Tearing down The Great Wall

[ense7en]

Not at all. Taking cities was much easier in vanilla, compared to the last patch especially.

Agreed, but it is true that if there are coastal cities, attacking via sea will be much easier than land when dealing with the great wall.

This is true in general though, sea warfare is generally easier as the AI tends to have more trouble properly utilizing their navy (assuming they thought to build one).

 

[The Pilgrim]

Anyone remembered how Maltz conquered 4 Deity AIs with some samurais and few support units?

Yeah...

Oh yeah! With crazy slingshots and LS on like turn 40. What a great reminder that Civ5 has come a long long way since then. I wonder if someone would be up to a similar challenge now.

Agreed, but it is true that if there are coastal cities, attacking via sea will be much easier than land when dealing with the great wall.

This is true in general though, sea warfare is generally easier as the AI tends to have more trouble properly utilizing their navy (assuming they thought to build one).

Sure, no doubt the naval warfare is easier and if you manage to land right next to a city with GW, it's doomed. The only thing is, you need a decent navy yourself. If AI has a coastal city, it does have lots of ships as well. And you have to move through them somehow in order to disembark.

 

[Buccaneer]

Oh yeah! With crazy slingshots and LS on like turn 40. What a great reminder that Civ5 has come a long long way since then.

or that Four Horsemen could by themselves could wipe out a whole continent? Even though the initial release was ridiculous yet fun, I saw the potential to make it a great game - if they choose to go back a make the game challenging (instead of dumb-downed for the masses and role-players). They did and I am very pleased.

 

[The Pilgrim]

or that Four Horsemen could by themselves could wipe out a whole continent? Even though the initial release was ridiculous yet fun, I saw the potential to make it a great game - if they choose to go back a make the game challenging (instead of dumb-downed for the masses and role-players). They did and I am very pleased.

Heh, true. I quit Civ5 for good several month after release.

 

[Buccaneer]

Heh, true. I quit Civ5 for good several month after release.

Yeah, I waited till the first patch to get back into it, seeing which direction they would take. I think it was done on purpose since they expressly stated that they wanted the initial release to be "more accessible" to the general gaming population. But while they probably succeeded at doing that, they did work hard to bring back the hardcore civers. I simply do not know what to expect for Civ6.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

or that Four Horsemen could by themselves could wipe out a whole continent? Even though the initial release was ridiculous yet fun, I saw the potential to make it a great game - if they choose to go back a make the game challenging (instead of dumb-downed for the masses and role-players). They did and I am very pleased.

I meant, like August, not initial release.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Yeah, I waited till the first patch to get back into it, seeing which direction they would take. I think it was done on purpose since they expressly stated that they wanted the initial release to be "more accessible" to the general gaming population. But while they probably succeeded at doing that, they did work hard to bring back the hardcore civers. I simply do not know what to expect for Civ6.

Took me at least 3 patches. They know how to do business. Hardcore players didn't go anywhere. They whined a little and still opened their wallets. Very predictable. The same thing will happen with Civ6. We'll pay and then do the beta testing.

I meant, like August, not initial release.

Even now vanilla is easier in terms of taking cities. Although I don't really know how the recent patch affected it. In G&K at least tactical AI was significantly improved.

 

[Buccaneer]

Yeah, it wasn't until the second or third patch where they decided to give AI capitals some defenses.

 

[smallfish]

Yeah, it wasn't until the second or third patch where they decided to give AI capitals some defenses.

That... I never heard of before. I've heard of the "Unbreakable Peace Treaty", seen AI build only 3 guided missiles or so on Immortal Huge map, knew that Destroyers once came along together with Aluminium, but no defenses in AI caps at all?

 

[Jelster]

That and freaking Pacal is prophetbombing my cities. Urgh....

In which case, kill his GP's & Missionaries, forcing a war, just don't invade. If you've built a half decent army, you can stop his GP's and not have to take his cities within the wall.

Has he got cities outside the GW ? If so, take those, I've only ever seen the GW surround 3 cities at most.

 

[smallfish]

Anyways to keep this thread back on topic, Colonel Tavington here offers us some sound advice as to how to deal with GW opponents...


Link to video.

 

[Browd]

Has he got cities outside the GW ? If so, take those, I've only ever seen the GW surround 3 cities at most.

Unfortunately, what you see on screen as the GW is just a nice graphic. The defensive benefits of the GW extend to all of his cities, wherever located.

