Tearing down The Great Wall

[The Pilgrim]

Or you can throw in some sacrificial meatshields. Still cheaper than GE. Just sayin'...

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

just played probably the first game ive seen where China didnt get the GW (Sweden did somehow). Inca-deity-pangea, had a mediocre start spot, lots of hills but all with stuff on them to limit the terraces and only 2-3 good mtn hills for huge food tiles. but i had hugely defensible mtn range around me. i tried OCC for Science but i wanted to hard build GW. i went pottery-writing to construction and didnt get it started in time. terraces came too late for enough hammers (only had two workers, one bought, one CS stolen). i ended up quitting in t216 after a protracted war on 3 fronts slowed my growth and science down enough that it was a foregone conclusion i'd lose. lost out on 3 trade partners from a simultaneous DoW and i only had 1 resource (4 x copper) for trade and it wasnt enough to rush buy science buildings since my remaining trade partners had some copper from rapid expansion. bulbed Plastics with Oxford in t214, way too late to even have a chance.

sweden was far from me and i didnt care about him having GW. i was never going after his cities. i think i'll need to do the 4-city liberty approach on deity, and not a science vc goal. im going to try it again i think.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

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

The main thing with the GW I find isn't moving more slowly per se, its losing the ability to rotate out wounded units out of the range of cities/defenders and replacing them with fresh units. This means that bringing superior numbers is of a limited advantage as you wont be able to use your second line of troops.
Thus, if numerical superiority doesn't constitute a big advantage, and manouvering is limited, all that is left is having better individual units. This means either having well promoted units (difficult) or technologically superior units, which is easier.

Took down the great wall from Austria in jungle and hills. They had pikes and crossbows, I had muskets and gattlings. Only losses I had taking both his cities was a knight that ventured too far forward on his own.

Or you can just say "F@&$ it" and suicide your redlined units into the city and move in his replacement.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

on Immortal i just took an Incan army and took Paris who had the GW. i had 10 comp bows and a horse and a spearman. since it was pre-t100 his borders werent really spread out. it did take a reload though. i didnt strategize well enough the first time around. i saved before the turn i was going to DoW. the 2nd time around, i got a surprise request for a joint DoW from Japan. that mightve been why i could do this. Japan took Lyon while i was taking Paris but his original army size fighting me wasnt any different. Now he only has Orleans and i think Japan is taking it. this has the making of a good win. he had Statue of Zeus, GL and GW. I annexed it. I had 4 cities with NC up and running too, but i have gpt issues now.

Across the board, Japan already took Mayan capital so im left with 5 more to get: Austria, Japan, Askia, another I forget and one I havent met yet.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

I did it once on King, Germany, Continents, Small. It took awhile and I lost a couple units but the whole process started earlier in the game.

Aztecs attacked me first before I had my army finished, I had maybe three archers and a couple warriors. They had the great wall and a half dozen random units at least. I stayed on the defensive while building up my force and researching to construction, managed to destroy their main attacking army in the process and they never recovered. I spent a lot of time healing while they kept throwing units at me then I attacked all at once. I counterattacked with at least 6 composite bowmen, one catapult, and a couple swordsmen to take the first frontier city. At this point I was able to upgrade to crossbows, took the capital and finally the final city to wipe them off the map.

 

[Alpedar]

Few ideas:
1) Great general's citadel can be highly beneficial
2) if there is lot of hills/forrests, it's efect is much less important
3) if it's in costal city, navy can help a lot

 

[ekat2468]

I find it pretty much impossible to invade someone with the great wall unless I have artillery/horse units

 

[ekat2468]

horse units can speed through the wall, and artillery doesn't need to go to far into their territory to attack it

 

[tetley]

I've taken out GW many times. I rely on dumb AI. Of course taking out coastal cities (even 1 away from coast) is trivial, even with GW. But even landlocked, I've done it. It's hard, and many times I just don't do it, but if you do the reward is you get the GW for yourself (though the GE points don't go where you want them).

