Should walls be nerfed?

[Archon_Wing]

Even before the unjustified buff, defenders had a significant advantage in Civ 6. The stronger/longer walls last, the less important/punishing unit positioning is. Since Civ 6 is a strategy game, I want unit positions relative to time to matter. Super walls make it matter less.

Is that really true though? If all your cities are pillaged , you are still going to lose, with cities lost or not plus pillaging is so strong and certainly outweighs just losing a few units. Plus units are mobile and walls aren't.

I mean you could just camp holy sites and pillage them for enough faith to buy a new great general on its own.

o we accept that Civ is an abstraction. In doing so, the idea that walls should have tons of HP to the point of trivializing unit production and providing a large cost:damage:hp advantage doesn't hold to scrutiny. It's already pretty nonsensical that walls can trivially kill the unit line built to counter them until the end game.

It would seem the problem is with the siege units. Quite a few other games fixed this by making siege units highly resistant to city attacks.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Is that really true though? If all your cities are pillaged, you are still going to lose, plus pillaging is so strong and certainly outweighs just losing a few units. Plus units are mobile and walls aren't.



It would seem the problem is with the siege units. Quite a few other games fixed this by making siege units highly resistant to city attacks.

Defender has a massive vision advantage (includes hiding units in fog vs attacker), can far more easily utilize fortification/ZoC bonuses, gets cover for 1-2 ranged units, and extra shots beyond what the attacker can fit into the same number of hexes. This is all before an attacker can so much as touch the walls, if defender bothered to leave any kind of screen to detect incoming attack + actually made a couple units to defend...

We all know the AI sucks, but this also means it can't do much of anything to walls offensively either...kind of trivializes the threat of a multi-front war.

Compare the consequences of being out of position with army in Civ 6 with walls to Civ 4 with walls. Yet people still try to claim the former is more tactical.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Defender has a massive vision advantage (includes hiding units in fog vs attacker), can far more easily utilize fortification/ZoC bonuses, gets cover for 1-2 ranged units, and extra shots beyond what the attacker can fit into the same number of hexes. This is all before an attacker can so much as touch the walls, if defender bothered to leave any kind of screen to detect incoming attack + actually made a couple units to defend...

Yea I gather that, but I'm referring to pillaging. As long as you can get whatever units to get to an undefended improvement or district, you're getting many times the value with a few successful pillages. Trying to cover the whole field would seem infeasible.

We all know the AI sucks, but this also means it can't do much of anything to walls offensively either...kind of trivializes the threat of a multi-front war.

And pretty much why we should never bring the AI in the discussion in the first place.

Compare the consequences of being out of position with army in Civ 6 with walls to Civ 4 with walls. Yet people still try to claim the former is more tactical.

I would say a lot of people never actually played Civ 4 or understood any of the mechanics.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yea I gather that, but I'm referring to pillaging. As long as you can get whatever units to get to an undefended improvement or district, you're getting many times the value with a few successful pillages. Trying to cover the whole field would seem infeasible.

While this may be true, it has virtually no bearing on the strength of walls themselves. Pillaging doesn't get stronger as walls get weaker or something.

I would say a lot of people never actually played Civ 4 or understood any of the mechanics.

True, it is kind of old now. Plus players that only fought the AI in SP never got to observe some of the nastier things that could happen upon tactical missteps.

 

[Archon_Wing]

While this may be true, it has virtually no bearing on the strength of walls themselves. Pillaging doesn't get stronger as walls get weaker or something.

Well, I mean, we were talking about defense vs offense as a whole.

True, it is kind of old now. Plus players that only fought the AI in SP never got to observe some of the nastier things that could happen upon tactical missteps.

Probably. It's really stupid since there's many counters to stack and the AI's tendency to move around in a SoD was easily its downfall. But honestly the whole 1upt vs stacks argument to me was incoherent and especially when it's used to justify bad AI.... because Civ is the only franchise to have that.

 

[uppi]

I think the problem is not how long walls last, but how much counterattack damage cities do against siege units. A city with walls and a ranged unit inside usually brings a contemporary siege unit to near death within one turn. Since a level 1 unit usually needs to spend one turn in range before it can shoot, getting even one shot of turns into a suicide mission. Level 1 units is all what the AI will bring and it is much too easy to snipe those.

Instead, siege units should be quite resilient against ranged attacks but die almost instantly when a melee unit touches them. So cities will take quite a while until they go down, but you will need to bring an actual army to lift the siege.

 

[kaspergm]

I think the problem is not how long walls last, but how much counterattack damage cities do against siege units. A city with walls and a ranged unit inside usually brings a contemporary siege unit to near death within one turn. Since a level 1 unit usually needs to spend one turn in range before it can shoot, getting even one shot of turns into a suicide mission. Level 1 units is all what the AI will bring and it is much too easy to snipe those.

Instead, siege units should be quite resilient against ranged attacks but die almost instantly when a melee unit touches them. So cities will take quite a while until they go down, but you will need to bring an actual army to lift the siege.

I think this would probably be good, and perhaps for balance, siege units should be effective at taking down the walls, but not effective at depleting the city in actual health (i.e. defeating the defenders inside the city).

 

[Bradypus]

I think that it makes sense that walls are somewhat strong. But I think the bombard mechanic is perhaps too strong.

I would suggest this:
Ancient walls: Can only bombard with ranged units inside.
Medieval walls: Can only bombard with units inside. Default distance for ranged units but only 1 tile for melee units.
Renaissance walls: Can only bombard with units inside.

I think some changes to encampments are similarly warranted.

 

[ghost88]

Yeah, I thought about that and it does makes sense. I guess I should have clarified and said remove the tourism from ancient walls. I think the tourism should just come form Medieval Walls and forward; that makes sense as a tourist attraction to me.

