HowlingWolfPaw's Wall stratedgies for FFA (all modes apply)
Posted: 25 Jul 2020, 21:34
Lets talk walling. Walls are not really used in 1v1 and even team games things are happening so fast most of what I am talking will not apply. Treaty games have very small bases so there is not much variety there. But there are helpful hints on how to build walls, advantages of each type, and most importantly is how to beat them. FFA is different in that most games are played on large maps, you generally have time and space to build more intricate bases. And you may have to defend from multiple attacks from the same or multiple players. Some of this advise could be good for Treaty players.
Keep in mind there is a good balance to having too many or too few walls. Too few and simple box raids or being attacked while out of position gives you no time to react. Too many and it becomes very costly, hurts unit pathing and takes up space where barracks could be placed for better defense output of unit. There is no perfect number it can be about what civs your neighbors are and skill level. If you are aggressive enough you may not even need walls at all. Poorer players will try to over compensate with more walls. Most skillful players have 1-4 layers and maybe another 1-2 around factories and then will wall off large chunks of claimed land.
Lets begin.
Wall Stratedgies
1---Normal walls... quick easy to build no gaps, just build layers to protect what you want. Still the best overall for simplicity, and strength as there will be no gaps on edges next to cliffs, and the post make besieging big gaps harder.
2.---Deleting segments.... faster to build and cheaper but requires careful placement for no gaps and down side is that when a wall is damaged it hits the 2 adjacent walls too so bigger gaps can be made with the same siege effort. Another advantage is you can gate the whole wall and have nothing to block unit. Begin by placing walls as close to object as possible, and instead of stretching them out once it makes that half segment, squeeze your wall back into itself. Otherwise you could leave a gap at the edge or in between segments, only build about 2-3 segments at a time, and squeeze the wall into its smallest length before it goes to a half segment.
To delete pillars, click on one and use your select all button (usually Q) then delete.... make sure you are not deleting the segments! do this before they are built to save the wood cost)
3.--- small segments I have seen some players make walls by only making small segments just like they would with a long wall of gate pieces. This helps make besieging more difficult but is costlier takes more APM time and gives less options on where to place gates. Do it by making very small shift clicks of 1/2 wall segments as tight as possible. It will take a lot of damage to make a big hole, but for an experienced player they will know how to make a gap pretty quickly. I explain how below.
4.---Building your base in small compartments like a checkerboard (lattice)...... costlier and hurts unit pathing but very difficult to destroy a base like this. gives a lot of defensive advantages that protects pockets of bases and once an enemy is within is still surrounded by stuff, and vills can easily escape and gather in safe spots. Also requires more APM time to execute and wood to buy many gates to get units through it efficiently.
5.--- Segments only--- game breaking and broken and has several disadvantages to the player, see reply post below for example. However single segments can be used to give map awareness or block areas someone might put a FB. Its pretty lame. You can place the segments for cheap LOS in areas to know when your enemy is coming, or spread out every few tiles to make placing a FB impossible. This really bugs out the units as even in a battle they will start randomly attacking wall segments, so if you up against this, make sure to keep an eye on units dying to pointless wall siege.
6.--- Ghost walls. If you make a line of walls and have not built them yet, you can upgrade the wall at the cost of a gate and the gate will form, but it will have 000 HP. Why would you do that? No need for it, but its interesting because you could make a wall on a part of a map you have scouted but cant get to and then make a imaginary wall... I actually have not tried that in a game. I consider it a game bug and lame to try to use in any way, but in case you see it that's what people have done.
7.--- Super secret wall strat. Hint its a secret
8.--- Walling around your opponent. Good way to start a war and choke them out for a bit, but harder to maintain and repair walls
9.--- Wall spacing. If going with concentric type bases it is important not to make your layers too close. If they are are then splash damage from cannons can actually take out multiple layers at once. So either space them out just enough or even give them a larger gap so that you can fit in barracks and stables between the layers when/ if a battle occurs in that spot.
