Tower issue - Suggestion discussion

[Jeronimo]

And who said we want to screw the tower ??? Noone !
Towers in my oppinion are not made to kill a big part of the enemy army. They should protect the city from enemy units trying to sneak in . Towers will still have exactly that job. Or you think someone will sneak around a catapult which will destroy that one or two towers to protect the flank of your city so his 5 militia can sneak in? Well that must be a pro ninja move !
Towers should be a cheap way to protect all sides of your city and not a cheap way of killing the attackers army !

I quoted Matt's 1st page comment about replays (didn't edit it, like deleting your example), but "HIS games vs koczis" or "Pizza vs Mully" yes were uploaded to TS and these didn't show towers as a problem. Yet respect your game... i should take a look to confirm if towers did the most kills or were impossible to take down.

Also that BitD example is quite bad, exagerates the situation as if all defenses were like that in all matches.

Do you really veteran players need to blame Towers because they kill some soldiers in the name of Defense?
What's going on in the sessional TS conversations nowadays? (rethoric question)

I just think this topic falls in the category: "Spliting towers kills from soldiers kills", started by the same person.
I don't mean to offend Matt, but his obsession with tower related topics -> Mattower

Don't worry, we will soon play a game (hopefully) and I will show if possible how to deal with tower spam. But I have to get my tail into TS first.

[EDMatt]

Also that BitD example is quite bad, exagerates the situation as if all defenses were like that in all matches.

I think you are watching too many replays and not playing enough games . Just because we don't choose to play this same strategy every game does not rule it out as an imba defense strategy, so that statement on itself cannot be used in this discussion.

If many players who spend more than your average player in the game playing say that tower defense is a commonly used tactic and is hard to counter(not sure if even counter is the right word), all those players are wrong , and you need to join this game (someone who plays less than 2 hours a week) to show them all how its done, awesome arguments right there, and a bit too naive also.

[EDMatt]

Well the entrance is still not large, maybe bigger then the entrance at golden cliffs but it might make 2 tiles difference, the fact is that there is being argued in circles which is the reason many comments are the same. but i do find it funny that it is a tower suggestion discussion and any other idea but the catapults get's dismissed without someone cnosidering it. I still think siegfried his first suggestion is one of the best if it get's tweaked a bit.

Siegfried has interesting ideas that can also be tested, it will have a similar effect but with different consequences which I do not see will work as well as the catapult. we should test both imo

[dicsoupcan]

and why woud it not work as well as the catapult may i ask?

[EDMatt]

and why woud it not work as well as the catapult may i ask?

I tried to have a discussion with you on ts, but you are impossible to debate with and I feel many others had the same feeling. so just go and read back on the first few pages.

[Pizzaisgood]

Sure Jero i´d like to see you fighting my city if i have 15-20 towers and my whole army in town , gl with that. Ill show you how annoying it can be to attack a very good defender with many towers and a whole army, which is the reason why im not playing like that in real games , its just immoral imo .

Also you have to notice that towers aren´t just making kills with their stones... if it would be only that it could be bearable. Towers provide the possibility to create narrow entrances . They just block the enemy army, which means that the enemy army cant use its full potential. So while at least 15 soldiers died to rocks the rest has to go through 1 tileentrances while getting shot by 30 or more bowmen. And dont forget about the 30-40 swordmen waiting behind those towers. While your bowmen will shoot my big group of swordmen my bowmen will kill your swordmen one for one really fast. Ah and dont forget about my knights just waiting to flank your bowmen when you have not enough melee left to protect them. And if you think you can outmicro a smart defender then you are wrong. Countering dancing knights is no problem anymore for a long time. And dont forget that i can use the same microweapons as you do. And even if you manage to damage a tower , ill just push you a little and let my builder repair it . Like that you will destroy maybe 1 tower in 10 minutes. Guess how many i can build in that time .
And also i dont have to watch for my army all the time because its right in my town , so i can easily expand while not beeing worried about my army. The attacker always have to look at his army , unless he wants to get surprised by enemy manouvers.
So really how you want to get rid of my towers in this situation? There is no way of micro which will make it possible to destroy all the towers, because the defender can always counter it . And running into the towers will be devastating because they will kill a lot of soldiers alone with rocks and they will block the whole enemy army which will lead to even more kills by the defender.

And really, there are players out there which rely on this way of fighting , they decide to let the enemy attack their base so that they can many kills by towerkills and the effect of buildingblocking . I think this way of playing should be counterable. At the moment you can only counter it if you are a better player than the defender. But what if both have about the equal skilllevel ? Then the attacker has no way to counter the defenders gameplay... you can only hope that he´ll starve to death

[Romek]

Towers are VERY VERY EASY to make so we should have possibility to destroy it easy also. We dont have that possibility now. YES WE CAN USE ARCHERS AND XBOWS but only vs guys who spam towers in idiotic place and dont know how to protect them. If guy know how to defend his city you propably will not have any place to put your army and shoot to towers. We can decrease tower HP but it will only work vs idiotic towers placement - Protected towers still will be indestructible.

[Esthlos]

I don't get it... how do you protect towers?

