Suggestion: Catapults & Walls

[musofire]

I almost never build walls, because for the price of building walls in all my border towns, I can get heaps of spearmen. And, they go away after pop 7.

Yet there are long periods where walled cities had a distinct advantage over anyone without a major siege train. Hannibal clobbered the legions but couldn't take Rome. The Assyrians were stopped by Jerusalem's walls after they'd taken practically every other Israelite city. The entire middle ages was a world of walled cities. So, come to think of it, was the Renaissance. Warfare has alternated between periods of mobility (blitzkrieg) and periods defined by sieges (WWI).

I would suggest that (a) walls don't go away (b) they have a severe advantage against horsemen and a serious advantage against ground troops, but that (c) when you attack with catapults, cannon or artillery, they're the first thing to go.

You should probably have to build them once per era, too. Catapults would have been useless against the earthern battlements of Vauban, and cannon would have been useless against the Maginot Line (which, by the way, folks, was NEVER breached).

[musofire]

... this would make it much harder to sweep through a civ with a stack of cav. It forces combined arms, which slows down an assault.

That means it would be easier to stay out of wars, and less profitable to start'em. Just like in the real world.

[hr_oskar]

I think the main issue Firaxis has with strong defensive structures, is that they ultimately make the game easier. We can easily enough figure out how to combat them, but the AI will be so much less of a threat with impregnable walls.

Unless of course, they spend a long time teaching the AI how to deal with it...