10. Sioux/Lakota walls. In DE Lakota now get walls..... very nice... might make them really OP for FFA, but in RE they do not. There are 2 basic strats for Sioux. Either spread out on the map to all the natural resource locations making it hard to raid anything substantially and use teepees to defend key strategic buildings like the fire pit, or wall with markets and corrals. It is more expensive, but having dozens of corrals next to each other forming a chain. It makes it so you can pump out an army instantly and very hard to take down. You can have some small gaps as entrances and teepees inside your base to make incoming raids worthless to the enemy.
Big base or small base?
1. Big base--- can give lots of room for barracks but can also be harder to defend with multiple attacks at different places. easier for vils to switch locations where to farm or mill from. For civs like india, and otto that need big FB its better to sprawl out. It also traps and makes a lot of trees safe to chop, but sometimes vils chop those trees and make holes for people to run through you didn't have before.
2. small base--- (really good for aztek, japan, dutch, sioux, spain) easier to defend and get units to other locations. less room for barracks and if you start to lose your base you pretty much have to exit it. For example with aztec, I have my TC and firepit surrounded by houses, then my economy surrounds that, and a perimiter of my 7 of each war huts and noble huts, then concentric walls around that. its a small base but I can basically use all my warhuts to defend from, and aztecs fast units can get where they need to be.
3. Multiple bases--- Sometimes it is good to break up your economy and build the bulk of it in in a separate area, such as maps like deccan and G plains. Making your original city some buildings but claiming areas like behind the river or in the open resource rich area to build your 2 TC's after going to age 3. Advantages are people may not know which is the more important one, and if you lose that base still have something to fall back on and then take the battle to their base.
4. No base--- basically for pros and sioux on large maps. Rush your opponents and stay on natural resources by using theirs to kill the next opponent. Spread everything out so it is difficult for your enemy to find and raid, they won't have a set target and will spend a lot of time searching while you are picking apart theirs. Disadvantages are once spies are located its over for you. Even regular spy units can be a problem, but as long as you keep the pressure on them it can be a good trade to lose 20 vils while they lose their base.
5.Arena--- once your main economy is protected wall off larger sections of land for resources but let your enemy get through it but have barracks at all corners for perfect flanking so that they are in a choke point from the gap they made in the wall thinking they are getting in, but really you are using the walls to control the battle within your arena to drain them.
Pro tips to destroying walls
So walls are part of the game and can be very annoying to deal with, here is some counters to walls.
1.... if you have a wall nearly destroyed and the one next to it is full HP, use an infantry to siege it before the main segment goes down and it will drop that wall to the lowest HP of the surrounding walls. If you do this carefully you can make very large gaps in walls without that much siege effort. I tend to spread all my units out across the wall, and then use my siege to hit one main area, once that part goes down, the rest follow like dominoes. This is really good to learn as you do not want to force units through a choke hold and if multiple layers are there it can easily be repaired and be a costly mistake to try to rush in too fast.
2.... use cannon/ mortars to hit walls behind, and units to hit walls up front. this goes well with the above tip to deplete the walls to near death and then use your units spread out on the wall to do the last damage making a big hole, but beginning to soften up the back layers so when your units get to it, the shared damage is put to use.
3..... do not task units to siege a wall directly, instead use control keys to move the unit to the area just under the wall and then siege wall, that way the units do not spend so much time forming a line and more density of units attacking it. Basically, if you target a wall your units will form a line at max range and block other units from getting close, so, task them right up to the walls so when they start there are multiple layers of units. Some units have no range for seige and can get pretty bugy if they have no room to move, so be aware if you have macemen, or elephants and make a hole for them.
4.... target the post and not the large segments. This is because if you are going for a focalized attack, such as a box, you will take out 2 segments and a post instead of 2 post and a segment which makes a bigger gap for follow ups.
5. Maintain vigilance on units so they are attacking what you want and not random wall segments.
6. If the player is good and re-walls then when you have the chance after making a gap use a vill to make walls perpendicular to theirs and wall off the opening itself. basically, make a wall to block them off from making a repair, and boxing it in if your up against a really good defender.
7. If the player is rebuilding or building more fortifications in your battle area use your cannons to hit the building in progress (this goes for towers and barracks as well) your siege power is doubled and most things go down with 1 shot. This helps you keep your advantage with more efficiency than trying to maintain destroying the wall you were already targeting.
