What good are walls and castles...

[don_lahnum_jr]

They aren't damaging your culture, just the defense bonus from it. Give it a few turns to recover and the city is just as vibrant as before.

Think of it as a way to model a city like London's resilience in the face of German bombing campaigns.

So then the bonus from the walls and castle aren't represented in what is shown as a percentage at all...so then once that is down to 0% you still get 50% from your castle!?!?!

 

[xguild]

when a small stack of catapaults can whittle them down in a turn or two. Is is just me, or are the seige units super powerful? I finally had my first all out war last night (I usually play civ somewhat peacefully) and I sent only three catapaults with my advancing armies. Three proved to be sufficient for the situation because they were able to destroy the cities defences within two turns. I'm not sure I'm going to bother castling my cities anymore and instead protect with extra units.


Since I'm here, I'll ask another question. Are courthouses any good? My largest and furthest away cities (from the capitol) right now have a maintenence of like 5 gold. What's the point of building courthouses if they will only reduce the maintenence to 4 gold or so? Seems like not much of an impact when I could use the production for something a bit more useful.

Walls and castles are only good for the early game and usually only for Cities that are on the border or near enemy territory and are under constant threat. They provide a much needed bonus that will give your city an extra 2-3 turns before it's defensive bonus is reduced to 0% at which point the rest of the invasion goes in assuming the enemy has catapults. That might not seem like much of a value but it gives you 2-3 turns to send additional defenders, which really is the key to Castles and Walls.

Note that walls also provide you with a "intimidation" factor in regards to the PC AI. I have found that cities with castles and walls are usually the last target for the AI, he will actually go right past the city with his invasion force and try to find a lesser defended city.

In multiplayer castles hide how many units you have on the city, forcing the player to take a guess at the strength of the defense force in the city.

 

[Legal_My_Deagle]

I wonder if they dont stack, if you can still use both though?

Like, lets say that your cities' Wall/Castle defense is 50%, and its culture defense is 40%. The city uses the higher of the two, 50%. Then you get bombarded down to 30% wall/castle defense...I wonder if the city would then switch to 40% culture defense, since it is now temporarily the higher of the two?

 

[Mujadaddy]

Castles also give you +1 Culture per turn, boyz'n'girlz... useful for culture whores like myself

 

[Speciou5]

I have a screenshot of my catapault reducing a city down x%, and then having my second catapault reduce the city down to x+y%. My first reaction was "Bug!" since my second catapault somehow added a defense % to the city. But I guess if wall and cultural defenses are separate then it would make sense.

If this is true, I now know why the loading screen tip says something like "Walls ftl, culture defense ftw." And, if a great artist's work would increase the cultural defense, I also now that great artists are even more useful for war.

 

[DisruptiveIdiot]

I have a screenshot of my catapault reducing a city down x%, and then having my second catapault reduce the city down to x+y%. My first reaction was "Bug!" since my second catapault somehow added a defense % to the city. But I guess if wall and cultural defenses are separate then it would make sense.

If this is true, I now know why the loading screen tip says something like "Walls ftl, culture defense ftw." And, if a great artist's work would increase the cultural defense, I also now that great artists are even more useful for war.

I prefer to use great artists to push out the territory of fringe metropolises to prevent them from flipping and giving me a buffer zone against counter attacks. That only works after you crush the resistance though.

Siege has become very powerful in Civ IV, almost TOO powerful. The key is to have siege units in your cities to soften the enemy up as well. Remember, your city is still easier to defend because you have a fortification bonus of 25% after five turns. You have the chance to break the siege quickly while they will need several turns to take your city.

It is advisable to try to harry the attack force while they're en route to your cities too, they won't be much of a threat if you can damage several of their city assault units before they can be put to use.

 

[Flambeaux]

Sounds like we're finally getting an effective simulation of historical warfare undergirding the gameplay.

At least, the incentives finally seem to point in the right direction. Seige was a powerful tactic. That's why the practice arose so early among ancient peoples, and the great conquering civs of the past were masters at it. Further, those hunkering down for a seige knew they were doomed unless an army could come from elsewhere to break the seige. Walls and castles didn't stop invasions. They delayed them in the hopes of buying time to assemble a relief force from elswhere in the realm.

The game now incents the building of fortifications to supplement defensive units, encourages combined arms as a meaningful tactical consideration, and encourages the harrying of advancing (or retreating) armies. At least moreso than previous iterations.

Things change a bit with the advent of gunpowder, just as they did historically. Fortifications become less important, and people moved away from seige warfare as increased mobility, firepower, and force projection (through long range strike capabilities like air superiority) eliminated the benefits of defensive fortifications in population areas.

I'm really enjoying the attention to detail that went into CIV.

 

[Big J Money]

I'm pretty sure that the defense bonus walls stacks with castles, however. This will give you a total defence bonus of +100% which is something I've never gotten out of my culture rating. Does anyone know if city defense stacks with the underlying hill terrain? It should...

=$= Big J Money =$=

 

[dh_epic]

The key to having good defence in your city (from culture, walls, and castles) isn't just that it gives you better defence.

It also gives you more time when that stack of catapults shows up. Low defence means the enemy can take the city without catapults at all. Higher defence means that the enemy will need at least 3 turns to make their move.

One of the biggest misconceptions in Civ 4 is that most combat takes place beside cities. This is wrong. You need to keep a few reserve units ready to leave the city walls and deal with the enemy before they make it to your city. Not necessarily to win, but to weaken them.

If you see a stack of 4 catapults coming, deal with them BEFORE they make it to your city. Then even a stack of 10 units will have trouble with a city that has +80% defence.

 

[Hellfire]

It's in the manual and the civilopedia, look it up.

It's also borne out in actual gameplay.

And in your experience, the manual and Civilopedia are better in Civ4 than Civ3, right?