What's the point of having walls?

[Cruelsader]

I am a newbie RTW player. In STW there were no true castles. In MTW the siege battle were very simplistic affairs. RTW is a huge improvement but the conception of siege battles seems nonetheless flawed. I am not talking of AI, which, in my limited experience, seems quite dumb when it comes to sieges. I am talking of the whole idea of having defensive walls. Considering RTW level of abstraction the reason for having defenses could be "buying time" and "being able to battle back much larger force". Neither seems true.

First, the fortifications do not buy you enough time: only one turn (and not even that if enemy has artillery). Second, you cannot battle back enemy with small force. The enemy can easily breach the defenses at several points. In order to contain them you need large force. Wooden walls are very easily breached. Stone walls are better but you need a large garrison to man them properly. The automatic fire from towers helps a little but then the siege towers also fire. What is worse, once the enemy takes the towers they start to shoot at the defender. In most cases, it seems far better to defend the entrances to the central plaza.

To sum up: walls and siege engines look cool but there is not much point building walls. Do you agree?

BTW, it would be much better if building walls would give you automatically several guard units which you could post on walls or at gates. (These units would not appear as a garrison on the strategy map and would not increase public order)

[Patroclus]

I don't think walls are utterly redundant, but clearly the difference between the various types of stone walls and woodens types is reasonably limited, and you shouldn't need to dish out a lot of cash on walls in most settlements.

Walls do, however, force an enemy to concentrate his strength at certain points if he has a small force, or few siege engines (which is usually the case) thus making the enemy easier to deal with. The towers, oil, etc, can also be a huge help if your outnumbered.

[Charge]

+
In vanilla having stone walls AND playing battle means lots of dead enemys from arrows, balistas, oil, etc... Also it is almost imposible to ram gates.
If you have phalanx of coz you should defend streets near c. plaza, if good swordsmen, then walls (unless enemy had machine-gun towers:)).
On campaign you have 2-4 turns additional time to get reinforcements, aslo I always add law bonus to the walls in EDB.
You can choose wooden walls if you playing macedonia or seleucids with their very-long-spears (you can cheat if place them near gate and possible breach).

advantageous for ai - only when you storm cities with stone walls..

[Cruelsader]

I should have been clearer. I can recognize the advantage of walls in single player games. AI has difficulties in assaulting defended settlements. It makes basic mistakes like not placing siege engines optimally and then trying to drag them to a better position oblivious to tower fire. But this benefit is not due to the walls but dumbness of the AI. In the reversed situation – human attacking AI – the walls often provide benefit to the attacker (at least in my experience). It is true that walls create chokepoints, however, you already have “natural” chokepoints in every settlement: entrances to the plaza.

It would be interesting to know how much the walls are valued in multiplayer battles.

[Patroclus]

Even if the AI was a competent sieger*, then walls would still be beneficial. As I say, the towers and oil can be a boost when you're outnumbered, and high walls allow you to plan your defence more effectively and make it a much tougher fight for the enemy.

*As an aside, It's strange just how idiotic the AI can be in city battles, even to the point where you are genuinely surprised. I was fighting an Egyptian army besieging one of my settlements, and sallied forth to meet them. They promptly lined up about half of their army just below my walls, and proceeded to stand perfectly still - only occassionally shifting their army to allow more units to be within range of the towers - until roughly over half of them were dead. I then let my cavalry free, and the Egyptians basically disintegrated at the first touch. I don't know how many men they lost, but it looked like the Somme out there.

[Cruelsader]

I do not understand how the oil could be beneficial against competent besieger. Competent besieger would not try to enter the city through gates without taking the gatehouse first. I agree that towers are somewhat useful: some attackers will be shot and there is a chance that siege engines will catch fire. However, the benefit is marginal when attackers have much larger force. A large army can build several engines/mines (and ladders cost very little anyway) but more importantly they can storm the city from several directions at once thus negating the chokepoint effect.. Walls are too long to man properly and if even one attacking unit gets through you have to defend plaza.

IMHO, the walls do not provide enough benefits. I really think it would be much better if having walls would automatically mean having several guard units on the walls or at gates. It would make siege assults against the dumb AI more interesting as well.