Question about Great Wall

[Knecht]

The Civilopedia says that the Great Wall doubles the effect of walls in cities that have them. Does it also double the defense of a city over size 6 (which have sort of de facto walls) or does this only work with cities that have actually built them when young? Also, if they have built them when young, does it continue to double their defense value after size 6 (same question really)? Basically, my question is: is it worth it to build the Great Wall later in the game?

[Lord Merciless]

Great Wall is the most worthless Wonder in Civ3. It only doubles your walls's strength AGAINST BARBARIANS. Furthermore, cities greater than size 7 don't benefit from it. Next, it generates only 2 puny Culture Points per turn. Finally, it expires very quickly. (From Contruction to Metallurgy)

[Arrian]

I don't think it's worth it to build the Great Wall unless you really have nothing better to do. It's the worst wonder in the game (well, maybe Shakespeare's Theatre is). What do you mean by "later in the game?" The GW expires at metallurgy, I believe, which means it lasts for 1 full age (end ancient to end medieval).

The bonus should apply to cities, but I'm not sure. That's a good question.

-Arrian

[Pythagoras]

Maybe forts should be given some bonus, or become significantly cheaper to build. The latter would be really helpful and be much closer to the intent of the original great wall of china.

[steven8r]

According to the Civilopedia: "the Great Wall doubles the effectiveness of Walls in cities that have them. Doubles unit combat values versus Barbarians."

So, it helps your units when fighting Barbs AND doubles the Walls' defense value from 50% to 100%.

So I guess your spearmen would now have a whopping defense value of 4 instead of 2 (regular) or 3 (w/ walls) or Pikemen from 3 to 4.5 ~ 5 and 6, respectively.

It sounds like a City that reaches size 7 will get no benefit from GW--in fact, their defense will actually decrease because of it's size.

In conclusion: GW--Still useless.

[Ijuin]

I agree that, as it stands, the Great Wall's benefits are minimal, since, in addition to doubling combat values against Barbarians (which have likely become rather rare by the time the Wall is built if you are playing on a small map or with many AI civs), you only get the defense bonus doubled for walls in cities under size 6 if they have already constructed walls.

To repeat, with the Great Wall, a Town (size 6 or less) gets a 100% defense bonus (increased from 50%), while a City (6-12) gets the usual 50% defense bonus.

My own method of making the Great Wall useful was to edit it so that, in addition to the benefits listed in the Civilopedia, it also gives free Walls in every Town in your Civ on the same continent. This means that you no longer need to spend the shields and time to build Walls in new towns.

Now, this may look like a small increase, but when combined with the power of Sun Tzu's Art of War, it can greatly increase you ability to project military power on your home continent. Found a city right on the edge of the territory a Civ that you are about to invade, and you have an instant advance military base, with Barracks and Walls (with a 100% defense bonus!) pre-installed for free! A pair of Pikemen fortified inside this new town will be able to hold off anything except for a huge mass of Knights, or the off chance that the AI might actually bother to bombard heavily you before attacking. Using this strategy gives you an effectively impregnable base right in the enemy Civ's backyard, to which you can easily retreat to heal your units, and you can use it as a handy port (if it is on the coast) and rallying point for your troops.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Arrian
It's the worst wonder in the game (well, maybe Shakespeare's Theatre is).

Shakespeare is much better then the Wall, in certain circumstances. I will almost always try to build it. There are two possible reasons: first it gives a lot of culture, and is thus very good for cultural spearheads, but the second thing is that in a city with Shakespeare, it is much easier to keep your citizens in WLTKD. As this diminishes corruption, it really is worth it to build it in high productive, moderate corruption cities, for instance when they are half the number of OCN away from your palace or FP. WLTKD + courthouse (+policestation once available) = no problems with corruption

Ijuin, getting free walls would indeed be a nice addition to the Chinese Wall, as it is utterly useless otherwise.

DeepO

[alexman]

I'm not so sure the Great Wall doubles the effect of walls. The civilopedia has been known to be wrong before.

In the editor, the Wonder has the flag "Doubles city defenses" which would mean that cities of all sizes benefit from it.

Anyone care to test this?

[alexman]

Originally posted by alexman
In the editor, the Wonder has the flag "Doubles city defenses" which would mean that cities of all sizes benefit from it.

OK, I take it back. "City defenses" is probably the wall, not the standard defensive bonus of the city.

[DeepO]

alexman, doesn't "doubles city defenses" mean that it will double all effects of defensive improvements? It woulds make sense if the coastal fortress and the SAM would also receive double defenses... But then again, the Great Wall becomes obsolete once the coastal fortresses arrive... hmmm. It might mean something in modded games though.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Damn... X-posted.

DeepO

[Catt]

I can't go run the search on CFC right now, but unless my memory is playing tricks on me, Mike B. (Firaxis) recently confirmed in a post that the GW only doubles the effects of walls, which are in turn only effective in towns. He then went on to confirm that the GW has no effect on any city which reaches size 7 or above.

Catt

[Arrian]

Ok, I'll grant you the point on Shakespeare, DeepO. I had to think long and hard before I came up with a situation where building the Great Wall would be worthwhile:

A large or huge map with a low number of AI opponents, raging barbs, with all barb combat bonuses removed (meaning the AI too).

If I ever really spend some time on the Roman scenario I want to make, it would make sense. Barbs will be a big factor in that (raging, camps everywhere, standard unit = bowman, advanced = barb raider 2.2.2), and the Chinese civ will really gain from having the GW. But I'm far to lazy right now to do it.

-Arrian

[Catt]

I found the quote I remembered by Mike B. (Firaxis) over at CivFanatics. Appropriately enough, his post came in a thread entitled "Hey Mike B., How Does the Great Wall Work?"

Originally posted by Mike B. FIRAXIS
The Great Wall doubles the defensive value of Walls in all Towns that have them. It has no effect on Cities or Metropolises (since walls are ineffective for these pop. levels).


__________________
Mike Breitkreutz
Programmer
FIRAXIS Games

I'll also chime in with DeepO on Shakespeare's - 8 culture points is always helpful, even if you can't place the wonder in a perfect city.

Catt

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Arrian
I had to think long and hard before I came up with a situation where building the Great Wall would be worthwhile:
A large or huge map with a low number of AI opponents, raging barbs, with all barb combat bonuses removed (meaning the AI too).
-Arrian

I thought up the same situation and tried it with the Persians - except I didn't remove the barb combat bonuses.
The fun bit is when the second civ hits the MA and the barb camps erupt. It certainly put a brake on the AI expansion .
The wilderness was also good for training Immortals up to elite, and the Persians have the best starting techs for beelining construction.