Walls

[sir_schwick]

@Akka

Currently you have to man every fortress with a unit which is inelegant and unrealistic. Besides slowing down progress, walls have traditionally acted as observation posts. This has allowed defenders from farther than usual distances to respond to emerging threats, in Civ terms a couple tiles away. I agree that impenetrable walls are a bad idea, but slowing down movement is good. They also would make for a form of deterrence or at least force enemies to try and attack a non-walled area.

I think a good way to implement walls would be to have them connect fortresses, with a limit on the distance between the fortresses as only 2-3 squares. When a unit wants to cross inbetween the forts(where the wall is) they are deverted to having to defeat the units in one of the forts. Artillery could be used to breach the wall, and only ZOC injury's would be sustained for the units passing through. This way a smaller number of troops could effectively contoll a wide line, nearly as well as 2-3x as many.

This is an ideal solution.

 

[Akka]

Well, I don't think it's unrealistic to require units garrisoning the wall for it to be defended

Keeping a wall several hundred of kilometres guarded and secure require lots of manpower and investment, and as such, I think that the amount of units used to form a continuous line is a good representation, especially considering how people often have hundred of units, and would need only five to ten to make such a wall.

On the other hand, the suggestion made isn't without merit.

 

[apatheist]

Walls blur the line between strategy and tactics. I disagree that they are at too microscopic a level. Consider the Great Wall or Hadrian's wall.

Let's think about the impenetrable walls idea. Let's suppose your border with some other country is 23 tiles of varied terrain. You build walls and fortresses along the whole border. I place my walls on flat terrain like grassland and I place my fortresses on hills. I build 5 fortresses and 18 walls. Then I put a pair of my top defenders in each fortress. In the ancient era, let's suppose I have spearmen and you have swordsmen and horsemen. My spearmen in their hilltop fortresses have an effective defense of 2 * 150% * 200% = 6. The attack is either 3 or 2. Not a chance you're getting through. In the medieval period, it's knights and medieval infantry (4) up against my pikes (3). My defense is effectively 9. In the late medieval, with cavalry against musketmen, it's 6 vs 12. In the industrial era, your cavalry are 6 against my riflemen's 18. Once I get infantry, it becomes 6 vs 30. Even with tanks, it's still 16 vs. 30. Those odds are long enough that, even if you roll up a bajillion artillery units and knock all my defenders down to 1 HP, you're still going to have a tough time. Not only that, my fortresses are connected by roads to each other and to my cities. You're almost certainly not attacking along the whole line, so I can shuffle my defenders around so the points you're hitting have 3 or more defenders while still leaving every fortress occupied. My border is effectively impenetrable. That is way too powerful.

As an alternative to impenetrable walls, why not just have walls be the equivalent of a hill for defense of friendlies and move of enemies? Your crossing of my wall takes an extra two moves, while my defense against your attack gets a 50% bonus. Such a wall has the same effect of slowing movement and channeling enemies to specific locations, but you don't have to learn any new movement rules, there are no arbitrary limits on length, and there isn't the extreme power of impenetrable walls.

 

[Akka]

Walls blur the line between strategy and tactics. I disagree that they are at too microscopic a level. Consider the Great Wall or Hadrian's wall.

Of course a wall can be built at a strategic level.
What I said, is that most suggestion were treating the wall at a tactical level.
The suggestion of an impenetrable wall, or walls with hit points, are only relevant for battles moments. At the strategic scale, an unmanned wall is even less relevant than a river, and a manned wall is, like a trench, simply a fortification helping the ennemy to defend itself.
All this can be perfectly emulated by a line of fortresses.

As an alternative to impenetrable walls, why not just have walls be the equivalent of a hill for defense of friendlies and move of enemies? Your crossing of my wall takes an extra two moves, while my defense against your attack gets a 50% bonus. Such a wall has the same effect of slowing movement and channeling enemies to specific locations, but you don't have to learn any new movement rules, there are no arbitrary limits on length, and there isn't the extreme power of impenetrable walls.

