Why repair the Great Wall?

[Ixal]

Maybe I am missing something, but the event (not decision) for Ming to repair the Great Wall seems kinda pointless.

To repair the wall you have to pay a lot of money and get -1 stability (big deal for Ming because of the Mandate of Heaven) and the only get 5 army tradition and a flag which allows you to get the follow up event, repairing the wall even more with exactly the same cost and benefits.
Apart from that nothing seems to happen. The decision to repair the wall seems not to depend on the events. Did I miss some hidden benefit or is this just a very bad deal?

And it is kinda strange than you have three ways to repair the wall, events, a decision and an idea.

 

[Solo4114]

Is there another choice, or is it just a "bad" event? 'Cause sometimes you just get those, like a bad card draw in a board game.

 

[Ixal]

Is there another choice, or is it just a "bad" event? 'Cause sometimes you just get those, like a bad card draw in a board game.

You can let the wall crumble for no cost, no penalty and +1 Stability and "some" manpower a few thousand).

From the wiki:

Repairing the Great Wall

    Can only fire once 

Trigger:

    Country is Ming
    Year is at least 1450
    Year is less than 1490 

Mean time to happen

    Base mean time to happen of 200 months 

Option: Yes, we need to repair the Great Wall!:

    Changes stability by -1
    Modifies treasury by -0.25 years worth of income
    Changes army tradition by 5
    Sets the country flag mng_great_wall_flag 

Option: Let it continue to crumble:

    Changes stability by 1
    Changes national manpower reserves by 0.5 months worth 

More Repairs for the Great Wall

    Can only fire once 

Trigger:

    Country is Ming
    Year is at least 1500
    Year is less than 1540
    Has the country flag mng_great_wall_flag 

Mean time to happen

    Base mean time to happen of 200 months 

Option: Yes, we need to repair the Great Wall!:

    Changes stability by -1
    Modifies treasury by -0.25 years worth of income
    Changes army tradition by 5
    Removes the country flag mng_great_wall_flag 

Option: Let it continue to crumble:

    Changes stability by 1
    Changes national manpower reserves by 0.5 months worth
    Removes the country flag mng_great_wall_flag

 

[Novacat]

Always choose the stability option for that...

But as Ming, you want to get Alxa ASAP because it will enable you to pick the 'Repair the Great Wall' Decision which will give you a permanent +33% Fort Defense for the rest of the game. Combined with the Ming NI, it makes Ming's forts an absolute pain to take down due to +48% Fort Defense. If you unlock your first NI you will NOT be able to enact this decision which is why time is of the essence.

Also, do not forget the Forbidden City decision which reduces stab costs by 10% and gives you +0.5 yearly prestige.

 

[GamingHUD]

The decision and idea stack, if you enact the decision first (You lose the ability to enact the decision if you get the NI first, IIRC).

There are two events in total, and you'll only get the second event if you choose the repair option in the first option (they also only fire once) but as far as I can tell, they don't really affect anything else (I concede that I might be missing something), certainly it doesn't seem to affect the decision in this case.

 

[Cavalry]

Maybe the Devs think the Great Wall is a joke that can prevent no major invasion and because of the "Repairing the Great Wall", many peasant die and a lot of others rebeled.