The Problem With Walls

Ice Walls, City Walls, Border Walls, Castle Walls; all of these are very common in Fantasy Media. But do they make sense? Would they work? How might siege tactics, warfare, and fortification change in a world of magic and monsters? This week, I'm discussing exactly that.
#fantasy #fantasylogic #worldbuilding
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[@pickle5666]

I am now imagining a situation where an underground war of dwarven sappers has been going on for so long that a group of adventurers are able to conquer the city when they realise that nobody is actually defending the walls anymore.

[@Zych.Grzegorz]

Imagine a siege where both sides hired dwarven sappers and there's basically a second war going on underground.

[@yjlom]

so like a normal siege?

[@Kazen169]

all the counter mining. close combat. the tank size drills filled with a ten man squad rumbling under the battle field. praying their going the right direction and don't fall into undiscovered caverns or finding one that has no breathable air, creatures and elementals attacking the soldiers all the while your still on a time schedule because the surface units need you to break through. kind of reminds me of Gears of War 2.

[@funkeyfreddy]

@@yjlomcame to say the same thing

[@rogerwilco2]

This has happened a lot in history. Don't need dwarves for that.

[@daniellewillis2767]

You don't NOT need dwarves ​@rogerwilco2

[@ChrisSham]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="440">7:20</a> "walls are a two-way street" I think we may have some conflicting definitions of what streets and walls are.

[@larstollefsen1236]

Not sure if this is sarcasm, but if you can't get in through a wall you also can't get out through that wall. Inevitably if you make it too difficult to enter you make it near impossible to escape should you need to bail in a hurry.

[@CooperAATE]

@@larstollefsen1236 Yes. But also, it was funny.

[@nambepambe3221]

Perhaps he was confusing walls and doors. A common mistake, judging by the frequency of signs on doors which state they are to remain closed at all times on account of being accidentally placed where walls were intended to go.

[@billlowery1658]

No. They are rarely one way streets. Like you can only go one way over the Hao-Gung wall, but the other direction is on the ground level

[@katherinespezia4609]

When it comes to dwarven engineering specifically, I think the important thing to keep in mind is that yes, they can do it faster and better than humans can, but *they still have to do it*. Your wall is still forcing the enemy to expend time and resources that they otherwise wouldn't have to. It does affect the cost vs benefit equation of building walls, but there are almost certainly still going to be situations where the cost is still worth it.

[@def3ndr887]

They’ll just make cheaper walls or stronger ones depending on their defense doctrine and economy

[@virtem7686]

sounds like they need enchant their walls or use them as hold for a magic barrier going downward and upward

[@tuomasronnberg5244]

Also walls aren't built just against invading armies, but also to keep away illegal immigrants and other undesirables. I can see high elves building walled off cities for themselves even if the walls were simple to reduce to dust with magic during wartime.

[@jy3n2]

To a conventional army, the walls are a barrier. They can be crossed, but only with great effort. To an airborne dragon, the walls are a boundary marker. They can be crossed as easily as any other piece of land, but doing so without permission draws attack. To sapping dwarves, the walls are a target. They are what the surface-dwellers hired you to bring down.

[@Pannenkoekenplantje]

Walls aren't just defense, they're also attack: you have a height advantage over the other army. It's easier to see them and launch a ranged attack. Compared to being on the ground, walls are useful, even if they are imperfect. It can be just a well connected chain of watchtowers and archers/cannons, that also serves some protective functions. In a magical world, they can have their own magic. In my world, an example of a wall meant to keep people in, intead of out (a prison yard), uses both heat and shock magic to prevent people from climbing over the wall.

[@houndofculann1793]

Even thinking with the possibly very "broken" DnD spells, a lot of the spells require usage on a spot or area that you can see. So at the very least, a chain of towers connected by walkways, coupled with fitting them all with carefully designed visual cover, would both give you a very good view over the area to be much more effective at aiming your spells while also protecting your side from a lot of the more direct spell threats. Especially since most magic users would definitely be utilising the lower level spells with much less range and much fewer options for not seeing where to cast.

[@herkles5416]

In regards to Saruman and Helms deep, Bret Deveraux at A collection of Unmitigated Pedantry(ACOUP) has a great series of post going over the battle of helm's deep, and Saruman makes mistakes because he is in haste to defeat Rohan, and critically isn't a good military commander. But likewise Theodan is also under time constraints, due to the bigger battle being prepared for in Gondor.

[@herkles5416]

Furthermore he has a good set of posts on the Development of cities. And one of the things he brings up is that even within medieval cities there can be quite a lot of farming and livestock going on within the town, even with historical maps showing how cities included this. For the farmer, being within the walls is good sure maybe not as large as a field, but less of a worry of wolves or other monsters rampaging through his fields, as well as quicker access to markets. Since in a per-modern society food spoilage is a thing to be concerned about, thus being within the city allows one to sell say your carrots, potatoes, or cabbages at market without them spoiling as fast if it say takes you a days travel to get there. Maps of historical cities like Lyon, Exeter, Paris and more show it. This same series also points out that we typically imagine the castle or city on an empty grassland for some reason when natural envirornment plays a major role. Being built next to a river, hilltop, mountains, sea, etc. all impact the nature of the settlement and its design and its defensises, and it might not be the most important one. If a port town isn't blockaded then your attempts to siege and wait them out are kind of useless.

[@GoranXII]

@@herkles5416 A great series. It also points out that the battle in the books goes quite differently to how it goes in the movie. For one, there's no civilians there, but rather 1,000 Rohan cavalry, a formidable force that can't be allowed to remain in place. This forces Saruman to invest Helm's _Gate_ (Helm's Deep is the name of the valley behind the fortification, not the fortification itself. That's Helm's Gate) ASAP, and given said time constraints, he has to take it pretty much at once (both because of time constraints, and because there's a number of experienced Rohan soldiers out there, being gather up by Gandalf and Erkenbrand), meaning it has to be taken by assault, rather than by siege.

[@h.1699]

you forgot other reasons for walled towns: effective taxation of and enforcing tarriffs on foreigners, thus defending against some forms of economical warfare; information about who comes and who goes; security theatre and status symbol, ...

[@donaldhobson8873]

I think you overestimate frustration and underestimate sheer running out of food as a factor for the besieging army.

[@Pyre]

Main character of The Wheel of Time books, after reintroducing teleportation to the setting and helping found a military group of people who are living artillery pieces, has a moment where he's looking up at the most famous fortress in the world and thinking about how it stood for centuries, and he rendered it meaningless in months. In Final Fantasy XIV, the Severe and Reclusive theocracy of elves and such that is forever fighting dragons has massive spikes on their beautiful, equally massive gothic buildings and walls. As a friend noted, they aren't decoration: they're giant pigeon spikes, to keep dragons from perching atop them. If you want a really fun, if slightly irreverent, look into how sieges can go from someone else with a UK accent, Lazerpig's video on Black Agnes is absolute gold.