Barricades actually do just this

 

[frankthe butler]

i don't like the idea that a fortress could be placed 2 or 3 tiles from a wall and defend it, somehow funnelling the invaders to attacking the fortress.
.. I did really like the idea that a unit on the wall can defend the adjacent wall squares. that was great. i think it would be optimum if a fortress built right behind a wall (or on the same square as one, as the case may be in order for it to work out) should be able to defend the wall with the defensive bonus of the fort.
The problem with creating walls of fortresses only is simply that it's so intensive in manpower both to create such a barricade with workers, and also with units, it becomes impossible to work out. the player is better off using another strategy. no one ever does that and that's why. another problem with that model is that an invading force that takes out a fortress cannot be counter attacked lest they gain the defensive bonus of the fortress, so no point in the fortress chain can be weak in the slightest. each fortress has to be manned with lots of defensive units. it's simply impractical to a preposterous degree.

on the subject of square spacing that i didn't respond to earlier. apatheist said he didn't know why i assumed a wall would take up an entire square. i think i did a bad job of describing what i wanted earlier.
When i said it would be good if walls were in between tiles, i didn't mean that to build a wall a worker would move to an in-between position and build a wall. he would move to a square that was supposed to be inside the territory of the wall, and build a wall at the utmost edge of the square, which might show up on the map as in between squares. it should be clear just from looking at it which is the outside and inside of the wall. the wall would only be at the edge of the square, or appear to be in between, and so it wouldn't look awkward for there to be a mine or irrigation on it as well. the wall would be very small on the map and whenever an enemy was in the process of crossing it, they would show up as in between squares. if ever you attack with artillery an enemy in the process of climbing a wall there would show up an additional red square where the invaders are crossing, in between the other squares. you could have your forces on the wall's base square, and the enemy in between, climbing it without cluttering the map too much. in this way, you can have a fort on the same square as the base square of the wall (the square the worker stood on when he built the wall at the edge of it). the fort could protect adjacent squares of the wall as if they had the same defensive bonus.
i think forts are underutilized in the game simply because it's so easy to ignore and go around them. that has not historically been the way forts affect war strategy. this system is a great way to remedy this.

and to Akka, sometimes a player will want to slow down an invading force-fort or no fort-because you need that critical extra turn to get your guys in place. especially now that railroads are probably not going to be unlimited movement, slowing down a 3 movement modern armour when you're fighting a two front war might really come in handy. i know there were lots of times when i didn't want to use a wall for defense, but rather just because there was one square in just the wrong place that made it really easy for the enemy to slide right through my territory, and putting one or two squares of wall would've slowed them down a ton. i haven't wanted it in every game, but i had wished to have it.

Also, you guys, think of the realism it would create. when a city is about to be seiged and assaulted all the workers gather into it. using the city tile as the base tile, within a few turns, they could build a wall around the city. they should have something to do instead of just sitting there. walls shouldn't be built in the city production options.
Also there are more options if they were to develop it according to the protection of adjacent wall tiles, as mentioned by afgnwrlrd; you could build a series of walls, not with the city as a base tile, but one tile from the city, with a fort there. and voila: a fortified city. you could just fortify one side of the city, or you could erect three forts with walls around them to cover the entire city (if you're insane). that would be a really fortified city. i think it would be advantageous to only fortify one side of course. oh, i suppose you'd only need two forts to cover a city. anyway, there are lots of possibilities that i think would add realism and benefit to the gameplay.
Considering that artillery will attack all the units in a square, it may become very necessary that if you want to protect a city, you spread your forces out, and spreading them out in a couple surrounding forts adjacent to the city is the perfect solution.
Seriously!