Bowmen and Crossbowmen outrange towers by 3 tiles from the Tower's door in any direction (tested it right now ), and if you are sieging the enemy after a won battle you should have more soldiers... this means that the defender can't face your ranged troops with his own without losing them (you have more, and yours don't have 2 tiles already "occupied" in your front line -that's the space taken by the tower-)(buildingblocking is a double-edged sword... because of that, you can't fight back ranged troops that are attacking your towers from the edge of their own attack range) and can't send his melee to assault your ranged troops (it would mean leaving them out of the tower's cover, and they cannot even retreat to safety if they make contact even with a single Axe Fighter).
Laborers neither can repair the tower during the siege, as they can be killed easily by your troops thanks to the range difference...

In conclusion, as far as I can understand, Towers can only buy some time to the defender, but cannot hold out a (patient) enemy army forever... if they weren't cheap and fast to build, they'd actually be utterly useless.

So... how do you properly protect your towers to make them impossible to be destroyed?

[Ben]

So... how do you properly protect your towers to make them impossible to be destroyed?

Have your bowmen shoot at the enemy. When he stops shooting your towers to kill your men, step back. It will take ages to destroy towers at that rate. You'll also be killing more of his men than yours, especially if you use a knight to "dance" in front of his bowmen.

[Esthlos]

So... how do you properly protect your towers to make them impossible to be destroyed?

Have your bowmen shoot at the enemy. When he stops shooting your towers to kill your men, step back. It will take ages to destroy towers at that rate.

Mmm... maybe you could split your men and have a few keep attacking the tower, taking advantage of the presence of the enemy tower, presence that should be an obstacle for the stepping forward of a full enemy line?

You'll also be killing more of his men than yours, especially if you use a knight to "dance" in front of his bowmen.

Can't the attacker use the same "Knight dance" to distract the enemy ranged troops while a few of his soldiers keep attacking the tower?

[Ben]

Your assumptions are correct, Esthlos, but the attacker is still delayed by a proper defence from the camper.

[Menszu]

For me the towars were good the way they are, until I read Pizza's post

And really, there are players out there which rely on this way of fighting , they decide to let the enemy attack their base so that they can many kills by towerkills and the effect of buildingblocking . I think this way of playing should be counterable. At the moment you can only counter it if you are a better player than the defender. But what if both have about the equal skilllevel ? Then the attacker has no way to counter the defenders gameplay... you can only hope that he´ll starve to death

I'm glad I rarely see such playstyle, yet it must be terribly annoying. I guess the catapult might be good asset at such point. Player probably won't build it before such scenario happens. Let's sumarize the way I see catapults. (and balistas while we're on it)
- Workshop building the same as TPR, but preferably closed after building, or bringing wares on demand would be more like it.
- Both cost 10 steel, 10 wood
- Both ammunition instead of hunger. Let's say each can destroy around 3 towers begore get's refiled by : catapult: 10 stone / balista: 10 wood
- Starts not refilled? (quicker production - you can refill it on it's way to the enemy since serfs are faster)
- Catapult shoot only at buildings with range of archers (10 is it?) And it's damn good at it, like erasing them. 5 shoots and good bye tower - which give us 15 shoots before refiling.
- Balista whave range of 15 instead, (if archers are 10), against units it has only strength of x-bowman, maybe little stronger. Assuming the cost no-one would have more thantwo - 30 iron for 3 superx-bowman is madness. However! The unit might be great for harassing units - behind he tower line. Crosbowman strength is crap, but it can kill enemy archers camping behind the towers one by one ; ) Refilling let's say after 50 shoots. Also - capable of destroying building, like... let's say 15 shoots for a tower.


On the side note. The problem with KaM is it has no teritory control whatsoever. While I think it's best part of strategy games, and KaM sadly lacks it - unitl now. I think we should give the players more scripted maps (guess what -> like King of the Castle ) What also might work are similar to Sado's Conquest capturable buildings in the middle, just during standard building game. Giving various wares directly to the storehouse, from wine to weapons. Just kile capturing mines in Heroes. --> Even better, waresshould apear not in storehouse but in Marketplace - giving it additional purpose with flavour. (who wouldn't fight for single stable giving a horsie every minute?)

Playing without a goal seams futile for me since we have so much great options.
Apart from weak no_pro gameplay, I'd like to share with you single replay to show the potential and suspence such mod create. It was game with random guys, but was probablly my bigest fun up to this point. And we could implement similar scripts on every popular map.
For more bloodthirsty of you, have no fear - most of the games still end up in eradicating enemy town, but when the game is stalemate, the real fun begins.

[Ben]

Please, let's stay on topic. There's been enough tangents on this thread already.

[Menszu]

Ben, the point is we're talking about the symptoms not the problem itself. Everybody sees how towers work, now most of us argue over who's the n00b who can't deal with them and who can micro defend etc.
How about seeing where problem really lies - and it's in - ground between bases is a middle of nowhere with no point holding it whatsoever apart from the moment we're going to storm the enemy base. To much sieges, to few open battles. The model of vanilla gameplay is just to simple, without giving the game proper chance to shine out.

[EDMatt]

Ben, the point is we're talking about the symptoms not the problem itself. Everybody sees how towers work, now most of us argue over who's the n00b who can't deal with them and who can micro defend etc.
How about seeing where problem really lies - and it's in - ground between bases is a middle of nowhere with no point holding it whatsoever apart from the moment we're going to storm the enemy base. To much sieges, to few open battles. The model of vanilla gameplay is just to simple, without giving the game proper chance to shine out.

the real problem is the lack of unit variety, that's all.
back on topic please.