Other FFA guides by Howlingwolfpaw:
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=21014 Civ overview
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=21010 FFA map review
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=21035 General strategy tips
Thats it for now, maybe will think of things to add later, have a GG!
Keep in mind there is a good balance to having too many or too few walls. Too few and simple box raids or being attacked while out of position gives you no time to react. Too many and it becomes very costly, hurts unit pathing and takes up space where barracks could be placed for better defense output of unit. There is no perfect number it can be about what civs your neighbors are and skill level. If you are aggressive enough you may not even need walls at all. Poorer players will try to over compensate with more walls. Most skillful players have 1-4 layers and maybe another 1-2 around factories and then will wall off large chunks of claimed land.
Lets begin.
Wall Stratedgies
1---Normal walls... quick easy to build no gaps, just build layers to protect what you want. Still the best overall for simplicity, and strength as there will be no gaps on edges next to cliffs, and the post make besieging big gaps harder.
2.---Deleting segments.... faster to build and cheaper but requires careful placement for no gaps and down side is that when a wall is damaged it hits the 2 adjacent walls too so bigger gaps can be made with the same siege effort. Another advantage is you can gate the whole wall and have nothing to block unit. Begin by placing walls as close to object as possible, and instead of stretching them out once it makes that half segment, squeeze your wall back into itself. Otherwise you could leave a gap at the edge or in between segments, only build about 2-3 segments at a time, and squeeze the wall into its smallest length before it goes to a half segment.
To delete pillars, click on one and use your select all button (usually Q) then delete.... make sure you are not deleting the segments! do this before they are built to save the wood cost)
3.--- small segments I have seen some players make walls by only making small segments just like they would with a long wall of gate pieces. This helps make besieging more difficult but is costlier takes more APM time and gives less options on where to place gates. Do it by making very small shift clicks of 1/2 wall segments as tight as possible. It will take a lot of damage to make a big hole, but for an experienced player they will know how to make a gap pretty quickly. I explain how below.
4.---Building your base in small compartments like a checkerboard (lattice)...... costlier and hurts unit pathing but very difficult to destroy a base like this. gives a lot of defensive advantages that protects pockets of bases and once an enemy is within is still surrounded by stuff, and vills can easily escape and gather in safe spots. Also requires more APM time to execute and wood to buy many gates to get units through it efficiently.
5.--- Segments only--- game breaking and broken and has several disadvantages to the player, see reply post below for example. However single segments can be used to give map awareness or block areas someone might put a FB. Its pretty lame. You can place the segments for cheap LOS in areas to know when your enemy is coming, or spread out every few tiles to make placing a FB impossible. This really bugs out the units as even in a battle they will start randomly attacking wall segments, so if you up against this, make sure to keep an eye on units dying to pointless wall siege.
6.--- Ghost walls. If you make a line of walls and have not built them yet, you can upgrade the wall at the cost of a gate and the gate will form, but it will have 000 HP. Why would you do that? No need for it, but its interesting because you could make a wall on a part of a map you have scouted but cant get to and then make a imaginary wall... I actually have not tried that in a game. I consider it a game bug and lame to try to use in any way, but in case you see it that's what people have done.
7.--- Super secret wall strat. Hint its a secret
8.--- Walling around your opponent. Good way to start a war and choke them out for a bit, but harder to maintain and repair walls
9.--- Wall spacing. If going with concentric type bases it is important not to make your layers too close. If they are are then splash damage from cannons can actually take out multiple layers at once. So either space them out just enough or even give them a larger gap so that you can fit in barracks and stables between the layers when/ if a battle occurs in that spot.
10. Sioux/Lakota walls. In DE Lakota now get walls..... very nice... might make them really OP for FFA, but in RE they do not. There are 2 basic strats for Sioux. Either spread out on the map to all the natural resource locations making it hard to raid anything substantially and use teepees to defend key strategic buildings like the fire pit, or wall with markets and corrals. It is more expensive, but having dozens of corrals next to each other forming a chain. It makes it so you can pump out an army instantly and very hard to take down. You can have some small gaps as entrances and teepees inside your base to make incoming raids worthless to the enemy.