 

[frankthe butler]

here's an idea based on what i mentioned earlier as gates. i think gates should take longer to build and that not even a player who builds a wall can go through it unless sacrificing the unit (jumping to its death). a player can attack those on the outside of the wall through the wall only if there's a gate right there. the drawback i would reccommend is not only that it takes longer to turn a wall into a gate, but that any attacker that attacks a gate instead of the wall has to deal with only 50% of the units that are next to it, but not right behind it--they have to defeat 100% of them. in other words, you can bust through a gate without having to kill all the guys in the fort next to it. Also, with cities, they'd all need gates so that is the weak point, as has been hisorically the case.
And also, artillery can destroy the wall if no one is standing directly on it.

i think a good solution to the impregnable wall criticism would just be to make offensive units a little more powerful. but still another, even better criticism would be what the developers would say in reply: that the system they're working out is not at all the same as civ 3, and that a tank will always kill a spearman. it's not based on probability the way you're imagining it.

 

[apatheist]

Of course a wall can be built at a strategic level.
What I said, is that most suggestion were treating the wall at a tactical level.
The suggestion of an impenetrable wall, or walls with hit points, are only relevant for battles moments. At the strategic scale, an unmanned wall is even less relevant than a river, and a manned wall is, like a trench, simply a fortification helping the ennemy to defend itself.

I disagree. The Maginot Line was very relevant to Germany's strategy in WWII; they went through the Low Countries instead. Its effect may only be in the battle, but whether and how you choose to attack are strategic considerations that are informed by the effectiveness of the defense.

All this can be perfectly emulated by a line of fortresses.

Barricades actually do just this

Barricades don't have a move cost, AFAIK, and barricades offer a defense bonus to whoever occupies it.

.. I did really like the idea that a unit on the wall can defend the adjacent wall squares. that was great. i think it would be optimum if a fortress built right behind a wall (or on the same square as one, as the case may be in order for it to work out) should be able to defend the wall with the defensive bonus of the fort.

Giving a unit the ability to defend territory it does not occupy opens many cans of worms. It's also unrealistic. The ZOC that fortresses grant is sufficient for this.

The problem with creating walls of fortresses only is simply that it's so intensive in manpower both to create such a barricade with workers, and also with units, it becomes impossible to work out. the player is better off using another strategy. no one ever does that and that's why. another problem with that model is that an invading force that takes out a fortress cannot be counter attacked lest they gain the defensive bonus of the fortress, so no point in the fortress chain can be weak in the slightest. each fortress has to be manned with lots of defensive units. it's simply impractical to a preposterous degree.

That's a feature, not a bug. The reason it's so expensive to create and man a wall of fortresses is because that makes you unassailable, which makes for a pretty lame game. My proposal for walls makes fortresses more useful, without neutering the attacker.

on the subject of square spacing that i didn't respond to earlier. apatheist said he didn't know why i assumed a wall would take up an entire square. i think i did a bad job of describing what i wanted earlier.
When i said it would be good if walls were in between tiles, i didn't mean that to build a wall a worker would move to an in-between position and build a wall. he would move to a square that was supposed to be inside the territory of the wall, and build a wall at the utmost edge of the square, which might show up on the map as in between squares. it should be clear just from looking at it which is the outside and inside of the wall. the wall would only be at the edge of the square, or appear to be in between, and so it wouldn't look awkward for there to be a mine or irrigation on it as well. the wall would be very small on the map and whenever an enemy was in the process of crossing it, they would show up as in between squares. if ever you attack with artillery an enemy in the process of climbing a wall there would show up an additional red square where the invaders are crossing, in between the other squares. you could have your forces on the wall's base square, and the enemy in between, climbing it without cluttering the map too much. in this way, you can have a fort on the same square as the base square of the wall (the square the worker stood on when he built the wall at the edge of it). the fort could protect adjacent squares of the wall as if they had the same defensive bonus.

You realize that this is completely different from everything else in the game, right? For example:

1) No other improvement exists between tiles
2) No other improvement has directionality
3) No terrain ever takes more than 1 turn to cross
4) No unit can defend terrain it doesn't occupy; at best, it can take ZOC potshots.

And that's just off the top of my head.

i think forts are underutilized in the game simply because it's so easy to ignore and go around them. that has not historically been the way forts affect war strategy. this system is a great way to remedy this.