[@Avigorus]

Larger-scale pigeon spikes makes so much sense it's absurd lol

[@vadaritis]

The walls vs flying enemies subject i have certainly taken your perspective before, but the more I think about it I keep coming up with the fact that though the airborne target is more manueverable, it also has no cover, something that is very important against a high volume of fire. You did vring up the point of friendly fire with said arrows hitting allies, but ultimately I think it comes down to whether or not the defenders see the flying creature before or after it is above the city. If its before no need to worry, just fire as many arrows as possible. If its after, take cover under a roof or in a cellar. This video certainly got my brain thinking about it, and I think ultimately a wall is just one method to stop or delay an enemy. Because you are right, not every type of wall is good for every situation. So we should expand our defenses from just the wall, to include things like a series of chest high fences to delay an enemy approaching and give the locals a chance to notice someone across a field. We could also have trenches, if walls are too expensive, especially with the dnd spell mold earth. I love the idea of elven sieges take ages. It could be quite funny as a human settlement. 'Elves show up in armor, setup a trade outpost against your government. They claim its a siege, but treat you well enough and basically pay you, your friends and family to move in with them. Till eventually no one wants to stay. Only getting violent if someone shows up telling them to leave. The siege only ending after the great grand sons/daughters of the humans are fully grown, basically having a new settlement.' XD

[@Lilitha11]

When I think about it, walls are pretty effective against flying enemies. They can fly super high up and drop things on you, but how effective is that actually? You can probably shoot far larger objects into a city using a trebuchet, than you can magically floating it over the city. They would be useful for scouting, but they don't have much siege potential by themselves unless they are willing to take fire and attempt to land.

[@Randomdudefromtheinternet]

Yo! Dwarves and trench warfare is something that should be more common

[@metholuscaedes6794]

You also separate the flying enemies from the land based. while you have your flying And land based ranged units to fight them.

[@kovi567]

If flyers are avilable in a setting, then the one definitely working way to deal with them is to have your own. Airforce vs. Airforce is how most of Airforce casualties were inflicted before guided weaponry was invented. If a dragon or gryphon or rutting pegasus is a threat that is on the table, then towns and cities would hire and keep up an airforce of their own to deal with them. If there is a race that lives a thousand or so years, then they gonna be the heroes, the lords, kings, demigods, gods and pantokrators of a given setting, simply because they can outlive their competitors, and keep their experience and knowledge whilst others need to tech every new generation. This means if an elven army decides to besiege a city in the long term, then the very likely veteran marshall of that place would notice the signs of said elongated siege, and do countermeasures. If dwarven sappers are so formidable that every army would employ them, then so would every town and city that can afford even just one such creature. Counter-tunneling is a thing, and if dwarves have the inherent ability to notice if a tunnel is about to collapse, then they can also easily find each other's tunnels and engage in dwarven tunnel fighting. If dwarven siege engineers are so formidable that all trebuchets, siege towers and battering rams would be built by them, then you bet your long shank towns and cities will be hiring their own dwarven engineers to build the most impressive and ahistorical battlements and star forts and multi-layered overseeing defenses that would make the opponent's siege enginners work hard for their salt. TLDR.; Fire beats fire. If having thing is OP, then both sides would fight tooth and nail to have it, then it would be the battle between the OP things that decide history. Case and point: Gunpowder

[@Randomdudefromtheinternet]

Basically irl cavalry arms race before the invention of the pike square (and firearms)

[@Alpha_Digamma]

You may want to read up on German aa towers which made entire ww2 bomber formations think twice about flying into their effective gun range. The Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward trailer give you a glimpse how such an installation fights of a swarm of dragons in a fantasy setting.

[@Andrewtr6]

I imagine the reason wizards in Harry Potter use brooms is because they used them to fight dragons rather than just transportation. In my own fantasy story, not only are some species of dragons trained like attack dogs to fight off dragons, but early mages domesticated griffins and pegasi as mounts so they could attack from the sky as well. The best tactic I can imagine for fighting a dragon is first grounding it by taking out its wings. After that, it would probably be treated the same way tanks were dealt with in past wars. Idk really know tbh.

[@kovi567]

@@Alpha_Digamma Thank you, I'm a history buff though, and pretty well versed in the success rate of such AA installations. Case and point: Allied bombing campaign started after dealing with the luftwaffe, not before dealing with the AA guns.

[@TheBlackSerpentBeta]

In a fantasy world, the walls aren't there to hold back an army Its to keep the monsters out Its also why sieges wouldn't work. Just gonna attract more monsters if you just sit your ass around the a wall And thats assuming its not surrounded by forest, meaning not only do you need to guard against striking parties coming out of the city and roaming monsters, but also the fey poking their heads up to fuck with you

[@cptclonks7279]

Well irl the attackers who would siege would also create their own fortifications around the siege.

[@hircenedaelen]

Even if walls are less effective then they were irl, I'd still much rather be in a walled settlement than not

[@Daves_Not_Here_Man_76]

walls keep out wolves and that's a good enough reason

[@Sensenmennel]

What i like to do in my fantasy world building is to have it be common to include anti-magic wards in your walls. Obviously you dont want the have your whole city under such a field, but having it on the wall, just reverts the whole thing to a standard wall, like we know it from our world. It also comes in handy against any criminals or the like that use magic to conceal their identity, since that will mean that passing through the walls, their magic wont work.

[@TechnicalTactician]

Antimagic isn't a catch all term, I prefer private sanctum. Which while limited has explanation and is more achievable.

[@BBP081]

You don't need covered walkways or streets to protect from the air. This is not a novel problem. You need air raid shelters like London in the Battle of Britain. Also, you need local air superiority. Waterdeep has griffon-rider mages and colossi to deny the air to enemies

[@greyhat7993]

In my books, I (partially) address the issue of flying creatures with watchspires on walls, loaded with cannons; as well as using floating islands as sentry points/deterrents above cities. Walls were critical earlier in the world's history when monsters and bandits were a more prevalent danger, and defenses became more lax as these went away. There are also walls that box in The Lost Lands, where monsters predominantly live. There, they don't have to worry about firing into their own territory if they see a flier come too close. But now that monsters and other magical threats are returning in the industrialized world, people have to adjust. Warding magic plays a role as well, though that will have a deeper dive later on.

[@Stephen-Fox]

OK, cool - Very setting dependent and something that really needs considering based on ancestry composition a world has, and monsters, and this is going to be heavily dependent on region as well in many cases. ...But my main takeaway is that we should probably be seeing blitz-like dragon-raid shelters if not instead then at least as well in many settings.

[@Kazen169]

So for this subject "Walls" walls are good but then you have to think what can you do with walls? what are you going to make your walls out of? is this a wall of simple wood or are we going hardcore stop and hold an army wall?, is this a wall that acts as it's own settlement? a wall of apartments for the merchants, guards and locals? what is it protecting what are the natural threats of the area? and then there was the Siege of Crete (24 years) that would have been the entire serves of a legionnaire. dwarf sees the great high wall.. "ay this is just a spicey mountain, we'll get you through in no time but it'll cost ye a great deal o gold!" "spicy mountain?" "Aye it shoots and drops things at us. 'Spicy'". I love these videos they always get me thinking.

[@TheWayOfPencil]

Imagine sieging elfs for 10 years to find out they was sneaking in and out freely this whole time.

