Lowering Default Population Limit

[Grugnas]

2 hours ago, JuKu96 said:

And caused by this, you cannot really build big walls anymore, because you dont get enough resources in early game to do this. So walls becomes more and more irrelevant. But we should fix that by increasing the amount of stones in stone mines.

Beyond civic center, wonder, defense towers, fortress (and let's say 450 stone if you research all the economy technologies ), barracks (for some civs) and slinger and catapults (which aren't trained by most of the civs) there isn't any other thing costing stone. Considering that a single mine gives you 5k stone, probably with 2 or max 3, stone walls are really easy to build.

A good example is how fast can britons build a fortress despite their economy units are mostly slingers.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

1 hour ago, Grugnas said:

Beyond civic center, wonder, defense towers, fortress (and let's say 450 stone if you research all the economy technologies ), barracks (for some civs) and slinger and catapults (which aren't trained by most of the civs) there isn't any other thing costing stone. Considering that a single mine gives you 5k stone, probably with 2 or max 3, stone walls are really easy to build.

A good example is how fast can britons build a fortress despite their economy units are mostly slingers.

That's assuming one of each. Except for the wonder, you'll want several of each. It's almost always better to build another tower, fortress, or civil center than any walls. If you actually get to build the max of each (10 fortresses, etc.) there probably isn't enough stone left for walls.

[Zeta1127]

Indeed, between Civic Centers, Fortresses, and Towers, there isn't generally enough stone leftover for walls, unless it is a relatively short wall at something along the lines of an isthmus or acropolis. I love building walls, but I can almost never justify building them, especially with the age old inability to replace Wall Towers problem.

[Nescio]

Besides, you also need stone for many researches (city phase, blacksmith infantry attack technologies, soldiers' will, glorious expansion, murder holes, unlock spies).

Nevertheless, walls are cheap, too cheap I think, and not very strong.

Nor do I think there isn't enough stone available; you can always barter for more or use traders to gain any resource. Moreover, on most maps you start with a 5000 stone quarry and a 5000 metal mine very close to your centre; if those would supply sufficient resources, there would be no incentive to expand, therefore I don't think mines and quarries should contain a larger amount than they already do right now.

 

[EDIT] a comparison:

fortress     : 4500 health / 1000 stone =   4.5
wall turret  : 4000 health /   90 stone =  44.44
long wall    : 3000 health /   28 stone = 107.14
medium wall  : 2000 health /   22 stone =  90.91
short wall   : 1000 health /   15 stone =  66.67
stone tower  : 1000 health /(100s+100w) =   5.0
sentry tower :  250 health /  100 wood  =   2.5
outpost      :  800 health /   80 wood  =  10.0
small house  :  800 health /   75 wood  =  10.67
big house    : 1200 health /  150 wood  =   8.0

Edited November 3, 2017 by Nescio
health/cost comparison

[WhiteTreePaladin]

17 minutes ago, Nescio said:

Besides, you also need stone for many researches (city phase, blacksmith infantry attack technologies, soldiers' will, glorious expansion, murder holes, unlock spies).

Nevertheless, walls are cheap, too cheap I think, and not very strong.

Nor do I think there isn't enough stone available; you can always barter for more or use traders to gain any resource. Moreover, on most maps you start with a 5000 stone quarry and a 5000 metal mine very close to your centre; if those would supply sufficient resources, there would be no incentive to expand, therefore I don't think mines and quarries should contain a larger amount than they already do right now.

I don't know if walls are too cheap or not; I don't get to use them often enough to know. I wish non-siege did less (if any) damage to walls - perhaps this could be an upgrade. You can trade for more stone, but it's almost always better to trade for more useful resources.

[Grugnas]

in savanna biome there is always plenty of minerals and stone, this is balanced by the lack of wood (baobabs still yield more wood than other trees), while playing in other biomes you can still use market to barter resources for stone, which is kinda profitable( champions aren't a must to win anymore, and catapults still use stone ).

I recall a 3v3 Ambush map where short wall layers could safe a zone at the entrance of a canyon and more than 4k stone stockpiled.

Some civs like ptolemies, romans and iberians have higher stone costly barracks but they also have other advantages ( an example is the roman siege wall which costs wood ).

I am sure that mines number is proportional to the map size, this means that if you choose to build 10 fortresses in small maps, you are in a point of the game where you could end it already and perhaps to start a self-trade route. Still 10 fortresses cost is 10k stone gatherable from the starting quarry and an additional one.

The issue with walls IMHO is that wall turrets kinda double wall layers health and they have no minimum distance restriction like defense towers do, thereby they are exploitable by concentrating many wall towers in a small place, being able to kill elephants with ease ( like someone likes to do   ).  i guess that 1 wall turret is even cheaper than a sentry tower.

Edited November 3, 2017 by Grugnas