Walls are a way to simulate the miserable lack of real strategic locations in civilization maps. There are few natural chokepoints like in the real world, like passes, valleys, etc. Other terrain isn't impossible to cross, it's just really hard. That doesn't exist in civilization because it merges the concepts of elevation, ruggedness, and steepness into flat land, hills, and mountains. That's why fortresses are under-used, not because they are too weak. Walls that obstruct without blocking are a way to ameliorate that in a realistic and historically accurate way. Walls that render the terrain completely impassible are bad realism and bad gameplay.

i know there were lots of times when i didn't want to use a wall for defense, but rather just because there was one square in just the wrong place that made it really easy for the enemy to slide right through my territory, and putting one or two squares of wall would've slowed them down a ton. i haven't wanted it in every game, but i had wished to have it.

Er... why didn't you build a fortress there?

Also, you guys, think of the realism it would create. when a city is about to be seiged and assaulted all the workers gather into it. using the city tile as the base tile, within a few turns, they could build a wall around the city. they should have something to do instead of just sitting there. walls shouldn't be built in the city production options.

Why not? They're walls around the city. They surround and defend the city. Maybe they're misnamed; maybe they should be called a "keep" or a "castle."

here's an idea based on what i mentioned earlier as gates. i think gates should take longer to build and that not even a player who builds a wall can go through it unless sacrificing the unit (jumping to its death). a player can attack those on the outside of the wall through the wall only if there's a gate right there. the drawback i would reccommend is not only that it takes longer to turn a wall into a gate, but that any attacker that attacks a gate instead of the wall has to deal with only 50% of the units that are next to it, but not right behind it. in other words, you can bust through a gate without having to kill all the guys in the fort next to it. Also, with cities, they'd all need gates so that is the weak point, as has been hisorically the case.
And also, artillery can destroy the wall if no one is standing directly on it.

Why bother with all of that? Just assume that each segment of wall has a gate in it that is only passable to friendlies. I mean, each tile is like 100 miles wide. Nobody builds a wall that long without a few dozen gates in it. Building a gate is just part of building a wall. That's not to mention fortresses, which can also be passed.

i think a good solution to the impregnable wall criticism would just be to make offensive units a little more powerful.

A little more powerful? The wall is still impenetrable. Besides, that would make the units more powerful in every non-fortress battle; you'd fix one imbalance by introducing another one. Either that, or you reduce the power of fortresses, but weren't you the one who was just saying that fortresses too much effort for too little gain?

but still another, even better criticism would be what the developers would say in reply: that the system they're working out is not at all the same as civ 3, and that a tank will always kill a spearman. it's not based on probability the way you're imagining it.

Er... maybe you should re-read what I wrote. I never pitted a tank against a spearman.

You're all looking too much from the perspective of the defender, and not enough from the perspective of the attacker. With abilities like this, you'll end up with games where boundaries are carved in stone and immovable because it's just too hard to attack. Either that, or these fortifications are circumvented completely by attacking through other countries or by sea.

The goal should be for walls and fortresses to make it harder to attack, but not impossible. The goal with a wall is to slow down an attacker so you can gather your resources. The goal with a fortress is to stop your attacker. Different tools for different jobs.

I note that nobody has pointed out flaws in my suggestion. I also note that nobody has rebutted my analysis.

 

[frankthe butler]

jesies, apatheist. first of all, i don't think anyone is seriously considering literally impregnable walls. we are in agreement that walls should simply slow attackers down, and make a defender able to guard a longer line of defense with fewer troops.

I note that nobody has pointed out flaws in my suggestion. I also note that nobody has rebutted my analysis.

you want flaws to your suggestion? here's one i stated a long time ago: it's that under your system, a wall only has any effect if it's placed in between grassland squares And the attacking forces have more than one movement point left by the time they get to the wall. in all other situations the wall is useless. there'd be no point to putting them on hills since multiple movement units would take just as long either way. forgive me if i don't understand your system if this is not the case. suppose a unit can only move one square at a time, and he's in the square in front of the flat wall. he can choose 3 different squares to mount the wall, then you don't know which one he'll choose, and if it takes him one turn to get on top of that wall, then before you know it, he'll be there, not slowed down a second, and you couldn't put your troops in the right spot cause you didn't know where to go. this doesn't sound like a good system. it sounds rather silly.

