Towers Discussion thread

[auron2401]

Since the alpha 17 wishlist thread has been derailed to hell, by TOWERS. (stand still ye buggers) Can you pleas continue your heartless discussion here instead of in an irrelevant thread?

anyway, topic is:

are towers too overpowered, how can they be fixed.

I am of course referring to DEFENSE TOWERS, not OUTPOSTS or WALL TURRETS.

Edited June 11, 2014 by auron2401

[Lion.Kanzen]

I don't see as overpower. Have their weakness.

[auron2401]

They have their weaknesses ONLY IF:

• You can get siege units or elephants.
• You can kill them BEFORE they are built.
• You can swarm them with a-lot of melee infantry. A-LOT.

That's all.

The power-cost ratio is extremely big, the power you get out of a 200 (or 300) cost structure is far too big. I suggest they are either weakened, or at the very least made more expensive.

I've had entire games ruined by people rushing to town phase, building a market and rushing over to my territory, building a civ centre and 3 towers. you cant beat it, until at least you hit fortress age, but by then you've lost all your expansion possibilities + economy expansion possibilties. 'tis gee gee.

[Lion.Kanzen]

They have their weaknesses ONLY IF:

• You can get siege units or elephants.
• You can kill them BEFORE they are built.
• You can swarm them with a-lot of melee infantry. A-LOT.

That's all.

The power-cost ratio is extremely big, the power you get out of a 200 (or 300) cost structure is far too big. I suggest they are either weakened, or at the very least made more expensive.

I've had entire games ruined by people rushing to town phase, building a market and rushing over to my territory, building a civ centre and 3 towers. you cant beat it, until at least you hit fortress age, but by then you've lost all your expansion possibilities + economy expansion possibilties. 'tis gee gee.

cavalry sword are good for them and champion units.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I forgot . Only ranged infantry can use it. To add double shot. Now the walls have units over them, but you can kill them.

Edited June 11, 2014 by Lion.Kanzen

[iNcog]

It's not that towers can't be taken down, it's that the price of doing so is very, very high.

If melee cav are supposedly good against towers then towers are even more broken since any player who is going for tower rushes (or w/e you want to call it) will have some spearmen defending towers. It's nothing more complicated than that. It's such a costly operation to get rid of some towers in early town phase that it's probably not something you want to do. A tower shooting 6 arrows every 2 seconds for 20 damage per arrow will decimate ground forces very quickly: unlike archers or skirms, the damage is very well distributed without need for the player building towers to micro anything.

I just tested this with the map editor, 30 hoplites will not kill 2 towers and 10 archers. These are two towers without units in them either, neither of the two upgrades you can get in towers were upgraded either. 30 hoplites managed to destroy only one tower, which only costs 200 resources to rebuild anyway. When the first tower was down, 14 hoplites had died. So that was already a very good trade.

Now imagine doing the same thing except that instead of 3000 resources (30 hoplites) against 1400 resources (10 archers + 2 towers), you do 3000 vs 3000. You do realize that any place where a tower is built is almost 100% secure? So any smart player will try to race to put towers up on his opponent's natural resources. Bam, gg. Nothing the other guy can do about it once the towers are up.

Edited June 11, 2014 by iNcog

[niektb]

Let me think. How is it handled by other RTS's? (F.e. AoK)

[greenknight32]

You should be rushing to town phase, too. Somebody gets there ahead of you, it means you've been outplayed.

By the time your opponent can build civ centers, you should have some troops out there to stop them building too close to you. Maybe build outposts.

[iNcog]

Let me think. How is it handled by other RTS's? (F.e. AoK)

Towers in AoC for example have ~1000 HP and 5 ranged damage. I tested 2 AoC towers with 10 archers against 30 melee men-at-arms. men-at-arms are at 6 attack and 45 HP. I'm not sure about attack rates unfortunately. Regardless, 30 men-at-arms took down everything very quickly and only a single man-at-arms was lost taking down 2 watch towers. Attack & HP ratio seems pretty comparable if we compare 0AD to AOC. Towers in AoC are only 25 wood and 125 stone I think. The thing is that towers in AoC don't have the armor that towers in 0AD do. So perhaps something to consider would be greatly reducing the pierce and hack armor that towers in 0AD have.

You should be rushing to town phase, too. Somebody gets there ahead of you, it means you've been outplayed.

By the time your opponent can build civ centers, you should have some troops out there to stop them building too close to you. Maybe build outposts.

That's not the issue. It's indeed very easy to interrupt a building being built. Almost to the point where I half feel buildings should build faster. The issue is that once the building is there, it's way too strong.

[niektb]

AoC?

[iNcog]

Age of Conquerors, or Age of Empires II with its expansion.

[RoekeloosNL]

Maybe towers sould be connected to CC, So your first CC you can build 4 Towers and if you build more CC you are able to build 2 more and so on....

[iNcog]

1 tower with ranged infantry is all you need to hold an area down early game, with 2 towers you're nigh invincible until siege. It's not the amount of towers you have that's the problem. A more direct and simple solution would be to heavily reduce the armor that towers have so that they're easier to take down.

