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FrantzX
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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.
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Triped
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Caledonia, Illinois, USA
Sep 2001
time: 23:15
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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)
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Mihai
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Bucharest, Romania
Jan 2000
time: 07:15
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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.
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Madine
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If you think of improvements as concepts it makes more sense.
If city walls became obsolete than other improvements should become obsolete too.
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me_irate
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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.
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Phutnote
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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
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Bleyn
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quote:
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.
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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.
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Kc7mxo
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Kansas City, Kansas
Jan 1970
time: 21:15
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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.
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FrantzX
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quote:
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.
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25-09-2001 17:17
)
), walls around cities don't matter...keep in mind that fortifications have gotten more advanced.
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