City Walls

[FrantzX]

Shouldn't Walls go obsolete around the discovery of gunpower? I mean, I don't think a city has had a wall build around it since ~1500. And without walls, the modern game will be alot harder beacuse you will have to keep battle away from your cities so they don't get wrecked.

[Adagio]

I agree, it seems a little strange that you still can build citywalls in the 20th century

[Mahdimael]

I think it would probably be the other way around- you can build walls, but certain units will be able to go around them or even potentially destroy them (?)

[Patriqvium]

Alpha Centauri had the Blink Displacer ability, which allowed units equipped with it to bypass any base defenses.

So, it is possible that some modern-age units can bypass city walls... but I've got no idea which ones. Any suggestions?

[DonJoel]

How about all of them?
But then you have to change the entire combat system and i dont think thats anything i want. Perhaps for civ4.

[Triped]

Walls would still help (to an extent)

Walls can keep modern-day infantry from marching straight in...obviously artillery could shell over. The Blink Displacer was a stroke of genius, in my opinion (just a little expensive)

[Mihai]

After gunpowder the wall don't dissapear, just became thicker and became known as fortification. The ones from Sevastopol had given germans a hard time in 1942.

[Bill3000]

In Civ2, the Howitzer ignored city walls, and the rules could be easily implented as simple as changing a 0 to 1. (Actually, that was what you had to do. )

I'm sure that there will be some rule like that - I mean, they have Air transporting, something not possible in Civ2.

[saracen31]

It's a nice look to have the walls still be there, but I agree they don't serve a whole lot of purpose in the modern age. Maybe they could only provide 1/4 protection or something after a certain year.

[Madine]

If you think of improvements as concepts it makes more sense.

If city walls became obsolete than other improvements should become obsolete too.

[Rakki]

I think city walls should be ignored by modern age military units (such as jet fighters, tanks and whatever), but still exist in the modern age so it provides protection against infantry and "ancient" units... we must assume that the upkeep also goes into progressively upgrading the city's defenses...... (keep pesky phalanx out, perhaps)

And if a city is attacked, there should always be the chance that population goes down (a stray shell detonates a stockpile) and a city improvement being destroyed ( there goes the aqueduct). This should encourage players to build fortifications on their boundaries and station troops in there... just like real life

I mean, after all, only in dire cases do you want to fight in cities. Urban warfare is expensive in both casualties and economic damage. They basically reduced Stalingrad to rubble.... of course, if you choose to fortify your units in the city, sure..... but you have to deal with the collateral damage....

[Nenad]

Originally posted by ADG
I agree, it seems a little strange that you still can build citywalls in the 20th century

As far as I remember, in WWI Belgium defense against Germans was based on fortified cities (Antwerp and some more). So, it's not silly to have the city walls in 20th century, but yes, it's maybe silly to build it at that era.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Nenad


As far as I remember, in WWI Belgium defense against Germans was based on fortified cities (Antwerp and some more). So, it's not silly to have the city walls in 20th century, but yes, it's maybe silly to build it at that era.

it will still work at some point, but how many cities have actually built a city wall in the last 50 years?

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by ADG


it will still work at some point, but how many cities have actually built a city wall in the last 50 years?

Simple solution: Rename "city walls" to "city fortifications."
If Firaxis doesn't do it, then just do it in your own mind.

[Pingu:]

City Walls are vital to the pre gunpowder warfare, but it's not the warfare that's made walls obselete, it's the cities.

Up until the agricultural revolution most city dwelling people lived inside the walls of the city, after it and the population expanded outside the walls. Perhaps a wall is good only for certain city size, once you get larger than a size 8 city (for example), the old wall becomes obselete and you have to build another one, which is much more expensive to maintain.

The way I'd like to see modern defense dealt with is something like the "Active Defender" thing in CTP.


Pingu:

[Triped]

Well, with the U.N. ban on hurting civilians ( ), walls around cities don't matter...keep in mind that fortifications have gotten more advanced.

[weini]

One should not be able to build City Walls after the Invention of Industrialization and further the existing City Walls should disappear. During Indisrialization most City outgrew their City Walls so they lost their point.

[me_irate]

I like the idea of city size being decreased by attack. I believe that a 10% loss per attack on a city would be adaquate. a size thirty city would lose 3 a size 10, 1 and anything a between those numbers would be a percentage. for instance a size 24 city would lose 2 and have a 40% chance of losing a third. Perhaps this could even work for cities less than size 10. This loss of pop would give added incentive to keep your fighting outside of cities.