Also, you must keep in mind who has suggested what. i suggested that only adjacent squares be guarded. If you had a 23 tile border, you'd need 8 forts, minimum, not 5. and you'd need 23 units standing on each square to keep artillery from taking out a wall. and if you did only that, and there was a blitzkreig, with the enemy taking on one square of the wall, they'd have to only kill 3 of your units unless you stockpile guys in your fort. say if you wanted an invading force to have to deal with 5 guys, you'd have to put 3 in each fort, and that's a total of 39 units to maintain the line. and so only 3 of those guys would have defensive bonus, and if you artilleried them they'd only have one hit point. (if they attacked a non-fort-wall you'd have to put an additional guy in the fort, which would bring the total units to maintain the line to 47.) also, how could the walls be on grassland and the forts be on hills? what i have been proposing is that the fort must be built on the same base-square as the wall in order to have any effect on that wall and the ones next to it.
like this (and this is going to be repetitive for those who already understand what i've been suggesting):
ggggg
wwzww

where grassland is g, w is a tile(doesn't matter what-maybe grassland too) with a wall and z is a tile with both a wall and a fort. the workers go to tiles w (before the wall is built) and build a wall, that --so what if it's directional-- will appear to be close to the edge of itself and the g grassland. and when you look at the wall on the map, it pretty much looks like the wall is in between the w and the g--maybe a little bit more on the w side. the point is so when invaders come along it doesn't clutter up the map when theyr'e on the wall, and it actually DOES slow them down a turn. is this not clear? jesies.


I suppose Gates were rather much of me to suggest, and i realized after posting it that everyone would always put gates in front of Forts. So i'm instead recommending that forts act as gates automatically, and movement through a wall in one turn can only be done at a fort, by the owner of the fort, or else, it will make the defender simply take two turns just like it would take the enemy. forget about the suicide by jumping--that would only be something that would come into play when attacking a force of more than one unit that was already scaling your wall.

So i'm also close but not sure about recommending this, but tell me what you think. if instead of having to defeat all the units in adjacent wall squares to the wall in question, if you wanted to scale said wall, you had to fight 50% of the adjacent units. so you wouldn't have to kill all the guys in the fort next door, just 50% of them to take out a wall. what does that sound like? too weak?

also<

1) No other improvement exists between tiles
2) No other improvement has directionality
3) No terrain ever takes more than 1 turn to cross
4) No unit can defend terrain it doesn't occupy; at best, it can take ZOC potshots.

counterpoint 1 to 1,2,3,and4: - So what. -

nothing in the game is meant to act like a wall either.

Also, ZOC never works for me. i have 10 infantry standing in a fort and 5 cavalry come riding right by and maybe if i'm lucky one infantry will take one potshot at one cavalry. what the heck is that??

I think the goal should be for walls and fortresses to make it harder to attack, but not impossible. The goal with a wall is to slow down an attacker so you can gather your resources. The goal with a fortress is to stop your attacker.

 

[Akka]

I disagree. The Maginot Line was very relevant to Germany's strategy in WWII; they went through the Low Countries instead. Its effect may only be in the battle, but whether and how you choose to attack are strategic considerations that are informed by the effectiveness of the defense.

The Maginot Line, actually, wasn't a wall, but a serie of interconnected fortress
It was practically exactly what a continuous line of fortresses with units in it would look like.

Barricades don't have a move cost, AFAIK, and barricades offer a defense bonus to whoever occupies it.

IIRC, the barricade precisely HAVE a move cost (either one more than the base terrain, either they force the unit to end its move in it, don't remember).

 

[apatheist]

jesies, apatheist. first of all, i don't think anyone is seriously considering literally impregnable walls. we are in agreement that walls should simply slow attackers down, and make a defender able to guard a longer line of defense with fewer troops.