[@locky7443]

Your point about the possible timescales of elven sieges is great but I think it ignores the obvious counter humans have numbers and attrition . The elves simply cannot afford to lose anywhere near the amount of people a human one could and if the siege is generations long then the human army effectively regenerates. When under siege therefore the best strategy for humans would be to launch constant sallying actions or mount constant patrols, because even if the elves cause disproportionate casualties they might still lose in the long run. Also I find it hard to believe that the elves could remain as undetected as you suggest(without the heavy use of magic). Historically even the best rained guerrilla forces and special forces teams are fairly easily detected by local populations and Guerrilla operations typically only succeed with their help. This could lead to an interesting scenario where an elven siege is essentially a decades long hearts and minds campaign/guerrilla war between the elves and the city lords.

[@KaiHung-wv3ul]

Also, if the elves aren't able to cut off the city from supply, then they have to take it by assault which negates many of their physical advantages.

[@woodrowsmith8333]

In a fantasy setting such as most DnD worlds, the actual methodology of warfare would likely be much closer to our modern ones. With magic and monsters you have the means and motivation for having an airforce, navy, long range surveillance & communication and highly specialized elite soldiers. I would imagine that large scale, open field battles between armies standing in formation would fall out of favor rapidly if a single wizard could wipe them out with a couple of fireballs. Magic would be the arms race between nations, with specialized units trained to backup and support spellcasters. This would likely look very similar to modern day special forces units. With high level magic and monsters the concept of mutually assured destruction would exist, which I think would lead to more cold wars and smaller skirmishes and proxy wars too.

[@ΕρνέστοςΣμίθ]

A walled fortification is a force multiplier for defense. It's not meant to be indestructible but it forces the enemy to waste time and resources in reducing it. Very few human enemies, mostly nomadic ones, could bypass fortified strongpoints with little fear that the lines of communication and resupply would be cut off by a force in the fortification. Even in our world Paris was besieged in 1870 although there were proto-machine guns in limited use and giant artillery that could smash walls easily. Walls match a pre-industrial level of technology very well and unless magic and flying creatures were the norm rather than the exception, walls would still be the primary defensive structure. Also, Nets spread between the roofs of buildings could deter many airborne attacks.

[@siderisanon7860]

Thank you for continuing to make these think pieces. They definitely are shaping how I create and run my gaming worlds.

[@joelkreissman6342]

The dwarven sappers remind me of that Scottish counter-sapper in Rise of Empires: Ottoman on Netflix.

[@kevinsurget8571]

I think it really depends if the magic in your fantasy world can be inscribed or imbued into a wall. Sure, it would probably drastically increase the cost, but depending on your magic it could protect against aerial attacks (to a certain degree) or against collapses. Sieges only really work if the fields need to be outside the walls, although that elven siege you described resembled a mix of siege and brain drain, which feels a bit unconventional. Besides, just because it isn't the best way to defend, doesn't mean it wouldn't be used for some time, until it is proven useless or detrimental.

[@jimothyworldbuilding3664]

In Afterworld, Anelims are a subspecies of human with feathered wings, very angelic you could say. They're also slightly shorter than normal humans and naturally skinny, because reduced weight goes brrr. They arrived in Lamara 600ish years ago, and were immediately some of the biggest menaces around. They quickly took over the Chained Isles (which actually have their name because of the Anelims... they liked to obtain "volunteer workers") and went about demanding tributes from other Lamaran groups, raining death from above if denied. Anelim-baseliner hybrids are generally the same size and build as baseliners (normal humans), but their wings are weaker, limiting them to short bursts of flight and gliding. The Anelims of the Chained Isles saw these hybrids as abominations and mockeries of their aerial supremacy and beauty, and so would cut their wings off and treat them as baseliners, who they viewed as lesser. Sky Horrors are creatures that live high in the sky, but can't go too low for too long without air pressure making their brains explode. They're also near-invisible thanks to some funky crystal refraction stuff. Anelims that fly too high, which Anelims religiously perceived as intruding on the home of the gods, are likely to be subject to a Sky Horror swooping and torn apart. During the Lamaran Unification Wars, in which the Krysa-ruled Lamaran Unity sought to make its name accurate, the Anelims finally met their match in the form of the Krysa and Tummens. Krysa can grow stronger-than-steel crystal from their skin in any shape they want, and Tummens are capable of super strength and speed, as well as being protected from blunt impacts. An Anelim trying to drop something on the heads of either of them doesn't work, especially when the Tummen is wearing Krysa-made crystal armour in case the Anelim drops anything sharp. The Tummen is able to throw spears or fire heavy bows at the Anelim as long as the Anelim is in sight, and some Krysa are skilled enough with their abilities to create pre-loaded single-use crystal crossbows, whereas the Anelim can't really attack them at all unless directly above them (in close quarters combat, the short-and-skinny Anelim is bound to lose against the super-strong Tummen, or the Krysa who can grow crystal armour, spikes and blades). Yeah the Anelims couldn't really do a thing. The Krysa even made crystal ships too strong to be broken by Anelim rock-dropping to sail onto the Anelim isles, and forced a surrender out of them. That said, I am making it sound easier than it was. The first ones tasked with conquering the Anelims were one of the Unity's subjugated groups, and they lost hard, though that may've been a deliberate move by the Unity to weaken them, humiliate them, and provide them a new thing to hate other than the Unity's government so that they'd be less likely to rebel, and be easy to use against the Anelims again if they rebelled once conquered. Anelims launched offensive attacks in which they'd target and massacre civilians for a kind of reverse scorched earth policy (scorched earth but you're scorching your enemy's earth), attacked supply trains, etc. Big problem here is that the Lamaran Unity doesn't value human life unless that life has strategic value, and the Anelims were attacking conquered lands home to potentially rebellious people the Unity was happy to see getting thinned out, so the Unity just kept trucking along with the conquest until the Anelims were forced to surrender. Also, the Lamaran Unity's capital's walls are so high that standing atop them risks getting attacked by Sky Horrors (Sky Horrors are an invasive species, and the walls date back further than their presence. Nobody's sure how or when the walls were built, just that they encircled a pretty nice hunk of farmland, which eventually became a city). The Unity just kept the majority of its VIPs in the capital for the duration of the war, and even used this as an opportunity to have lots of "accidents" in which trouble-makers unfortunately lost their lives.

[@TheGenericavatar]

Ground based enemies seem far more likely than flying enemies. So the walls will be built in any event. Regarding dwarves, employ kobolds as a counter. Especially Tucker's kobolds. >:D

[@tuomasronnberg5244]

And to counter counter kobolds you can use gnomes!

[@samgordon9756]

I'm not sure a discussion of walls outside the context of D&D is all that useful for general dungeon mastery. Unless the conclusion is that walls have no place in D&D. It seems like it would be better to start at the default and work downward to low magic. But maybe that's just my interest in understanding the natural ecosystem created by a game's rules.

[@Primalmoon]

I'm imagining a situation where dwarves are treated like gophers... Impossible to get rid of them all, constantly tunneling under your land, messing up your fields, leaving holes for your feet to fall into and twist your ankle...

With Teleportation you can have anti-teleportation wards in all bigger cities. Maybe not small villages, but teleporting into a city that is protected by magic should be either impossible or hard, unless you find a workaround, like portals, but portals need to be build inside somehow. Even such small thing as teleportation circles require some work to be done - ergo - a prior infiltration of the city.