How often do you see military units stationed in a city, they are usually around the city in millitary bases. This would make the game much more realistic.

For example sure, you can have city walls and get the 50% bonus, but you will lose 2-3 citizens at the expense of that bonus. you would be better of pre-empting an attack and getting no bonus, but saving your citzens. This would make civ warfare mirror modern warfare. For example the germans were getting there but kicked by the russians clear back into germany, but when they retreated back into berlin, they were able to hold them off for a good bit of time. This proved to be costly for all, the german civilians, and the russians some 3 million soldiors. This shows that cities give defensive bonus's(even without walls) but the collateral damage is emence.

[player1]

It should'nt be possibile to build City Walls in big cities,
that is impossibile.
Look Rome for example:
It had no City Walls because it had 1,000,000 people

Maybe there should be some limit, like 12 Pop size.

[Inverse Icarus]

blah de blah. city walls should just work on pre-industrial units. flat out.

(remember we saw war chariots and musketeers in the same pic)

[Sava]

Originally posted by Nenad


As far as I remember, in WWI Belgium defense against Germans was based on fortified cities (Antwerp and some more). So, it's not silly to have the city walls in 20th century, but yes, it's maybe silly to build it at that era.

My grandfather is from Kragujevac... haha

Prussian cities had walled fortifications... I say had, because when the German's declared War, the artillery reduced them to rubble. Governments don't build city walls anymore because they are useless. There are other barriers, but they serve different purposes. My vote is for obsoletion of city walls upon the invention of breech-loading, rifled field artillery.

[Sandman]

My suggestion is that city walls reduce population growth after a certain population size has been reached, because of overcrowding.
As well as being a defensive measure, city walls also combated smuggling in and out of the city, so I think they should reduce corruption.
In the modern age, I think a cities defense should depend on the number of improvements it has. Say a 5% defense bonus for every improvement. So a city with 20 improvements will have its defense doubled. Every time there is an attack, an improvement should be destroyed, reducing the defense a bit. And only infantry type units could take advantage of this. My inspiration is of course Stalingrad, with the ferocious battles for the tractor factory and the grain silo.

[jdd2007]

i think that there should be city walls late in game, but they shouldnt be very effective against most units and shouldnt have any effect on ranged, sea and air units. there should instead be new improvements like entrenchments, tank traps and bomb shelters to replace older ones.

[Phutnote]

I agree with Mihai.

City walls were tall and thin until the invention of gunpowder, which made them obsolete. The cannonballs could knock'em down.

There was an enormous construction blitz to change city walls at this time from tall and thin to short, squat, amd reinforced with earth after the discovery of gunpowder.

Some ancient fortresses had their thin was buttressed with earth and additional stone to shore them up against bombardment. I believe Rhodes is a prime example of this sort of change, at least on certain segments of the fort.

City fortifications were built until WWII. After that, I'm not sure anyone built more. Their usefulness was limited because the Germans would go around most or take'm by surprise with commandos and paratroops/gliders. Even so, they had a hell of a time at Sevastopol.

I think there should be a transition between old city wall and city fortifications, like there is with barracks. Walls become obsolete, you gotta build fortifications instead. And these would probably be mostly, if not entirely, obsolete by the later 20th century.

Phutnote

[Bleyn]

Originally posted by Pingu:
City Walls are vital to the pre gunpowder warfare, but it's not the warfare that's made walls obselete, it's the cities.

That is not exactly correct. The changes in warfare that occured with gunpowder-based weapons did make pre-gunpowder city walls obselete. Yes, many of the cities grew way too large for city walls, but the changes that came with gunpowder did require a whole new design method for city walls. Let me go into the historical details a little and maybe it will help.

First, I will remind everyone, just so we are all on the same track, that pre-gunpowder walls for fortifications and small cities were the classical straight up and down affairs. They looked like giant castle walls, which is what they really were.

It was not actually gunpowder that made these old walls obselete. A fortress could hold out quite well against an attackre just armed with muskets. It was the invention of the metallurgical techniques that came about in the creation of the first truely useful cannon that put the nail in the coffin of those old walls. The very first cannons weren't powerful enough to do real damage to the old walls because the metallurgy didn't allow it. They couldn't pack in enough powder without the cannon exploding. Once they learned how to make cannons that were strong enough to take a useful charge of powder, things changed.

