much every decent food tile, right? You really need that food to get some decent growth going. With builders having charges, that's gonna be a little bit more difficult, you'd be building builders all the time. Then there's districts that take up tiles in your cities. Then there's Wonders. Now there's a Great Wall as well. And China wants to build all these things early. I doubt the Wall will be every useful later on, and their bonus for Wonders only works on early ones. Early game seems like a stressful time for a China player in Civ VI.

But Civ VI is not Civ V. We don't know how things are balanced. Perhaps you gain population more easily. Or perhaps growth is less difficult to achieve due to instant tile improvements. Perhaps builders don't take as many turns to produce. Maybe you gain new tiles more quickly than before. Maybe cities can work more tiles than before. We don't really know if the Great Wall is unbalanced before we play the game.

 

[Schuesseled]

Remember you don't have to build a wall all the way around your civ, just build it under where you want some units.

 

[Socrates99]

Honestly we don't even know what the yields of farms and mines are or how scarce gold is in VI. The GW could just as easily be OP as it could be useless.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

As it is now the effect of the great wall sounds bland, whether the tile yield is OP or not. But if forts have extra restrictions like you cannot build 1 fort inside a radius of 3 tiles of another fort then it changes alot. Or if the great wall has another effect with regard to zone-of-control like a unit adjacent to a chinese enemy unit on a great wall improvement tile cannot enter a great wall improvement tile within his zone of control. Especially the last effect makes more sense with regard to the great wall.

 

[Dirt Farmer]

With housing being another growth issue isn't it likely that the building of mass farms may be slower? Also, on Arioch's site under terrain there is mention of the possibility of multiple citizens working one tile. These may make your GW decisions easier.