I should have said impassable rather than impregnable. Regardless, it's what was suggested by several players. That you can destroy it with artillery and then pass through is not an improvement.

you want flaws to your suggestion? here's one i stated a long time ago: it's that under your system, a wall only has any effect if it's placed in between grassland squares And the attacking forces have more than one movement point left by the time they get to the wall. in all other situations the wall is useless. there'd be no point to putting them on hills since multiple movement units would take just as long either way. forgive me if i don't understand your system if this is not the case.

No, that's a pretty good point. On the other hand, would that be so bad? If you have a series of hills or mountains, then your attackers will already be slowed down. Slowing them further would be nice, but it's not like they have a free run from the border to your cities, especially since they can't use your roads. Whatever squares in between that are not hills or mountains could be walled or guarded. If your city has a radius of 2, you can usually guarantee it will take 2 full moves for them to get into position through use of walls and taking advantage of terrain. If there are shorter paths, you stick a fort and a garrison there.

You also pointed out that this would have no effect on 1 move units. That's true. I also think that's not a problem. Maybe I should narrow the scope a little bit. For me, it's not about slowing all invaders down so much as it is slowing down the fast ones. If they're already slow, well, that'll still give me time to respond. Walls are for protecting me from a blitzkrieg, not for making it take 4 turns for an army to cross 2 tiles. I need a turn or two to beef up my defense and to ready a counter-attack. I need a turn or two so that their army stretches out a little bit. If my city is within a single move of their borders, they can keep throwing units at it until it falls, without ever having their units be vulnerable on my ground. With a wall like I describe, I'm guaranteed that their units will end a turn on my soil, giving me a chance to hit them before they hit me.

Your criticism is valid, but I suggest that the cure is worse than the disease. It's never taken more than one turn to cross any tile, and I don't think we should break that precedent.

i suggested that only adjacent squares be guarded. If you had a 23 tile border, you'd need 8 forts, minimum, not 5. and you'd need 23 units standing on each square to keep artillery from taking out a wall. and if you did only that, and there was a blitzkreig, with the enemy taking on one square of the wall, they'd have to only kill 3 of your units unless you stockpile guys in your fort. say if you wanted an invading force to have to deal with 5 guys, you'd have to put 3 in each fort, and that's a total of 39 units to maintain the line. and so only 3 of those guys would have defensive bonus, and if you artilleried them they'd only have one hit point. (if they attacked a non-fort-wall you'd have to put an additional guy in the fort, which would bring the total units to maintain the line to 47.)

If you're suggesting ZOC from the units in the forts, that's fine. However, a unit in the fort should not be able to prevent enemy units from entering adjacent tiles at all. You can't hold ground you don't occupy.

also, how could the walls be on grassland and the forts be on hills?

It was an example with terrain like this:
ggghggghggghggghggg
I imagined the walls as being separate from forts and connected in a line with each other and the forts.

--so what if it's directional--

It's completely different from everything else in the game. Games like civ work well when they have a small set of consistent concepts. You're proposing a mechanism that is completely different from the way everything else works.

the point is so when invaders come along it doesn't clutter up the map when theyr'e on the wall, and it actually DOES slow them down a turn. is this not clear?

What it looks like is immaterial. I'm sure there's a way to depict it. I don't care what it looks like because it's a flawed concept. What exactly happens in that in-between step? Can you cancel scaling the wall? Can they be attacked? Can you disband the unit?

I suppose Gates were rather much of me to suggest, and i realized after posting it that everyone would always put gates in front of Forts. So i'm instead recommending that forts act as gates automatically, and movement through a wall in one turn can only be done at a fort, by the owner of the fort, or else, it will make the defender simply take two turns just like it would take the enemy.

What's wrong with defenders being able to pass through their own walls like they weren't there?

forget about the suicide by jumping--that would only be something that would come into play when attacking a force of more than one unit that was already scaling your wall.

What?

if instead of having to defeat all the units in adjacent wall squares to the wall in question, if you wanted to scale said wall, you had to fight 50% of the adjacent units. so you wouldn't have to kill all the guys in the fort next door, just 50% of them to take out a wall. what does that sound like? too weak?