[@jonathanwells223]

Walls work, 'nuff said. If nothing else it will stop a horde of orcs, considering the likelyhood of that happening as opposed to a dragon burning down an entire city for a lark, I'd say it's a worthwhile investment.

[@paulhefferan8106]

Gemmell's "Legend" is a great fantasy siege, but a fairly low magic setting.. Of course, elemental magics may make walls cheap and even capable of self-repair. For anyone interested in a portrayal of counter siege underground, the Australian movie "Beneath Hill. 60" is a gem.

[@scottmartin5990]

Fantasy fortifications will be built under the assumption that some enemies can and will breach or bypass them. Thus, they'll be designed to maximize the "non-barrier" functions you mentioned -- slowing enemy movement, channeling enemies into chokepoints and kill zones, while providing the defenders with cover, speedy paths of movement and communication, and ready access to ammunition, medical supplies, and other materiel. Rather than a shell defense, there will be a defense in depth, with multiple lines of defense to fall back on. Where feasible, these will include networks of secret tunnels, underground bunkers, hidden supply caches, and multiple secret routes past potential siege lines. Tunnels, walls, and redoubts will all be built with self-destruct features to deny their use to the enemy and to serve as one-time traps. Non-combatants will be relocated to emergency shelters and evacuated friom the area at the first possibility.

[@bobbycrosby9765]

Elves would just wait for a local dry period to develop and move in as the population naturally starves.

[@TetrisPhantom]

This video has inspired me to add sieges as a dynamic event to a hexcrawl module I'm writing. Since there'll only be one main outpost (western marches), it'll be critical for all players in the campaign to devote time and resources to protecting that outpost, because it is their lifeline to civilization and the heart of their expedition.

[@adamlatosinski5475]

Another use of walls I've seen in fantasy: an anchor for magic diagrams. Magic circles and other diagrams are often seen in fanatsy. A wall built in the proper shape may be supporting a powerful, city-wide magic that would be hard to disturb and would protect the city or improve the conditions within.

[@peterrasmussen4428]

I think it is important to think about: - sapping might be more effective, but so is the building of the wall, or perhaps the building of several walls. Storries like there to be one wall to breach, to signal to the reader/consumer of the story, when this wall is breached, shit just got serious. But in fantasy, depending on what magic can do, a fort or city might have 5-10 walls to breach before it is fully taken. (But unless your whole story is about one siege, people probably don't want to hear about the 4th wall being breached, only 5 more to go before things get really serious.) - flying creatures will be a menance, but if you can get word out, you should see an advanced force of flying creatures come to relieve the city fairly quickly. The besiegers are likely more spread out than the defenders, in order to close all the entrances to the city. Being more spread out, it is probably harder for the besiegers to protect their assests against arieal attacks. Also the besiegers have to protect their supply lines against arieal attacks. I am not convinced adding flying creatures to the mix is a boon to the attacker.

[@almitrahopkins1873]

I always include a Druid Kingdom in my worldbuilding. That Grand Druid can shatter a city’s walls in a single spell, so he is the de facto ruler of parts of the world and his borders aren’t just imaginary lines on the map. Likewise, my goblins will sneak into the city in the dark. They won’t attack en masse. They’ll try to get in from every possible entry, just to create havoc inside of the city. Even a single goblin scaling the walls alone is a danger if it can get to the gate and throw it open or if it can use fire arrows to start fires from a spot atop the walls.

[@Wolf-oc6tx]

I think the best approach is to consider counter measures tailored to what can defeat stone walls, consider how to counter the counter.

[@CitanulsPumpkin]

The first example of a fantasy setting where the "walled city" is still relevant despite the high fantasy setting that comes to my mind is the video game Skies of Arcadia. The empire that functions as the main antagonist in that game is geographically a walled city despite the fact that the entire game revolves around sky pirates sailing from one floating earthberg island to another in airships. If the fantasy setting is high enough, then the walls of the walled city can be scaled up with the fantasy level. If you're sticking with classic fantasy, you can always defend a walled city with its own airforce. Wyvern, Pegasus, or Griffon mounted sky knights. Maybe one or two dukes or barons are literally dragons that just prefer to live in the city and serve their community by defending the skies and walls. Maybe the "walled city" doesn't literally have a wall. Maybe it's like Sigil, and it's floating half a mile above the ground or ocean. Maybe the city is an airship or space/sky station. Maybe the world is based on the movie Mortal Engines, and each city is a mobile mega vehicle with the "walls" of the biggest walled cities being the tank treads at the base of the city. In the video game Final Fantasy XII, there are airships that go almost anywhere, but there are also regions called "Jagds," where the ambient magic or whatnot just prevents most if not all airships from functioning. In fact, the opening cuts scenes of that game depict a battle on the walls of a walled city that is holding its own against an airship armada until an enemy unit sneaks into the wizard tower where the mages are maintaining the magic forcefield over the city and kills the mages. There are countless stories where a wall is still an important defensive feature despite magic and flying monsters. Walls are easier to guard and maintain than standing military units of wizards, and walls are always going to be the best defense against whatever critters live in the woods just outside the walls.

[@Draeckon]

One thing I'm wondering about that I don't see brought up much: how long can flying creatures in your Fantasy setting actually stay in the air? Flying is already energy-intensive for small animals and they rely heavily on air currents to extend their flight time. How helpful would those same air currents actually be to flying creatures the size of horses like pegasus or gryphons, or even larger ones like house-sized dragons? And if those creatures are carrying any heavy equipment or a rider, that flight time would be drastically shortened too. Which is why in my mind, while yes flying creatures incorporated into an army would definitely be useful, a more traditional ground force would still be needed for them to retreat to so they can rest. Maybe if it's a very mountainous area they could get away with operating more on their own. As for dragons, they're kind a wildcard in that regard. More often than not, they can just seem to fly for as long as they want, or as long as is needed. I guess for dragons with more overtly magical abilities, they could be using magic to make flying easier in one form or another. If those kinds of magical aids exist, they could be extended to the smaller flying creatures as well - alternatively, maybe a less magical solution that could be introduced eventually would be mechanical wings or a parachute to let their mounts spend some time gliding or floating down for a time without needing to expend their own energy?

[@piotrskodowski7544]

I oneced GMed in setting with a lot of flyers where cities that were in risk had special domes over them. There are also underground cities kind of dwarf things or similar.

[@dragonturtle2703]

Normally, flying intelligent creatures aren't depicted as common. At least when it isn't something already OP like demons. And just as the longer lived races would have more patience for sieges, they may be more cautious with their own lives, making storming castles rarer, but also meaning they'd be more cautious (especially against shorter lived races) of counterattack while they are parked around a fortress.

