Walls & Castles ?

[Pawel]

Yes, that is kind of silly that they can take 'city attack' too, but at least they are only strength 18 while tanks are 28 or 40!

Actually, maybe walls and castles should work against tanks? They don't have to be taken literally. Modern cities are real tank traps, and it is easy to fortify them to make things even more difficult for attacking armor.

This way the outcome of a late-game city attack would also be more interesting. Does the tank have a huge attack bonus, or does the city have a good defense? It would also give a reason for mechanized infantry to actually be a mobile force supporting the tanks, and not only to defend cities!

 

[Sisiutil]

I usually don't build either.

I tend to have three main "war periods" per game: an early Axeman or UU rush, March of the Riflemen, and a modern warfare brouhaha. In other words, I'm usually at peace and building through the Medieval era, which is when walls become available and are useful. I also just plain dislike the Medieval units and Medieval warfare. Your opponents are stronger by then and the units are not overpowering, so those wars move too slowly for my tastes.

I suspect that if and when I start playing Marathon and/or Epic games, where the Medieval era lasts longer, I'll build them more often. But I'll still dislike how they become obsolete so quickly after they're available. Also, even if I build a wall in a border city, a war of conquest against a neighbour means it doesn't stay a border city forever--which makes the wall unnecessary before it's obsolete.

 

[emills]

I build walls for the increase in power rating without having to spend upkeep money on extra units. The higher power rating will prevent certain civs from attacking, again saving me more money in not fighting wars that I am not prepared. The defense bonus is a plus.

 

[T34]

I've only built walls in the greek world scenario, this is because the barbarians get vicous later on in that game. In actually games most of my wars are with guns. Sometimes I find that theres not lnog between macman and gunpowder so its not always worth it.

 

[MrPaladin]

I build walls... but mostly only because I tech rush bronzeworking...

because masonry is one of the techs on the way the only things I can build in the city besides archers or warriors...

I also find that the 'double production speed with stone' does help out since my walls were practically a freebee items while nothing else was happening

 

[Eternalsteelfan]

I'd build castles if the window of usefulness was larger, gunpowder is right around the corner after engineering if you don't get gunpowder first. Walls, on the other hand, have a huge window of usefulness.

 

[ferenginar]

There seems to be a general agreement that walls and castles are not really worth building, except potentially in border cities or pinch-points. It seems to me that the +1 culture on castles has been put there to make them more attractive given the short useful lifetime, though I do not believe it is sufficient.

I would be against adding any more culture, eg. walls +1, castles +2, because I do not see any great cultural significance, I let them get away with castles +1, for the modern tourists.

I think it would be better if they added Experience points to each, maybe +2 in each case.

 

[kernok]

i sometimes build castles and i often build walls in cities in danger.
but i agree that castles become obsolete in no time!
maybe they should be available sooner in the tech tree

 

[Charles 22]

I believe walls and/or castles do work against some form of the modern era units, though I can't remember if it's the gunpowder units or not. If gunpowder, from what I seen the mechanical infantry is classified as gunpowder, thereby giving significant purpose to building them.

I think if you check the odds of an attack, in the late era, you will seen significantly different odds for those attacking cities with castles, but I just can't remember if it was gunpowder units or not. OTOH, as I had been playing the EE3 mod a lot recently and they may had altered the effect of walls and made them work in the modern era where normally they would not. Seems like I was getting dramatically different results from when the enemy was attacking my cities with or without castles too.

 

[morchuflex]

In four months playing Civ4, I have built only 2 walls and 0 castles. But then, I usually play archipelago maps, where a good navy is much more important. On a pangea or continents map with cities built on choke points, walls could prove more useful.

 

[Bushface]

It doesn't matter what your city defence is if the attackers bring enough siege weapons. Four shots from catapults with the Accuracy promotion will reduce any defence to zero, or seven shots from unpromoted catapults. Obviously stronger weapons will do it sooner.
For some strange reason, the reduction of defence by bombardment is a percentage of the original defence value, so it takes just the same number of shots to get a 20% defence down to zero as it does for one of 105% (80% cultural plus 25% from Chichen Itza, the highest defence I have seen). So unless you can be sure that your stupid opponents won't bring any siege weapons, don't bother with walls once you have a 20% cultural defence. As for castles . . . almost as useless as forts: the +1 culture is pitiful.

 

[Charles 22]

I'll tell you guys one thing though. For those cities you take from other civs, that their culture borders right up to your new city. Sometimes in that or similar situations walls and castles are indispensible for those DoW's that come out of the blue. That extra turn or two they give you (sometimes more) can often make the difference in whether you can get reinforcements up to the city being besieged or not. I don't believe in losing a single city, so the challenge is a lot more for me in trying to keep everything I take (unless I razed it from the start) and so I need the delay those obstacles give me.

 

[Lord Gideon]

There seems to be a general agreement that walls and castles are not really worth building, except potentially in border cities or pinch-points. It seems to me that the +1 culture on castles has been put there to make them more attractive given the short useful lifetime, though I do not believe it is sufficient.

I would be against adding any more culture, eg. walls +1, castles +2, because I do not see any great cultural significance, I let them get away with castles +1, for the modern tourists.

I think it would be better if they added Experience points to each, maybe +2 in each case.

Castle, sure, but how do walls provide training?

 

[Pawel]

You get a lot of excercise running up and down the stairs!

 

[jimbob27]

I build walls in loads of my cities, but I rarely build castles. There's always something more important to be built, and by the time I get round to building them, gunpowder is pretty close anyway.

 

[Grey Fox]

Walls yes. And the AI builds them too, but usually only in cities they seem to want to protect extra.