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This article is about the technology in Age of Empires II HD: The Forgotten. For other uses of the term, see Great Wall. |
Great Wall is a technology in Age of Empires II HD: The Forgotten that is unique to the Chinese and can be researched at the Castle. Once researched, it increases the hit points of walls and towers by 30%.
Civilization bonuses[]
Chinese: Researching Great Wall is 10%/15% cheaper in the Castle/Imperial Age.
Team bonuses[]
- Portuguese: Researching Great Wall is 25% faster.
Strategy[]
Great Wall is an excellent technology in games where walls and towers are important or when performing a turtling tactic, e.g. when going for a Wonder victory. With it researched, Chinese towers become the most bulky in the game. The wall boost is useful as well, giving them the second strongest walls in the game (after the Byzantines').
However, as walls and towers are mainly of situational use, it would be advisable to forgo Great Wall if the player does not make use of those structures and is planning on rushing their enemies with raw force of soldiers. Even when a player is making use of walls, they should make sure that the stone investment is worth it, as it is worth 32-34 stone wall segments on its own.
History[]
Great Wall at Juyongguan, north of Beijing
The Great Wall of China is an extensive bulwark erected in ancient China, one of the largest building-construction projects ever undertaken. The Great Wall actually consists of numerous walls —many of them parallel to each other— built over some two millennia across northern China and southern Mongolia. The most extensive and best-preserved version of the wall dates from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and runs for some 5,500 miles (8,850 km) east to west from Mount Hu near Dandong, southeastern Liaoning province, to Jiayu Pass west of Jiuquan, northwestern Gansu province.
This wall often traces the crestlines of hills and mountains as it snakes across the Chinese countryside, and about one-fourth of its length consists solely of natural barriers such as rivers and mountain ridges. Nearly all of the rest (about 70 percent of the total length) is actual constructed wall, with the small remaining stretches constituting ditches or moats.
The Great Wall developed from the disparate border fortifications and castles of individual Chinese kingdoms since the 7th Century BCE. For several centuries these kingdoms probably were as concerned with protection from their near neighbours as they were with the threat of barbarian invasions or raids.
In 221 BCE Shihuangdi, the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of a unified China ordered removal of the fortifications set up between the previous states because they served only as obstacles to internal movements and administration. In addition, he sent General Meng Tian to garrison the northern border against incursions of the nomadic Xiongnu and to link the existing wall segments in Qin, Yan, and Zhao into the so-called "10,000-Li Long Wall", which eventually became the Great Wall.
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