[@SangoProductions213]

"Do walls work when there are flying fantasy creatures?" Yes. They don't work against specifically flying creatures, because they aren't designed to. But they still serve their roll of protecting against most outsiders. You'd need specific innovations to defend against specifically flying enemies, Or indeed, digging enemies. But just because an enemy *could* bypass a wall (just like in real life - no wall is impervious) doesn't mean that walls didn't serve their purpose of making it more difficult for them to be bypassed than an empty field would be (again, ignoring fliers since they aren't what it was designed to protect against). *Fliers:* If the primary threat is from the air, fortifications might include anti-air weaponry, or reinforced roofs covering vulnerable areas. **Diggers:** If tunneling enemies are the issue, walls might be reinforced by moats or filled with materials like gravel or loose sand that disrupt digging efforts.

[@quinnbuffet3825]

Best use of walls I've ever seen comes not from fantasy but from sci-fi - Red Rising specifically. In a setting where nuclear bombs are as ubiquitous as hand grenades and glassing a planet is yesterday's news, the use of broad shield domes makes ground forces necessary and the response to that is massive walls. They don't abuse this fact either, there are excellent examples of siegeworks and fortification in most of the grand epic battles throughout.

[@camillagilmore1547]

Garth Nix's Abhorsen books have a very interesting take on the wall as mystical/magical and symbolic barrier. Likewise Gaimans Stardust. I think walls are very effective when used as a border between a magical and non magical world, and explorations of who is being defended from whom.

[@arcaniswithertree4284]

Definitely going to make a dwarvish sapper mercenary. Great video

[@thiagom8478]

That brings to my mind a point raised by the Isaac Arthur channel, which was that is impossible under know physics to have stealth space fleets. I tend to disagree, because as sound as it may be when one consider physics camouflage is not a game to be played with the laws of physics. It is a game played on top of the laws of physics, but, between prey and predator. The entire point of stealth is to know your adversary and explore the blind-spots it has. Every perceptive system has blind-spots. Somewhere in your enemy army there is someone you can bribe to not see the dot moving in a monitor, or something like that. The point about walls seems to be similar. Whatever tools your enemies have, are they available to you? Usually they will be, after some time, because either those without access to a military advantage too good are going to find a way to get access to it. Spying, stealing, torturing, bribing or what have you. Or they will lose their rights of existence as a free people, and end up slaved, extinguished, or reduced to wild nomadic existence. So, if you have your air force of gryphons and were-crows, protecting your walls against the enemy with similar tools, situation is not too bad for you and your walls. If that's still low magic, no anti-tank explosive spells available to anyone. I can see the walls having good cost benefit. John Norman's Gor despite being sci-fi, with no magic system per se, has more or less that situation. With an army of giant birds (the tarns) caring elite troops of warriors, in fights between State Cities. But only the main global powers have tarns. Those birds are hard to capture, hard to tame, and hard to keep. Expensive investment. When you bring the subject of fantasy races, that changes the consideration. There are two very different situations, determining different kinds of setting. One where the races fight each other, keeping unity, elves against dwarves, humans against orcs, kobolds allied to humans against bird people, merfolk allied to centaurs against gnomes, etc. That is a setting of strategy videogame, where each side gets the natural advantages of their racial traits. I believe that is interesting, but less plausible. More likely, more often, I think we would have different branches of elves fighting each other, for resources that are important for elves but not too relevant for other races. Centaurs doing the same. Humans we know, never fight each other or ally with alien strangers to destroy their close neighbours. Never happened in History. But, for fantasy races, I think that behaviour would make more sense. So, perhaps our side has only 10% of elves, and not the kind of elf that has those powerful spells that give them a cutting edge. Still, we have our elves. We have more gnomes, and more centaurs, but they have some of those too. Even if our centaurs are the stronger kind that has the lower body of buffalos, while their centaurs are mostly mere half-horses. Maybe no side has were-crows, but both employ freelance mercenaries for tasks that require than particular task. That gives us a setting where stories are harder to tell. Reader must make more effort to visualize what is happening. On the other hand, I think situations like that make the world a bit more believable, once we get beyond the learning curve needed to understand the setting. In a world like that, low magic or even no magic beyond the racial advantages, I think walls can de as useful as they used to be in ancient and medieval times in our (arguably) real world.

[@spencervance8484]

A fellow Isaac Arthur fan. Nice.

[@chibyversity5356]

if fantasy world have to face wyvern, roc bird and dragon on daily basis I think there would be a lot of underground settlement which could span from hobbit style housing up to artificial underdark (could be dwarven made). and in case of food resource there could be more focus on fungi and animal that can be raised underground or partially underground. utilising dense forest (rainforest especially) could be elven main settlement style, and it would be cool if they had tree houses supported by trees that has really long lifespan (hundred up to thousands years old). either way thanks for the great video, it makes me thinks a lot on how fantasy people would actually built their settlement.

[@Maholix]

I solved this in one of my fort towns specifically because I agree with normal walls not being enough. In my case, I used magical warding alongside the walls. The town is maintained by a series of kobolds. They do this under contract with a local forest god, and so look after these wards as a form of worship. The walls form a massive spell circle and the wards themselves are a protective mechanism tied to a "town registration." Anyone who is within the walls and NOT listed in the book within a certain timeframe experiences intense burning, akin to a chemical burn. Animals are considered as well, needing to be "owned by a registor" and thus be tied to a being who is listed in said book. The kingdom that owns this town is famous for using griffin riders to travel, and there are lookout towers in the town, so there is some natural air defense that could be called on anyway. But the fort is already well defended by it's magic. Which of course makes it an interesting political point in the region, with some nervous about it's over reliance on old magic.

[@hikarihitomi7706]

Seems like the logical fortification in fantasy is the dungeon. :)

[@noneofyourbusiness3288]

Are they practical? Well that very much depends on context. What is the fantasy world like? What exists in that world and what are you planning to defend against? Against flying threats? Probably useless. Against hordes of monstrous beasts or armies of humanoids? Very useful. Does that world have explosives or magic of great destructive potential? Are there specific counter-measures for those things? All those things matter. A great example is Malazan, where powerful magic users could easily destroy city walls, but a lot of walls are imbued with a material that deadens magic. Cities are also defended by mages and expending your own magical resources to take down the wall leaves you vulnerable for a magical counter-attack.

[@ZofTheFather]

Modern cities might be build wothout walls, not only because walls are more costly to produce than to destory them, but also because a fight inside a city is way harder than a battle outside one against a defence using a wall. Imagine how many soldiers cane be hidden inside an ,,abandoned” building waiting with explosives for a tank to show up in the range. Opportunities for a surprise and ambush attacks are so vast!

[@revshad4226]

i could see a network of "razorwire" being spread across the city to "wall the sky" against a lot of flying creatures. this is particular useful if the setting also has some kind of super-metal (adamantine) that can withstand the weight and attacks of a dragon or similar.

[@OpenWorldAddict0]

Have you read any published campaign setting book that goes into depth about a major city in that setting? For example, have you looked into Waterdeep, the city of splendor in the Forgotten Realms?