These ancient walls (built before or around the year 1 AD) are still a tourist attraction.

They are the original walls of Byzantium, before it became Constantinople, now known as Istanbul.

 

[Haig]

Just to mock my thread,on my current game Scythia just conquered tech-leader Kongo's capital.

The operation itself was pretty good, first they ravaged Kongo's districts and capital by jet bombers and then they smashed Kongo's modern armors with their own armor forces, and took the capital.

 

[King of Prussia]

I would agree that they need to make the later walls worth building. Ancient walls tend to be all you need.

Making the Ai build rams and siege towers, and using them would help them out a lot. they dont do enough of either.

i like someone's suggestion that rams only effect first walls, siege tower first and 2nd, maybe after that arty is needed or a new unit.

Buffing arty resistance to range, but weak to melee sounds good. i agree that moving a siege unit into position, can lead to it being double tapped and killed before it even gets to fire. you more or less need at least 2 arty pieces for that reason. It would be nice if they could get the AI to take their balloons and only attach them to arty. building more AA support units would be good to.

I wouldn't be against a nerf to the ranged attack cities have.

cutting wall costs in general wouldn't be bad, especially when combined with that above.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well, I mean, we were talking about defense vs offense as a whole.

Even in that case, hiding own units from view and seeing the enemy coming via screening vision is an advantage. For any non-lopsided investment the defender should trade production favorably. Exceptions would be a multi-front dogpile, a significant tech disparity, or in the case of AI throwing away units for free constantly.

 

[Socrates99]

Just to mock my thread,on my current game Scythia just conquered tech-leader Kongo's capital.

The operation itself was pretty good, first they ravaged Kongo's districts and capital by jet bombers and then they smashed Kongo's modern armors with their own armor forces, and took the capital.

Scythia and Mongolia can be brutal in the late game if they keep up in tech. Both of them spam cavalry and if they keep it contemporary they can do some damage. Maybe the answer to AI stupidity is more units with better mobility?

Personally I don't think walls are the AIs problem. It's obsolete and too small standing armies that's their problem. Civ Vs AI was just as dumb but it'd brute force a win with carpets of doom on immortal and deity.

 

[acluewithout]

Some random thoughts about Walls (and Forts).

First: Walls and Forts both seem to suffer a big problem in terms of design.

Their primary function is improving defence against attacking 1UPT units. The thing is, Civ VI's combat system is so simple (basically crash units against each other, with terrain and positioning providing slight +/-), that I'm not sure Walls or Forts by design can even be particularly useful - you're nearly always going to be better just pumping out more units.

On the other hand, if you give Walls and Forts more economy related bonuses, then it all starts feeling silly. Like, I'm okay with Walls giving Tourism and some Housing (with Monarchy), but if you go too far down that route it starts feeling silly. I'm mean, I really don't get how Renaissance Walls give Science when you run Military Research?

Second: relatedly, is part of the problem maybe that there are just too many levels of walls?

Civ V went "Walls" (ancient era) then "Castles". Civ VI's model is "Walls" followed by, er, more Walls? And then even more Walls? It's hard to get excited about building more of something, particularly when it just does the same thing as what you had and doesn't benefit anything but the City it's built in. (Relatedly, it's sort of lame that once you've researched Castles you still can't actually build Castles.)

If Civ VI took the Civ V approach (Walls then Castles), then it might make things a bit easier design-wise - Walls would still work like, er, Ancient Walls. But you could have a "Castle" that provides additional defence (like Medieval Walls) but could provide other bonuses without feeling jarring. Building a Castle might then also visually upgrade your existing Walls, so you don't have the map littered with Cities all having "Ancient" Walls, but also don't have every Cities upgrading to Medieval and Renaissance looking walls in each new era (which would be lame).

Third: I think a big downside to Walls and Forts is that they only provide their benefit to the City they're built in. They don't really benefit other Cities, except in the most indirect way.

So, I often feel like I don't get much value out of Walls or Forts unless I build a tonne of them and or build them in border cities which are usually short of production anyway. If I'm roleplaying a bit more, I sometimes build Renaissance Walls in my Cap or other Big Cities for the Housing. That's horribly inefficient - I could get more housing with Farms and Policy Cards - but it's doubly inefficient because the Walls don't provide any real defensive bonus to the City they're in - no one can take my capital anyway - and it doesn't really benefit any other Cities either.

My suggestion. Walls and Forts should play more of a role in helping you "control" territory.

Personally, I'd rework Walls to be just Ancient Walls, then Medieval Castle then Renaissance Castle or something. Walls and Castles would all provide Defence and City CS. But Castles would provide +1 Housing per level and +CS to all Cities within 6 tiles.

So, building Castles would benefit not only the City they're built in but also neighbouring Cities. That would also be more tactically interesting, because now you may want to attack bigger cities with Castles first before taking on nearby Cities.

I think perhaps Walls and Forts should also then have more impact on your territory - e.g. Forts exert ZOC if there's a unit it them (even a Ranged or Siege Unit), provide permanent extended visibility, and maybe help with border growth (+X %). They could maybe also boost loyalty, - e.g. +1 Loyalty for each Unit Garrisoned in a City or in a Fort; Medieval or Renaissance Castles provide an additional +1 Loyalty.

You'd maybe have to rework Monarchy a bit. Maybe Monarchy gives +1 Amenity per Caslte level plus +1 Amenity from Camps.

It's a pity Walls and Forts suck. I'd really like a reason to build these bad boys, because they do look pretty cool. But they are just so useless, except for the occasionally Ancient Wall or Tech Boost, that building them just feels counterproductive.

 

[orasis]

No.