What does fight mean? They're not in the same tile. One isn't trying to enter the tile the other occupies. They're not taking ZOC potshots at each other.

nothing in the game is meant to act like a wall either.

So, since it's different in one way, it should be different in every other way? If I want to have dozens of things all with their own different and quirky behaviors, I'll play Magic or AD&D.

Also, ZOC never works for me. i have 10 infantry standing in a fort and 5 cavalry come riding right by and maybe if i'm lucky one infantry will take one potshot at one cavalry. what the heck is that??

That is a mistake in setting the probability of a free shot. You fix that by making one number 5 times as big. You don't change it by introducing a new and completely different thing.

The Maginot Line, actually, wasn't a wall, but a serie of interconnected fortress

I was mentioning that more because of the point about how tactics inform strategy. Walls are kind of obsolete these days. Now we have minefields.

 

[Kurioku]

A wall by itself doesn't stop any invader at all. A garrisonned wall might, but that effectively requires building a unit anyway, and so is functuionally no different from the existing methods people use to block settler units.
.

wanna explain the great wall?

historically, walls (beyond city walls) stopped nothing - at best they acted as an alarm system and to help block a retreat.

Then I guess that still adds to defense rating yes?

 

[brinko]

gj Kurioku, very compeling idea

 

[Afgnwrlrd]

wanna explain the great wall?

Then I guess that still adds to defense rating yes?

I think he means that if no one was garding it, it wouldn't be impossible to cross, just makes it slower (like going over a mountain). In order to prevent the attacker from gaining a defense bonus after taking the land w/ a wall on it, the defensive bonus might only work for whoever has it in their territory.

 

[Kurioku]

I think he means that if no one was garding it, it wouldn't be impossible to cross, just makes it slower (like going over a mountain). In order to prevent the attacker from gaining a defense bonus after taking the land w/ a wall on it, the defensive bonus might only work for whoever has it in their territory.

What I was picturing is that a citizen acutally has a defensive edge on attakcers. And, can break down invasions. Though it may be a clumsy way, it's still another idea, and if the game is made to produce high challenging events, then it's more strategies to ya.

 

[Akka]

wanna explain the great wall?

The Great Wall WAS manned and garrisonned.

 

[apatheist]

wanna explain the great wall?

Uh... You realize the Great Wall didn't keep invaders out, right? Ever heard of the Mongols?

 

[frankthe butler]

well, i guess it all comes down to how much you care about slowing down invading forces. it's pretty simple. it could work either the way i describe or the way Apatheist describes, though, you wouldn't even have to call what he wants a wall.. an oil slick or a bannana peel would do the same. it also has something to do with how important you'd like forts to be, and of course, how much care we should take in not confusing newbie players. i personally don't think the system i worked out would be very confusing, since it's so intuitive. i play defensively and i've simply had the urge many times to be able to control a length of land with fewer troops and forts never did it. i think playtesting would determine whether it was too strong a system, and in the event that it was found to be, then the 50% rule i postulated could be substituted. (that's the rule that only half of the adjacent protectors need to be overcome in order to mount the wall.)
- - I'd like to have a reason to build forts. i'd like to have some defense other than loads of units on troublesome borders. i'd like to be able to route the enemy or slow him down a turn. i wouldn't go crazy with walls, since they'd be such an effort to build i'd be better off having workers improve the land more. testing would determine how many worker turns a wall ought to take to make sure people don't go crazy with it.
I could live without walls. but i think they would be a realistic, enjoyable, strategic and intuitive addition to the game.

 

[frankthe butler]

What exactly happens in that in-between step? Can you cancel scaling the wall? Can they be attacked? Can you disband the unit?

in the in between you artillery them. you can't cancel scaling the wall--once you start you're committed. (if peace is declared in the interstep then before attacking on the next turn your guy comes up and says'master are you sure?' then you can go back.) you can attack them in the inter-step but if there's more than one guy mounting the wall, i said i thought it would be best if your unit can't retreat up the wall after a successful fight. attacking down a wall-- at units that are in the process of mounting-- should sacrifice the unit. don't ask. i just think it would be good. can you disband the unit?--well, i don't really care. but for simplicity i'd say no since you can't turn around or do anything else with them.