[@EliasMheart]

Hmm... If you can make your city float on a body of water (disguised as just a moat), that would at least discourage tunneling... I don't think you can do much against the style of Elven siege you were describing, since they are not exploiting your defenses, but rather, your short lifespan... ("short-gevity"? Any takers?) Against the Dropping Rocks style, I guess either a shield, a permanent wind (though this probably just makes it more complicated), or a permanent anti-gravity-field above the holding may be in order... The latter may also help with fighting flying invaders in general: It may accelerate your shots/increase your range upwards (though the path of the arrow would take some getting used to), massively slow down a dive-bomb approach, and prevent you peppering your own city with whatever you shoot up. Honestly, over time, this may even create a semi-permanent ceiling, if not kept in check, requiring people to fly up and clean it up to keep sunlight in the city... that would be a fun way to siege them, then, just drop dirt and make them unable to grow anything/be depressed by darkness xD

[@ShizaruBloodrayne]

In a monster hunter type world, walls would have to keep beasts from breaking through, climbing over, digging under, or flying over. If there are magic crystals that create barriers, then they can be placed in various towers around the settlements. This would have to block dragon fire and falling dropped objects. As defensive mediums, ballistae could be mounted all along walls and towers. They would shoot outside of the barrier but the objects wouldn't be able to fall back in. Human behavior in general would be far more on guard than living comfortably or peacefully unless they've solidified a reliable system to subdue, tame, or slay these giant beasts. Farms wouldn't be left out in the open. Travelers and caravans wouldn't travel unguarded by convoys of warriors and defenders. I don't know why the D&Dverse is treated like humanoids are still the top of the food chain and can casually walk around anywhere or start up a village somewhere completely vulnerable. Bravery is one thing but the difference is between swimming in the ocean near a beach and swimming at the bottom of the ocean without gear. Your environment will crush you before you even get the chance to reap your first harvest let alone live long enough to raise a child into adulthood to take up the mantle.

[@kelpiekit4002]

I feel Halflings would be a surprisingly tough opponent in sieges on either side of the battle. You're not likely to make them break in panic with their bravery and luck with be against you. Any attempt to sneak in or sneak out, spy, pick off someone on the wall, and so on you are just more likely to end up picking the wrong time while they almost coincidentally succeed. They maybe overpowered by many species directly but in a siege morale becomes one of the larger components of victory and you will never beat a halfling at morale.

[@chouderr1089]

In my own setting, walls are present in a few forms. cities built on the surface of the world (most cities are built in the sky) make use of walls, because while many many creatures can fly, meany cannot, so while a wall cannot ward off all monsters they still do good work on the many creatures that walk on the ground. this is true for human wars as well, while flight is very common both through magic and with machines like air ships, not everyone can fly so they serve as a minor nuisance for the enemy that takes very little effort from the defenders to set up. but the primary purpose of most walls is to serve as the foundation for barrier domes which are a mix of technological and magical barriers that prevent people from flying over them as well as prevent physical objects and projectiles from passing through. the way the magic system works is that a shield is only as strong as the material it is connected to, so without the wall the shield would break easily. the greatest of citadels and castles are fully enclosed domes where the wall covers the entire castle like a steal shell. these domes are usually built around specific buildings like prisons, bunkers and evacuation sites rather than entire cities, but they are generally considered the most well fortified places in the world.

[@soren3569]

So, for starters: I'm assuming that magic makes wall-building easy, perhaps even trivial. Get me three competent earthbenders, and I'll have Cook County bordered in a week without any material cost whatsoever. At that point, walls will certainly be prevalent, even if they are not sufficient on their own. Now, how I would augment a classic walled city for a fantasy environment:: 1: Screening material. Instead of a full-blown roof, construct a lattice of wooden beams and posts, and then use them to grow vines, creating a kind of canopy. If you grow grapes, kiwis and other fruit-bearing vines, you get an additional food supply that will help mitigate sieges, and a source of income for the city in the form of jarred fruit and liquor. 2: Magical artillery. More often than not, even if magic does not strike its target, it does not just keep on sailing through the air the way a bullet does; it goes a bit further, then peters out. This reduces the risk of friendly fire. 3: Flying defenses. A few flying spellcasters, or griffin riders, or even a flying humanoid elite guard. 4: Bunkers. Even modern cities with no walls have underground places where people can hide in case of bomb attacks. In a fantasy setting, where, again, construction may be trivial, reinforced underground structures would likely be commonplace, especially in areas where the economic and political elite live and work. 5: Some of the bunkers would, in turn, be positioned so as to allow defenders additional choke points to hopefully catch sappers and tunnelers in. Final note: Talking about historical sieges brought to mind the 1981 TV miniseries, Masada, about a Roman siege on a Jewish fortification. While I'm sure LOTS of liberties were taken, it still made for a compelling depiction of a siege, and how the psychology of two forces were crucial to the events as they played out. Sadly, a little research failed to turn it up as a streaming option anyplace. Pity, it was damned potent stuff.

[@thiagom8478]

But I see another way to look at it. Magic allows us to build settings where we have walls that are impossible, completely impossible, to brake. We don't have anything like that in real life, as far as I know. A given wall or fortress could be impossible to brake, the rock bellow it could go all the way to the underworld and also be impossible to dig thru. That door will not brake, cannot be forced or tricked into opening without the right key. So, the ones who inherited that fortress find themselves in a exceptionally advantageous position. You can always starve them to death, in theory. But if you do that everything inside the fortress, and the fortress itself, will be lost to you. Forever. Without someone inside opening that door it will never open. What is a situation that may force characters to negotiate. Possibly, a world with a decent number of fortresses like that would be a setting where brake deals would be way more serious than it is in our world. Because is of general interest that negotiation happen. You need the people locked inside the city to trust the enemy outside, when it promises something.

[@zaphyrusm8940]

Another massive, non-military use for walls around cities is that they force imports and exports through known checkpoints for the purposes of tariffs and taxes, so even on the civil front, it’s entirely likely they would persist regardless of military utility

[@TangoHotel42]

I think walls will still have a place as much as fencing does today. For mundane things and smaller or nonmagical monsters earthen and wood walls and/or castles would be a nice go between using possibly expensive and/or rare magic to protect against local wildlife or bandits. They are quicker, and much cheaper to build than stone and can be plastered to be fire proof (ish). There were everywhere in our world.

[@carbondragon]

In magic rich D&D, the castle doesn't really keep people out or in really. It might keep conventional armies out. And sure a Dragon could attack, but once it starts taking 12 dice lightning bolts and save or die spells and arrows of slaying etc., it will probably back off. They're still better off than attacking an army fort in the present day because at least they're not taking ground to air missiles. The real defense is the army inside with its magic users (including potentially some really powerful ones). Wish, Time stop, weather control, divine intervention for powerful clerics and the like will kill even attacking gods (or at least Demi gods). So the walls are really just a way of defending against conventional armies. Modern societies can make hundreds of thousands of missiles but it's hard for a conventional army to accumulate hundreds of staffs of fireballs (at least the way you used to have to make magic items). It's an interesting question. I've seen this explored at national game conventions with a giant castle with a causeway against 30 or so 12th level PCs working to get in. Took all night in an event. That said if the attacker has a mirror of mental prowess you're in real trouble. If the city has one, when you get home you might find your city burned to the ground and of course your siegers will get blasted by spells from nowhere at close range just for fun.

[@Mr0tin]

Legend of the Five Rings, a fantasy game setting, has a large wall. it borders the southern end of the large human empire, on the other side is a land literally corrupted by the forces of hell. to defend the empire, thousands of samurai and shugenja have to man the wall daily to beat back the constant attacks by demonic forces. it t is the way of life for an entire clan.

