When to build Great Wall?

[MantaRevan]

I usually pass by the great wall because it has a pretty high early opportunity cost and I prefer other wonders when I go that route. On the other hand, I do find it pretty useful on more open maps where I know barbarians are going to cause problems and I can still get the oracle.

When do you guys go for the wall? When you have stone and think you'll be warring? What do you do with the spy, and do you need to build a separate GP farm from the cap if you build it?

 

[Oldlamehand]

I usually skip Great Wall too. The barbarian defense is nice, but I prefer other options, mainly building, conquering or developing cities, especially at Monarch or Emperor Level. In fact I often completely skip early wonders. If I try going for some wonders, it is usually Stonehenge, if I’m playing non creative leader, Great Lighthouse on maps with lot of water or Pyramids.

 

[Tatran]

At large/huge maps with low sealevel + raging barbarians, the Great Wall is almost a must have.
At higher difficulty levels they will come sooner and sooner. At Emperor around 2700 BC and at Immortal around 3000 BC.
You barely have time to build up defenses and you will stay in the stone age forever if you can't protect your tile improvements.

 

[labellavienna]

i always lose my battles against barbarians until i started to build the wall...barbarians always kill me...to the point where my people just flee and build another capitol somewhere else. im a coward and i try not to fight lol

 

[Gumbolt]

i always lose my battles against barbarians until i started to build the wall...barbarians always kill me...to the point where my people just flee and build another capitol somewhere else. im a coward and i try not to fight lol

Well raging barbs requires a certain strategy of building several warriors before your first worker/settler.

With normal barb settings and good spawn busting barbs can be controlled on most maps. If you have units inside the city around 2000bc early on you are doing something wrong.

 

[Tatran]

Well raging barbs requires a certain strategy of building several warriors before your first worker/settler.

You will definitely need better units than warriors in your cities.

 

[Jerrymander]

I generally only build the Great Wall if my leader is Imperialistic, I have access to Stone, and I'm feeling particularly lazy with fog busting. The 3x GG points makes for some killer escapades when Shaka invades your land with a 30+ unit stack of doom. I had a city making Level 5 Macemen with gold overflow on Marathon.

Of course, that's really only a gimmick strategy. I suppose the Great Wall's most powerful attribute is actually the Great Spy points, especially given how early they are. The +12 Espionage points from the settled Great Spy has always done me well. Saves a bunch of hammers on Catapults by inciting unrest. The only problem I have is that banked Espionage points are lost once you destroy your enemy.

 

[Tatran]

Lately I've tried several games with the same settings (marathon + huge map), but with normal barbarians and no Great Wall.
They are a joke, just like playing with raging babarians at any other speed.
The Great Wall is only a must have when playing at marathon speed + huge map + raging barbs.

 

[Lennier]

I usually play huge/marathon on emperor. If I have copper near my Capitol (or resourceless axeman UU) I can hold off the barbs by building 4 or 5 axemen. Otherwise GW is necessary. (If I try to hold the barbs off with chariots, barb spearmen start coming out of the fog.)

 

[Ringo Kid]

Sometimes, if you have a civ with a strong early unit raging barbs is just fun, when you are in that mood. But I usually build the Great Wall just so I do not have to deal with those guys.

 

[Seraiel]

I only build the GW when I go for an espionage-assisted-cultural-victory.

 

[Lennier]

Seriel, don't you usually play with no barbs?

 

[Seraiel]

Seriel, don't you usually play with no barbs?

I do, but in an espionage-assisted cultural-victory, the Great Spy points of the GW are mandatory to get Scotland Yard early.

 

[Bjarkov]

I think the GW is viable enough if
a) you are playing raging barbs and have no copper/horses in sight
b) you are going to base part of your economy on espionage points and can use a great spy or two