Base defences

[Dennis[DK]]

As a C&C fan for almost 25 years, I have play these games almost since the beginning. One thing I noticed about base defences, particularly walls, is that they are almost useless in C&C and RA1. Concrete walls offers a pretty neat defence however. But because you have to place one piece of wall at the time, it takes forever to have e full wall around your base. And especially in multiplayer, where speed is crucial, walls are almost useless (I also noticed in different MP playthroughs on YouTube, that no one use walls).
In Tiberum Sun and RA2, where you can build line of walls, they become more useful however. But still to slow to be useful in MP, I think.

But what do you think? Are walls useless as base defence? How do you prefer to protect your base? Defence buildings, or just pure infantry and tanks?

[Magos]

Walls can be very useful in CnC (vs AI) if you don't mind cheating...

[Cat]

Aside from using them as base expansion, I usually build them in front of a base defense (obelisk, guard towers) to absorb tank shots, or in front of artillery/rocket launcher. Sandbags also work to keep minigunners and flamethrowers away from your defenses behind it since they have ~1 tile range.

If you're talking about 1v1 quickmatch, I hardly use them because spending $300 on 3 wall sections is an opportunity cost for 1 buggy which can make a lot of difference, although the above trick might work on any MP game if you somehow ended up not playing against a buggy/bike rusher.

I use walls/fence/sandbags in MP when there is a narrow entrance to my base, such as the middle spot in Green Acres (TD) where your MCV start on a cliff, I build early wall/fence to block off scouts from revealing my construction yard.

[Gummiel]

well for MP 99% of rts games walls are not worth the time and money to build, heck even stationary defences tend in many cases to be of a low value(though not as low as walls/passive defences) since well they are stationary.

For SP well... in these 2 old games the AI don't know how to specifically target walls of any kind so you can litterally lock them in with sandbags (or concrete walls for that matter, but since they wont target them sandbags do just as good of a job as concrete walls) while you build up your army or whittle them down with air-units and super weapons or whatever you prefer.

That said there are several mods on the workshop that incorperate a RA2-style of wall building on the workshop (pretty much any QoL or overhaul mod will have it as one of its features), for both TD and RA

[Commisar Jon Fuklaw]

Concrete walls are not bad to build provided you have spare cash and time, even if you only place a couple. Concrete walls will absorb cannon shots whether they are in front of or behind a base defense and so can be the difference between losing 1500$ and losing 100$ in some instances.

Still not much use in multiplayer, though. Unless you are using a QoL mod (as mentioned)

[Dennis[DK]]

Thanks for your replies. It seems that walls can be useful in certain circumstances. But to wall off an entire base with one or two entrances (like we see bases in SP missions), is not recommendable, since it will take a lot of time (especially with one piece at a time)?

[Cat]

Yes, making walls around the base like in SP is never useful, sadly. Not worth the time, money and effort. Playing this for 20 years and I never seen anyone done that except a few youtubers playing campaign and doing it just for fun (and that's only because he's playing tiberian sun where you don't have to do it piece by piece).

[Drain]

You'll spend more time destroying or selling walls than you will building them. Whenever you get a base handed to you, it's full of walls that are in stupid locations which serve only to waste build space. When you build your own, it'll be to spread out the base or block a tower; not surround the entire base with a pretty fence. It's a waste of money to build a fence around your entire base when the natural barriers of the map already block most sides. You only need to be concerned about entrances and towers.