[@demian_csomic_winters9484]

I believe walls are still useful such as preventing low level or low capable threats, but mostly I think walls need to go through their own version of the industrial revolution of sorts, like walls were actually giant pillars that generate the walls between them and if ones destroyed at cost of energy they reform and in even if no battle energy made walls can be dissipated in some form, and so on and thanks to this system different forms and layouts of walls can be formed as need. And so on or adding in permanent underground tunnels network that defenders know, combined with walls system could make pop-up fortress before disappearing again

[@matthewparker9276]

The Wall in asoiaf does turn away dragons in the books, not just the adaptations, as well as blocking skinchanging and possibly undead as well. It is a magic wall.

[@Voxdalian]

Ba Sing Se is very much based on Bejing, with its layered walls and the Forbidden City in the middle, except they put the Great Wall of China around the city rather than around the whole land.

[@viciousrodent]

Honestly you might see more simple and cheaper palisades remain more popular, with big expensive labour-intensive stone walls as more of a display of wealth or only showing up in the inner parts of a polity, where the walls around settlements and forts in the outskirts and borders -- the places that are more likely to be attacked -- remaining with just simple wooden walls that clearly communicate "Stay out", but, are cheap and easy to replace when they're damaged by sappers, and don't involve a massive investment that may just be bypassed by a flying opponent. At least, in regions where the walls are unlikely to be a major hinderence to whatever is most likely to atack a given location. If the neighbors are just humans anyway and there's no dragons for 200 miles then it might make more sense to invest in more expensive stone walls.

[@jocelyngray6306]

My setting spans two planes and has 20 peoples/races. 2 of them are all able to fly (bird people, bee people), and 6 that can sometimes fly. Towns and cities of all kinds will have at least some flying guards or soldiers.

[@morrigannibairseach1211]

I am definitely using walls in my fantasy story. Hillforts especially. Which will be constructed to have a stone foundation. However elves and dwarves are effectively isolated away from the empire the story takes place in. Also for many of the stories they've been around for less than 2,000 years. Also the elves are more like beautiful demons; feral when young and grow into graceful murderhobos. The dwarves are similar but underground. They are all monsters to be shot on sight. If you don't then you'll regret it. If elves are encroaching on the empire then get rid of them. Sure both sides armies will have druids but magic is less of an all powerful science than other fantasy. Basically I'm drawing from celtic myth so if that magic isn't there it's likely not in my story. So it really depends on whose druids are more clever. Unless I want a sorceress to be able to do something. However there's only ever 1 at a time and they have to pass their powers on before they die. They are always on the underdog side (because religion and politics). Dragons are sapient created creatures that are always on the side of the Sorceress. The real danger to walls will be champions. However both sides will have champions that will engage in single combat. Therefore the outcome of such single combat can end a siege or attack. Off the top of my head I can't think of any flying creatures in celtic myth. Excepting when a sorceress, some dragons, some champions, and an army show up walls serve their function. When they do show up expect the empire to throw everything it has at them ASAP. So I think in my setting walls will be fine. Granted its probably considered low fantasy because I'm not showcasing some sophisticated magic system nor am I simping for elves and dwarves. My intent is to write moving human tragedies with celtic myth and history being the aesthetic background or basis.

[@twelfthknight]

I'm a sucker for fantastical walls. Take Attack on Titan, the walls we're introduced to are so massive relative to the industrial capabilities of those living inside them that their existence is a subject of worship from its inhabitants and for the audience a persistent mystery the story gradually reveals. There's the famous Dragon's Palace of Japanese folklore hidden deep beneath the ocean with descriptions of huge walls of living coral or some kind of crystalline dome protecting it. Or there's Cleyra from Final Fantasy IX, a city whose existence is surrounded in a mighty perpetual sandstorm. Such things really deliver the sense of... well, Fantasy.

[@RossGosling]

In the world where walls are warded and offer magical defence you could imagine they aren't necessary for anything with intelligence? You'd hold a well maintained, and cheap, pallisade perimeter so that beasts and the wilds at large stick outside, whereas during warfare your wards uphold defence against aerial and ground troops, without ever being too limited to tear down in a moments notice? Depends on the scale of magic defence, but limited defences just for the aesthetic that beasts avoid seems a bare minimum

[@Dwarfurious]

I think a fantasy wall on a boarder makes no sense; but a wall around a fortress still makes perfect sense, even if they have fliers its good to have a strong vantage point and high ground for archers and siege weapons to operate from to shoot down threats from the air; you might just need some protection on the wall from fliers

[@offnet6934]

Tunneling wasn't that easy as you think. If you had larger wall you had deep foundation that even reached bedrock, or river as a moat . Nobody even bother tunneling under that. Not to mention you can make "basement" with they own gate and fire slits before wall or flood/gas space if this was that common. Not to mention anti air weapon are mostly installed on elevated fortified position, walls are perfect for them if you build them anyway.

[@funkeyfreddy]

Sauruman had explosives to get through the wall and he had good reason to think that reinforcements would be come since only a portion of the men of Rohan had been mobilized at that point. The tactics of lord of the rings are generally solid, probably because Tolkien was a soldier. We’re you a soldier?

[@pooly440]

Check out the Daughter’s War-goblins use very similar tactics to your interpretation of dwarves!

[@cobinizer]

It's better to have them then not. Not every enemy is a dragon, after all. What? Your house isn't immune to a nuclear bomb? Why even bother with it, then?

[@rolypoly4920]

In my setting, human cities all have big walls to keep everyone else out. While magic exists that can breach the walls, it is pretty rare and mostly isolated to Imperial-backed guilds who would be on the defender's side anyway. Big cities also have wards that block teleportation either into or outside the city. In the war against the forest elves, the elves had no idea how to siege a stone-walled city and also were bad at defending their own (wooden) cities against humans who had no qualms about burning down whole forests to smoke them out. The elves were being led by an ancient green dragon who didn't want any other dragons in his territory. So once he was dealt with, there were no more to worry about.

[@alexsterling5788]

So then, the ultimate defensible structure is a metropolis scale dwarven engineered hamster ball of a city. With a protective dome above AND below you will be safe against flying threats and underground sappers. Mobilize the fortress and now it's the deadliest anti-siege weapon as well, as you can roll your entire city over the encroaching army. Unfortunately this would escalate into rivals producing larger, more devastating fortress globes to "roll" upon your city. To defend against this we must once again use walls.... in reverse! Great trenches dug wide and deep to ensure they cannot be crossed by the fortress globes.

[@nickwest1305]

Just imagine a city under siege but it has one or more teleportation circles in it. It would let you move supplies and people in and out making a siege almost pointless s

[@timeneeter]

Stopping halfway the video, at the part about elven sieges, JUST to say: For eons the human elders have speculated, on where elven kind has came from, for generations mothers told their children, their grandchildren and those after if they could, of elven kindness, as centuries went by, we lovingly spoke of how our pets must view us, as we do the elves, loving, caring, ancient protectors of our linages. after so, so long is it i, the last of my species, after a long and happy life coming to terms with human kind existing no more. it was an elven siege all along.