Usually my strat is to avoid direct confrontation. His cities can take pot shots at me, but I just pillage and run. The centuries and centuries of oppression and rejecting peace treaties tend to produce very favorable terms in the end--not to mention the XP, GG's and the plunder. Works nice on Russia, too (GW or no GW), since 2X a plundered resource is still 0.

 

[trojan13]

It it possible. In my last deity game, the Huns was right next to me and built the GW. But I managed to take down 4 cities + attila's court w/o artillery. No naval unit used. CB's and xB's are strong enough to break through the GW.

 

[smallfish]

Why would them Huns build the Great Wall?

 

[trojan13]

It is stupid AI lol. Or they might be afraid of my CB's

 

[smallfish]

I once joined an MP game where the previous Hunnic player started off next to Rome... and just up and rushed him instead. Roman player then foolishly build the GW, but it was for naught and it got conquered for all its troubles.

What followed after the conquest of Rome... was perhaps the most calculated and intriguing siege of a "mountainous" Japan. He apparently went into deep unhappiness with some ICSing to get there, and then he left that game even though he was top scorer and up there with tech leader (Japan). 2 turns or so after he left, Attila's Court completed FP and all his other cities simultaneously finished happiness buildings and the Huns went from -20+ unhappiness to 20+ smileys

It was fascinating, to say the least.

 

[Jaybe]

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

The GW graphic is just a graphic. It affects ALL of the civ's territory, contiguous or not (and be thankful for it for when YOU own the GW).

EDIT: Sorry, I neglected to read the remaining posts.

 

[BlackWizard]

Great Wall doesnt go obsolete when attacker/opponent discovers dynamite. It goes obsolete when builder discovers dynamite.

 

[tetley]

Attila's Court completed FP and all his other cities simultaneously finished happiness buildings and the Huns went from -20+ unhappiness to 20+ smileys

What does FP do, really? It says -10% unhappiness from non-occupied cities. But by my math, it looks like that includes puppet cities, too. Actually, maybe even more than that. I just completed it after I had almost 1/3 of the map, and my happiness rocketed up by 16 when I expected it to be only 3 (I included only population-based unhappiness in my settled cities). Instead it seems to have given back 10% of ALL my unhappiness. Seems better than the description implies by far--better than Notre Dame.

 

[smallfish]

What does FP do, really? It says -10% unhappiness from non-occupied cities. But by my math, it looks like that includes puppet cities, too. Actually, maybe even more than that. I just completed it after I had almost 1/3 of the map, and my happiness rocketed up by 16 when I expected it to be only 3 (I included only population-based unhappiness in my settled cities). Instead it seems to have given back 10% of ALL my unhappiness. Seems better than the description implies by far--better than Notre Dame.

He had no puppets in that game. Everything that wasn't settled was annexed and turned into production city by the time I joined...

well there was Tokyo, but I annexed it after the smiley boosters came in to quickly rush units into the siege zone

 

[wloff]

What does FP do, really? It says -10% unhappiness from non-occupied cities. But by my math, it looks like that includes puppet cities, too.

I've always figured that the "non-occupied" cities means basically any city that's not revolting.

Puppets are not occupied, they're more like autonomous members of your empire.

 

[tetley]

Well I'm having fun with the Great Wall the other way around (in more ways than one). I built the GW as Mongols (which personally I find rather ironic...). I have now managed to piss off every civilization in the game except one, and they're all at war with me. My horses and twin Khans serve as mobile defense, moving around on roads. Meanwhile the AI can't move worth SQUAT. Tons and tons of enemy units. I just single out the siege, and am racking up XP and GG points like mad. All the AI's are spinning their wheels foaming at the mouth at me instead of developing their empires. I'm only 1 behind the tech lead, and it's only mid-Medieval. And I don't even have any iron. It seems they're blowing all their AI bonuses on units, which get converted to XP for me.