City walls. Are they worth the bother?

City walls are definitely worthwhile. They have no upkeep costs, so they give your cities a chance to grow and increase production by building something other than units without hurting your treasury, and who can't use a defense bonus?

Long live democracy!
--Silver Dragon's sister

[Ming]

In MP, I hold off as long as I can, but I do build them. Expansion is the key early, and I'm willing to take the same risk that many other posters are taking by building more settlers instead of city improvements.

Now, once you have made contact with a hostile human...

[spyvsspy]

i have never played a human opponent before..... but i reading that it is alot more difficult. In single player i only build walls in my capital and my border cities with the ai..... as the border changes, and it always does , i remove the walls and use the money to buy more units or improvements

[Steve Clark]

In my current small map game, I've modified my walls strategy slightly - only building in select cities. The biggest problem, as DaveV expertly said, is barb pirates. I keep a few NONE units on patrol in strategic areas to prevent them from taking a non-walled city.

[spyvsspy]

yes, i have been the victum of barb dragoons crushing a city without walls..... seems to happen when i get gunpowder and lost the vet status of my pikemen..... i am sure this isnt random

[The Mad Monk]

That's why I tend to keep diplos in my coastal cities.

My first reponse when I see any barbarians is, "great, more recruits!"

[DaveV]

Mad Monk - the problem is that the pirates will kill your diplomats before they have a chance to do anything. The crusaders or dragoons land next to your city. If the movement cost of the landing square is one, they still have a move left. They use it to attack your city. By the time your turn rolls around, your city has fallen.

Note: the pirate ships will start disgorging knights or crusaders after the discovery of Chivalry, and dragoons after the discovery of Tactics. No more piracy after the discovery of Mobile Warfare. All this information is from "The Barbarian Paper" by William Keenan:
http://sleague.apolyton.net/Guides/sldt_barbtechs.shtml

[The Mad Monk]

Yeah, that can be a problem, and I've lost than a few settlers because of it. I've lost a city only once, however, because I always shoot for the Great Wall--and (in SP) I've never missed it. A way around the 1-move square problem may be to build fortresses; they make great barb traps, and I'v seen them bunker down without attacking, even if a city is right next to them.