[@DarkWanderer149]

I think people place too much human mind set on elves at times. They’re usually said to take longer with decision making at least compared to short lived races. So their plans can possibly suffer this at least if they’re not use to dealing with humans. I imagine elves would make what they call a short term plan for a siege but it takes two to three plus times longer than humans would. They very well could be outpaced because they’re the slowest to adjust. Think like the ents in LotR. Without adapting to the shorter lived, and by extension faster planning, races they’d deliberate to death. Plus, like with all these videos, there’s no established base line of what a elf is. It uses the idea of an elf. But that can be Tolkien elf or J-rpg elves depending on who’s thinking about this.

[@StarlasAiko]

I would imagine, in a low fantasy setting with magic being very rare and costly to use, that has credible flying threats, most successful civilisations would be subterranian, or at the very least have considerable subterranian shelters and resource storage.

[@Ben-gl5ve]

Yes please! Words in my ear

[@Koifin3]

Sounds like it just adds another layer of complexity to combat. Still, no wall is worse than wall.

[@austin6608]

And if there is any type of widespread earth magic in your setting walls are a hindrance

[@eng20h]

Fortifications continue to be used even to modern times in the form of bunkers, so I wouldnt say aerial warfare or artillery Made them obsolete

[@SMunro]

Mining is a minimum cost project. One ounce of gold per ton mined material. So quarrying stone which is 76 tons per 10'×10'×10' of granite. So a fortress carved from a mountain are better than a fortress built by quarrying a distant mountain.

[@amehayami934]

Ya but not unless it is a very well placed strategic city. Someplace that is very defensible yet has farming close by. Then you make the outer wall 100 yards thick and 400 yards high a deep mote that is at the very lest 50ft deep, or a 100 yards deep no doors or anything other then the main gate that has a gate house and turrets along the walls beyond the mote will have another wall same hight as the outer wall. And there it within theos walls can house the gards. Between the outer wall and the inner wall will be a draw bridge. Flanking theos draw bridges 20-30ft away will be a northern bridge that connects to the outer wall and can have 5 floors all with arrow and crossbow slits. Then they will run into another gate house and would have to fight threw that gate house. If they do they will find that too is about a 100 yards and with arrow slits and murder holes just like the first one I hope the can run fast but lets say they get pass that then they find the farm land but by that time most of the food is within the city. And they find another wall just as high as the first but now they're trapped Because. (1) there is no door or ladder to get to the top of the walls they just got threw. Plus there is still gards firing arrow from on top of the walls and threw the arrow slits mean while the other release the metal plates infront the front gate of the outer walls and the inner walls as they get to work on repairs to the doors. The men inside has no way to scale the wals and has no support or food and they just split up their forces.either the city can stave them out or kill them all off depending on how much of them there is. But you may say how are they going to fix the door if there is no door? 1 because the door is hidden and 2 because even if they found it they would be able to reach it. Because it is only accessible by lader that they will pull up in war. And where you have to place the ladder will have slits so you can shoot arrows or stab them with spears. And the fist 2 walls will also have a bridge that connects to the inner city walls. Meanin reinforcements can get easily to them because the only way to get on to any of these walls is from inside the city. I draw fortified cites for fun the amount of ideas for defense is a lot. Now some people may say it's unrealistic. But this is fantasy If there is huge beautiful castles I don't think it would be much to ask for an equally grand walls and defense. If Tolkien can have a gate that is just a giant wall that moves and can be opened by a few cave trolls I don't think what I'm asking is much. Ohand I have another defense. In the gate house the floors are removed and in them will be burning oil. So I don't even believe they could even get passed the first wall. Basically it wall mote wall farm wall mote wall then walls for each district along with gate houses and make it a maze where you have to take a specific route to get to the castle. If you don't take that route they'll end up in a dead end or just be running Aron in circles.

[@marks7037]

Whoosh, it seems like the elves would just crush everything with sheer force of time passage when they could be terraforming your fields, and youd be none the wiser.

[@nomadzophiel]

Once a week, the Elf Druid comes out and casts Control Weather to make it rain on the walled city. The residents have no idea why their enemies are ensuring good crops. Three hundred years later, the walls are eroded by the rainfall. THEN the elven army attacks.

[@williamstokes4282]

Imagine that you think they elves are besieging you as the tree line closes in on you but they don't even realize that you think you own the land, they're just doing some gardening on a patch of land they haven't tended to in a while(50-100 years).

[@philipmeade7789]

Lots of fantasy content really misses out on interesting and engaging worlds when they copypaste from ancient/medieval earth

[@Lilitha11]

There is some advantage of walls, even against flying enemies. While you can't really stop them from dropping stuff onto you, the walls would prevent them from actually attempting a landing inside of the city. No one who can fly, would want to give up that advantage and land inside of a city, where there are enemies above them on the walls. So monsters can't eat anyone, and armies can't loot the city, unless the first deal with the walls. All they can do, is just slowly kill people. So the end result is you still have to siege the city, even if you can fly. Meaning the walls are serving their purpose, of dissuading attacks. The major difference here, is the walls would probably all be covered from the top and back.

[@chadbodine336]

160

[@Gronmin]

The best use and realistic use of walls in fantasy is probably the walls of Li Heng in Malazan the book of the Fallen. Having fields to raise crops within any of these forts was basically not a thing at least not enough to sustain the population. The farms etc were still located outside of the walls as they are with castles, and the population was still dependent on them. That would only be the case when walls were guarding an entrance to a larger area like through a mountain pass etc.

[@EvelynNdenial]

with magic walls are made less effective, but with magic they are made easier to build. transmute rock and move earth from 5e would mean if you have even on high level wizard per generation the worlds cities would one by one be surrounded by walls of a scale that would put the theodosian walls to absolute shame. magic means counters to other things that get around or over walls making the whole thing much more complicated.

[@DurealRa]

I love your work. Do you have a patreon? Or a discord or something? I'd love a way to suggest video topics for discussion.

[@Grungeon_Master]

Well, thank you very much!! I do not have a patreon or discord at the moment, but am looking into setting both up soon, specifically so I can have topic suggestions and a community place to discuss these subjects in more detail. I think it'd be a really fun space to hang out, and glad to hear there's also some interest on your side too! In any case, thanks again for the kind words and kind donation, - Tom.

[@Jumpyfoot]

If you're the first comment, I'm the second comment.

[@TheIronarm]

Within my main world, walls involved in warfare are a rather recent activity, as magic and airborne creatures such as dragons are somewhat common, and huge walls would have been a very impractical option. Occasionally large cities would have city walls, but mostly to mark borders and provide a bulwark against bandits, which rarely had magic among their toolset. Two major exceptions, in the time of the empire, the whole of the continent was planned to be divided among the 4 Grand Knights, who were basically superheroes, and the Continental Walls were planned to be built to mark their lands and protect the people if those knights or their descendants sought to go to war, swarming with protective enchantment magics to make any potential future invasions all but impossible, and which remain standing for most the rest of history. The second, when one of those kingdoms the empire set up lost its king, the 18 provinces fell into civil war and built thick walls between them, usually set up quickly by earth mages, and a huge operation by the current king was to tear down these walls to reunite the kingdom.