 

[The Pilgrim]

In which case, kill his GP's & Missionaries, forcing a war, just don't invade. If you've built a half decent army, you can stop his GP's and not have to take his cities within the wall.

More precisely, kill the missionaries and settle the prophets.

 

[Barathor]

For those that dislike this wonder, and don't mind playing with mods, here's an alternative version I've created if anybody is interested and wants to take a gander at it:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=112281601

 

[chmilz]

GW doesn't matter much. It's all about the terrain. GW or no GW, if the terrain makes it a suicide run, the GW means nothing.

 

[Novalia]

It usually depends on the defense of the civ you're attacking. Sometimes the AI doesn't defend cities very well and they leave gaps you can exploit. I just took down a Roman GW using a strategy I've used a few times before.

Horse units have the best shot at getting your army inside the walls without everyone getting picked off every turn. They'll take damage and probably die eventually but usually not in one turn. If the enemy terrain is improved then you have a better shot.

What I did was move a couple of knights inside the walls. One of them will get wacked a little bit. It isn't so bad because it will bring the defense forward a bit... Within range of your ranged units. You pick off the attacker at that point and move some units inside the city. The enemy will focus on the knight. Net turn you pillage the tile with your wounded knight and move it closer to the city. With your other knight you try to take a little damage by attacking a unit.

Next turn you bring your army even closer. Your first knight will be about dead by now so the enemy will now start shooting at your other wounded knight... Move everyone forward.

I keep doing this until everyone is in range to fire on the city. I may burn 3 to 4 knights on this.

I generally avoid fighting someone with a GW but 1. He started it (3rd DOW) and 2. We share borders and the production capacity of the city was extreme. I also got two lux out of it...

It's a pain to do and potentially expensive unit wise. But sometimes you just gotta slog thru it.

I call it civ rage. Someone's pissed you off enough to force the effort. The last time I did it was against Russia when they sent in 4 missionaries to my territory. Funny thing was after I declared and ate up the missionaries they turned out to be Ethiopia's missionaries russia captured.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

my best GW defense is building it myself. this works for me up to immortal but lately ive been using a GE from liberty finisher to rush it. there are of course plenty of other things worth getting but that alone shaves 20+ turns off any dom vic i may have been going for. either i take the GW cap slowly very early, or i have to reroute my army to take other civs and delay til artillery. either way its easily 20+ turns saved based on how I play (which obviously isnt very good for dom, haha).

if i dont build it then i hope for being able to flood with knights/xbows with trebs as target bait. GW is just an obnoxious wonder to go against.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Can't believe nobody said this, but technological superiority works.

Always. No matter the circumstances. However, if you're Egypt playing for culture against expansionist Cathy and wonder spamming Pacal on emperor (or is it immortal, Syntax Error?), you're not going to be that much ahead to make the difference. That simply isn't worth the effort. You can tech up and take down everyone you want, which is maybe fun, yet pretty distracting and doesn't contribute to your win at all.

my best GW defense is building it myself. this works for me up to immortal but lately ive been using a GE from liberty finisher to rush it.

Really? You'll waste a GE on it? Preventing from AI having it is The reason to build GW, but frankly, this is just... very new to me.

Also, we should remember that GW affects mainly open terrain. Rough terrain territory isn't really affected. Thus many times it's useless for AI to begin with.

 

[Buccaneer]

Yeah, I had never heard of using a GE for a Great Wall. Seems such a waste of a rare GP.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

i did it once cuz i was tired of dealing with AI GW and it worked out well on emperor. i then tried it in another game and it worked well enough again, this time on immortal (both post-patch). both times it let me win by gatling guns rather than later techs. before that it was machine guns/artillery or bombers before i could take the last civ with GW. of course im not very good at dom so i never win before gatlings on emperor anyway, unless i have an abusive UU and even then i screw it up somehow. i never tried this on non-dom games though. both times required heavily promo'd archers so i could have a few 2-shot gatlings with range.

but if i remember correctly they were both favorable situations so i cant say i would do this every time. China always builds GW in my games and since she was next to me i decided to snipe it so i could roll through her onto the next civs. the terrain was such that she was in the way from 3 other civs. it mightve been better to pop the GE on something else and overpay for open borders but i was pretty sure i was going to get the warmonger penalty as i wasnt going to wait around for a DoW from someone else. i definitely dont know how to balance that in dom games.

i should try to just hard build it and see if i can. i see it built early in every game so i just assume i'll never get it since it usually is a 15+ turn build time for me.