The old straight up and down walls just could not stand in a contest with cannon. They fell in very short amounts of time, far shorter than those same walls would have stood up against catapults and the like. IIRC, it had to do with the angle that the projectiles came in at, and how fast. Catapults lobbed their ammo at a fair angle, and didn't exactly throw them that fast. Yes, it was fast, but not as fast as cannon. Cannons shot their ammo at much flatter tragectories, allowing more of the kinetic energy to transfer straight inwards on the walls.

What military engineers eventually learned was that they had to use a completely different design for their fortifications. Walls had to be much thicker and shorter. They also had an angle built into the face of the wall, a gradually slooped area in front of the wall used to deflect cannonballs being shot at the base of the wall upwards and over the walls.

At the same time, they also made other changes in their designs, gone was the classical square shaped fort. What appeared in its place is a fortress with a shape somewhat like that of a multi-pointed star. This had two purposes, it made it much harder for the beseigers to find spots where they could fire cannon straight at the walls, and at the same time allowed for overlapping field of fire from the defenders. And these are just some of the changes that occured.

The combined effect of these changes was to bring back some of the prior pairity between beseiger and beseiged. A properly built fortification in good condidtion with a good amount of defenders and supplies could once again expect to last weeks or even months against a seige.

However, these fortifications took much longer to build and were much more costly than before. Only fairly small cities typically had them. Although there is one instance where an entire peninsula of appreciable size actually received what was then considered modern scientific fortifications. This was the peninsula where Lisbon resides in Portugul. In 1809 or 1810, Wellington spent millions to have several lines of fortifications built along the neck of peninsula. Those forts, the Lines of Torres Verde (sp?) can still be seen today. The French army they were built to defend Lisbon against took one look at them and went home without ever contesting them.

[Kc7mxo]

I must agree with the fellow that said if walls become obsolete, then so should other buildings.

None of the major industrial nations have had a REAL war since ww2. All the super powers have mostly fought against lesser opponents.

And while the development of air power and artillery has reduced the usefullness of walls, treches, minefields, bunkers, concrete spikes (to prevent tank traffic) are among the myrriad things which would still be usefull in a war which lasted long enough to need them.

I Think teh way civ 2 did it was simplest, and best. Certain uints ignore them, other don't. Anything which has to get up close and personal (tanks, infantry) go against eh walls. anything which doesn't (artillery, aircraft, ships) doesn't.

at least it seems to me that the battleship ignored walls, but i may be incorrect. its been a long time since i last played a game of civ2.

[colossus]

Thinking about the gameplay and reality, it is better to have post-gunpowder unit ignoring the city wall than simply make city wall obsolete.

Just recall that a chariot and a cannon can appear in the same turn, the city wall isn't quite effective against the cannon, but is absolutely useful against the chariot.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Histories of walled cities often talk about the walls being "breeched," generally through assault from big weapons (catapults, cannons, artillery) as well as mines (read the history of the Ottoman assault on Rhodes for a great description of mining warfare). It seems to me there's a reasonable and realistic solutions for CIV: give a catapult assault on a walled city a 1/32 chance of destroying the walls; cannon assault 1/16 chance; artillery assault 1/4 chance.

Also, diplos and spies shouldn't be able to destroy walls, but should be able pay money in order to render them innefective for one turn; this would be the equivalent of a diplo or spy bribing someone to open the city gates, which happened all the time in walled city warfare.

[FrantzX]

Originally posted by Bleyn
However, these fortifications took much longer to build and were much more costly than before. Only fairly small cities typically had them. Although there is one instance where an entire peninsula of appreciable size actually received what was then considered modern scientific fortifications. This was the peninsula where Lisbon resides in Portugul. In 1809 or 1810, Wellington spent millions to have several lines of fortifications built along the neck of peninsula. Those forts, the Lines of Torres Verde (sp?) can still be seen today. The French army they were built to defend Lisbon against took one look at them and went home without ever contesting them.

First a comment. The French would of retreated anyway. They're the French, remember?

And for modern combat, wouldn't armies fortified in your cities cause unhappiness in democracies and the ilk? Heh, with no walls and this, defending your empire will become MUCH more... interesting.

[HalfLotus]

I hope city walls are done somewhat differently.
In Civ 2 it was always….investigate city to see if it had walls, then send diplos or spys until the wall was gone, then assault. Too few strategic options for beating city walls.
Then again I never was big on the howitzer rush. Wasn’t realistic or fun for me.