The Great Wall bug?

[Veteranewbie]

Just played a game when I build the Great Wall
And lateron when I send a settler to build a city, a barbarian warrior is aftering me and the turn before it is just next to my settler, but after I click the button 'build city', the barbarian got automatically pop away 2 tiles from the newly found city as if it's another civ unit
And furthermore, it appears that there're quite a few barbaria unit around my civ border (which has already expanded beyond the great wall protection) yet seems to unable to enter my border (even if I have a worker 2 tiles away)
Is it some kind of a bug or is it just my imagination?

 

[GoodSarmatian]

The Great Wall prevents barbs from entering your land, including all your territory outside the wall.

 

[Reg Pither]

Not a bug, but the way it's supposed to work. It does seem odd at first as you assume the graphic of the wall is the limit of its effect, but that would make no sense once you consider expansion.

 

[FranklinNoble]

That's exactly how the great wall works.

The graphic representation of the wall never expands, but the nice thing about it is that it keeps barbarians out of your cultural borders, forever.

If you're playing with raging barbarians, it can give you a tremendous advantage - in fact, it's almost overpowering in the early game.

 

[Veteranewbie]

oh i see, i must have misunderstood how great wall works then

 

[Proteus]

It works only on the continent where you built it, however.

So if you build cities on another continent/island better be prepared for barbarian guests

 

[Commander Bello]

Not having the WL expansion by myself, this makes me wonder.

Wasn't the Great Wall announced to protect you against Barbs INSIDE the region encompassed by it?
As the posters above state it, the Great Wall would protect all your lands (on that very continent) against Barbs - forever?

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Not having the WL expansion by myself, this makes me wonder.

Wasn't the Great Wall announced to protect you against Barbs INSIDE the region encompassed by it?
As the posters above state it, the Great Wall would protect all your lands (on that very continent) against Barbs - forever?

Exactly my thoughts, thats why on certain settings (huge / marathon as I play) it's simply the most important wonder you will ever build. It then allows you to build up cities at your leisure with hardly any need for defence, and allows your chariots / axes to go barb city capturing, as they are not needed for defence.

Therefore, I deem it far TOO powerful, and have suggested in another thread that it should need some mandatory requirements before you can start building it. A suggestion I thought of was a sliding scale of total cities needed (dependent on map size), plus a certain percentage of them needing walls BEFORE you can even start the GW construction. Maybe something like 6 cities with 4 walls, on a huge map.

As it stands, you can build it with just your capital (if you find yourself isolated), and then expand with no fear of barbs at all, when especially with marathon lvl, barbs are the main challenge early on.

 

[Commander Bello]

@Drew:
I agree with you.
Playing on modded maps (ultra-gigantic) only, especially in the early to mid game, Barbs constitute the biggest threat.

Now, if I get the GW wonder, all I have to do is to expand and unless I meet another nation, can do everything within my borders without having to look for Barbs? This would enforce maximum expansion with just concentrating on workers, as I see it.
That is really a weird concept, I think....

 

[shivute]

Only cities inside the wall when it is built should be protected, thus the cool map graphic would mean something. Would also nerf the current power the great wall has.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

@Drew:
I agree with you.
Playing on modded maps (ultra-gigantic) only, especially in the early to mid game, Barbs constitute the biggest threat.

Now, if I get the GW wonder, all I have to do is to expand and unless I meet another nation, can do everything within my borders without having to look for Barbs? This would enforce maximum expansion with just concentrating on workers, as I see it.
That is really a weird concept, I think....

It is a strange concept, a magical invisible continually expanding wall that protects you from all hostile barbarians...

Even Tolkien couldn't have gotten away with that one

 

[Proteus]

Only cities inside the wall when it is built should be protected, thus the cool map graphic would mean something. Would also nerf the current power the great wall has.

Either this,
or great wall expands for some time (encompassing cities built later)
but stops expanding, as soon as you research a certain tech (or one tech out of a list of techs).
From this time on it wouldn´t expand anymore and barbarians could enter your cultural borders that aren´t encompased by the great wall.
This would reflect the fact that the great wall wasn´t built at a certain time but over the duration of centuries, was in a constant proicess of rebuilding and expanding, until, from 14th to 17th century AD it took the form we know today.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Not having the WL expansion by myself, this makes me wonder.

Wasn't the Great Wall announced to protect you against Barbs INSIDE the region encompassed by it?
As the posters above state it, the Great Wall would protect all your lands (on that very continent) against Barbs - forever?

It come swith masonry, is much cheaper than the pyramids and is built twice as fast with stone...so the AI will have built the wonder before anyone has large enough territory to make it useful.
It would just protect the capital and one or two cities.

 

[Commander Bello]

This reminds me of the "FP fix" in one of the patches for C3C...

Is this behaviour of the Great Wall explained in the description or the manual? Or is it just learned by your experience?

I have to admit that it looks quite a bit like a broken concept (or better: a broken implementation) to have a Great Wall which display stays but its effects are extending...

 

[Proteus]

AFAIK it is written in both, the Civilopedia as well as the game manual, that it barbarians cannot enter your cultural borders after building the GW.
And AFAIK within the Civilipedia they also wrote that the GW surrounds your cultural borders when it is built.
So yes, I think it is intended to work as it does.

 

[Commander Bello]

AFAIK it is written in both, the Civilopedia as well as the game manual, that it barbarians cannot enter your cultural borders after building the GW.
And AFAIK within the Civilipedia they also wrote that the GW surrounds your cultural borders when it is built.
So yes, I think it is intended to work as it does.

Ok, in this case it seems like the previewers stated the concept incorrectly (or had a different build)

 

[Xerol]

It would make more sense to only protect the area inside it, but maybe it should also give you an extra bonus in areas inside your borders, but not inside the wall, like +100% combat vs. barbarians. This would make more sense in several ways, and still not make it completely useless if you just built it when you had 2 cities.

 

[Hadrean]

This is why I always have raging barbarians on-Build the Great Wall and watch other civs crumble.

 

[Willowmound]

Only cities inside the wall when it is built should be protected, thus the cool map graphic would mean something. Would also nerf the current power the great wall has.

Well, I haven't yet built the GW because that's how I thought it worked -- and deemed it practically useless.

This thread has made me see things in a whole new light. Guess I'll build it now!

 

[Ryuujin]

It is a strange concept, a magical invisible continually expanding wall that protects you from all hostile barbarians...

Even Tolkien couldn't have gotten away with that one

The only problem with the Great Wall's concept is the cool graphic they used to display it on the world map. It tends to confuse people as to the extent of its benefit.

The actual implementation game wise makes no less sense than:
- A giant circle of stones that magically makes monuments apprear in all your cities (then disappear when they figure out how to make a calendar.)
- A huge pyramid that somehow adds to the fortifications of distant cities.
- A statue that makes specialiazed workers magically appear in distant cities.
- The Kremlin making anything cost LESS.
Need I go on?