What's wrong with defenders being able to pass through their own walls like they weren't there?

I just thought there should be some collateral difficulty with walls too. adds strategy.

So this system is pretty worked out by now, so much that someone could pretty easily mod it, i imagine. i think someone should.
i think it would take a person only one game with walls to understand everything about them; i don't know how many games i played before i understood ZOC: i think i read about it finally.
hope i've answered your questions.

 

[rhialto]

They should bring back civ2 zones of control. That went a long way towards reducing the number of units required to maintain a border.

 

[apatheist]

in the in between you artillery them. you can't cancel scaling the wall--once you start you're committed. (if peace is declared in the interstep then before attacking on the next turn your guy comes up and says'master are you sure?' then you can go back.) you can attack them in the inter-step but if there's more than one guy mounting the wall, i said i thought it would be best if your unit can't retreat up the wall after a successful fight. attacking down a wall-- at units that are in the process of mounting-- should sacrifice the unit. don't ask. i just think it would be good. can you disband the unit?--well, i don't really care. but for simplicity i'd say no since you can't turn around or do anything else with them.

I guess all of that is another reason why I am concerned. There is no time in the game where a unit is effectively out of your control. Even in ships, you can command land units. The suicide thing in particular is weird.

I just thought there should be some collateral difficulty with walls too. adds strategy.

Making things arbitrarily harder just frustrates people. You have to have more justification than that.

I guess I see a little bit of inconsistency here. On one hand, your model is much more powerful than I think is wise. To balance that, you introduce rules about units dying if they attack units scaling walls, with defenders not being able to pass through their own walls, and so forth. From my perspective, it appears to be an overly complex and overly powerful system that is a thing unto itself in the civ world that introduces additional complexities to make sure it's not too powerful. You're putting so much in and getting so little out in comparison. You're building a Porsche and loading it up with bricksit so it doesn't go too fast. Just make a Toyota and be done with it.

So this system is pretty worked out by now, so much that someone could pretty easily mod it, i imagine. i think someone should.
i think it would take a person only one game with walls to understand everything about them; i don't know how many games i played before i understood ZOC: i think i read about it finally.
hope i've answered your questions.

I'd like to see someone mod your suggestion just so you can see how complicated it is . Actually, with the whole "walls between tiles" thing, I think you should be prepared for it not being possible. It might be possible, but I wouldn't count on it.

The size of the mod might be a better way to express the difference between our two perspectives. Mine:
1) Add a new worker command "Build Wall" - easy; just like any other worker command.
2) Add 1 wall graphic - easy; just like any other terrain improvement.
3) Add code that increases move cost for unfriendly units - easy
4) Add code that increases defense cost for friendly units - easy
5) Add code from allows walls to be bombarded or pillaged - easy; just like any other terrain improvement.

I think my walls could be added in an afternoon.

Yours:
1) Add new worker command "Build Wall" - easy
2) Add 4 wall graphics (4 sides to tile) - easy
3) Add code telling game how to build between tiles - new and different
4) Add interface code that allows the user to designate where to place the wall - medium
5) Add code telling game that units crossing walls get "stuck" - new and different
6) Add code allowing units to defend adjacent squares - new and different
7) Add code allowing artillery units to target walls between tiles - new and different
8) Add code enabling city tiles to have walls, since city tiles can't currently be improved - new and different

And it's quite possible I'm missing some features. We have no idea how hard it would be to implement at least 5 parts of the model you suggest. It might be trivial, but it might be hard. Those things don't build on anything in the civ world that we know of, though, so they may even be impossible. I will bet money that it would not be easier than my model, though. For things like game rules, that's a good way of judging complexity for players. If it's harder to code, it will probably be harder to understand.