Big base or small base?
1. Big base--- can give lots of room for barracks but can also be harder to defend with multiple attacks at different places. easier for vils to switch locations where to farm or mill from. For civs like india, and otto that need big FB its better to sprawl out. It also traps and makes a lot of trees safe to chop, but sometimes vils chop those trees and make holes for people to run through you didn't have before.
2. small base--- (really good for aztek, japan, dutch, sioux, spain) easier to defend and get units to other locations. less room for barracks and if you start to lose your base you pretty much have to exit it. For example with aztec, I have my TC and firepit surrounded by houses, then my economy surrounds that, and a perimiter of my 7 of each war huts and noble huts, then concentric walls around that. its a small base but I can basically use all my warhuts to defend from, and aztecs fast units can get where they need to be.
3. Multiple bases--- Sometimes it is good to break up your economy and build the bulk of it in in a separate area, such as maps like deccan and G plains. Making your original city some buildings but claiming areas like behind the river or in the open resource rich area to build your 2 TC's after going to age 3. Advantages are people may not know which is the more important one, and if you lose that base still have something to fall back on and then take the battle to their base.
4. No base--- basically for pros and sioux on large maps. Rush your opponents and stay on natural resources by using theirs to kill the next opponent. Spread everything out so it is difficult for your enemy to find and raid, they won't have a set target and will spend a lot of time searching while you are picking apart theirs. Disadvantages are once spies are located its over for you. Even regular spy units can be a problem, but as long as you keep the pressure on them it can be a good trade to lose 20 vils while they lose their base.
5.Arena--- once your main economy is protected wall off larger sections of land for resources but let your enemy get through it but have barracks at all corners for perfect flanking so that they are in a choke point from the gap they made in the wall thinking they are getting in, but really you are using the walls to control the battle within your arena to drain them.
Pro tips to destroying walls
So walls are part of the game and can be very annoying to deal with, here is some counters to walls.
1.... if you have a wall nearly destroyed and the one next to it is full HP, use an infantry to siege it before the main segment goes down and it will drop that wall to the lowest HP of the surrounding walls. If you do this carefully you can make very large gaps in walls without that much siege effort. I tend to spread all my units out across the wall, and then use my siege to hit one main area, once that part goes down, the rest follow like dominoes. This is really good to learn as you do not want to force units through a choke hold and if multiple layers are there it can easily be repaired and be a costly mistake to try to rush in too fast.
2.... use cannon/ mortars to hit walls behind, and units to hit walls up front. this goes well with the above tip to deplete the walls to near death and then use your units spread out on the wall to do the last damage making a big hole, but beginning to soften up the back layers so when your units get to it, the shared damage is put to use.
3..... do not task units to siege a wall directly, instead use control keys to move the unit to the area just under the wall and then siege wall, that way the units do not spend so much time forming a line and more density of units attacking it. Basically, if you target a wall your units will form a line at max range and block other units from getting close, so, task them right up to the walls so when they start there are multiple layers of units. Some units have no range for seige and can get pretty bugy if they have no room to move, so be aware if you have macemen, or elephants and make a hole for them.
4.... target the post and not the large segments. This is because if you are going for a focalized attack, such as a box, you will take out 2 segments and a post instead of 2 post and a segment which makes a bigger gap for follow ups.
5. Maintain vigilance on units so they are attacking what you want and not random wall segments.
6. If the player is good and re-walls then when you have the chance after making a gap use a vill to make walls perpendicular to theirs and wall off the opening itself. basically, make a wall to block them off from making a repair, and boxing it in if your up against a really good defender.
7. If the player is rebuilding or building more fortifications in your battle area use your cannons to hit the building in progress (this goes for towers and barracks as well) your siege power is doubled and most things go down with 1 shot. This helps you keep your advantage with more efficiency than trying to maintain destroying the wall you were already targeting.
Other FFA guides by Howlingwolfpaw:
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=21014 Civ overview
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=21010 FFA map review
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=21035 General strategy tips
Thats it for now, maybe will think of things to add later, have a GG!