[hollth]

Last time I looked the effective HP of all buildings is asinine for all buildings in this game. IMO towers ought to be more durable than most buildings, so unless all buildings are all being rescaled or towers are outliers I wouldn't target the durability significantly (at least when fully upgraded)

If they need to be reduced in effectiveness, decreasing tower stats and having tower upgrades to bring them up. That in itself decreases the cost effectiveness. Most importantly though, it allows for towers to be potentially weaker in phase 2 by having upgrades in the last phase. That reduces towers effectiveness for the specific time period when siege weapons are not prevalent, whilst still giving them presence later. Additionally, having technologies gate towers means ants that the technologies become another balancing lever if they become egregious again.

[niektb]

Age of Conquerors, or Age of Empires II with its expansion.

Ah yes, I normally would refer to that with TC. (AoC is an abbreviation of an AoK mod, Age of Chivalry: Hegemony.)

Well, you have fortresses to be strong. I think towers can be less effective and be upgraded later on (like in AoE2: TC/AoK)

[niektb]

That having said: what kind of attack do hoplites have? Pierce or Hack?

[iNcog]

Hoplites have Hack attack, as all melee units do afaik. Melee units deal some damage to buildings, siege engines with their crush damage do the most damage by far. Unfortunately siege engines aren't available in early town phase, which is when towers are clearly a problem. Later on, as you get siege engines and more powerful units, I think towers should definitely be strong. Upgrades are probably a good solution to this, I agree with hollth.

[borg_]

It is clear that the towers are very strong. If the opponent is good, he will not let you destroy your turret. Tower alone can kill a ton of soldiers, and sure enough the enemy will also protect it with his army, making it virtually impossible to get the territory back.

[FeXoR]

Towers as defensive buildings can only be build in owned territory and they can't move.

They should be strong (have a good price/value ratio) in early game to enable defensive strategies vs rushes/offensive strategies. They loose their strength in city phase due to availability of siege engines and they should not get much stronger then (ATM there's no upgrade at all for towers in this phase though a general "tougher buildings" tech might be good - but no offensive upgrade).

Additionally stone (and metal) as a resource is much more valuable than food (and on most maps wood as well). So the price might seam low at the beginning but not being able to pay for catapults (or in a lesser extend slingers) later on (or have to barter/trade for the needed stone) is a real drawback of excessive use of stone early in the game (and I feel slingers cost to much stone for vilage phase units - as swordsman cost to much metal IMO).

Building a civic centre early in front of the enemy base is expensive and risky. Just a bit of scouting can counter this.

If a player succeeds with this strategy its entirely OK IMO if he got "repaid" for taking the risk of loosing the resources when his CC is taken down.

IMO defensive structures should be available even earlier (village phase, not necessarily defense towers but some sort of tower stronger than the outpost but only buildable in owned territory) but that would not fit the phase design well and the civic soldiers could be considered an early defense though they can be used offensively as well (which is my point).

Edited June 12, 2014 by FeXoR

[AceWild]

I've had entire games ruined by people rushing to town phase, building a market and rushing over to my territory, building a civ centre and 3 towers. you cant beat it, until at least you hit fortress age, but by then you've lost all your expansion possibilities + economy expansion possibilties. 'tis gee gee.

This is not hard to beat. Iv'e had players try this on me but it didn't work...... Early scouting is the key. If you see that your opponent is rushing to town phase, then attack well before they can build a civic centre..... If you happen to be late on scouting and you notice that your opponent is in town phase very early, then scout for there civic centre and attack before it is built - civic centres take along time to build and if your opponent has invested all those resources in rushing to town phase and is building a civic centre then there not going to have much of an army to defend.

Edited June 13, 2014 by AceWild

[hollth]

Towers as defensive buildings can only be build in owned territory and they can't move.

They should be strong (have a good price/value ratio) in early game to enable defensive strategies vs rushes/offensive strategies. They loose their strength in city phase due to availability of siege engines and they should not get much stronger then (ATM there's no upgrade at all for towers in this phase though a general "tougher buildings" tech might be good - but no offensive upgrade).

Additionally stone (and metal) as a resource is much more valuable than food (and on most maps wood as well). So the price might seam low at the beginning but not being able to pay for catapults (or in a lesser extend slingers) later on (or have to barter/trade for the needed stone) is a real drawback of excessive use of stone early in the game (and I feel slingers cost to much stone for vilage phase units - as swordsman cost to much metal IMO).

Building a civic centre early in front of the enemy base is expensive and risky. Just a bit of scouting can counter this.

If a player succeeds with this strategy its entirely OK IMO if he got "repaid" for taking the risk of loosing the resources when his CC is taken down.

IMO defensive structures should be available even earlier (village phase, not necessarily defense towers but some sort of tower stronger than the outpost but only buildable in owned territory) but that would not fit the phase design well and the civic soldiers could be considered an early defense though they can be used offensively as well (which is my point).

I assumed the concern was that during the town phase building towers near resources like metal and stone so it became too expensive to contest. That was my take on it at least. Its also not THAT risky since buildings foundations refund all the resources upon death. ( I feel the risk would be more proportional to the reward if buildings didn't refund everything, but thats another story.)

Other than that, I half agree half disagree with your sentiments. I agree that towers ought to be most powerful in the town phase. Relatively, at least, and I think this is where we slightly disagree. I think towers should continue to grow in absolute strength throughout, but they should be relative weaker as the game continues to progress. That's why I think technologies are a good solution. It allows us to change how strong they are at each point of the game instead of needing to be overbearing to still hold relevance in the later stages.

I'd also like to say that I am in agreement with you that there should be some very weak tower in the village phase. Personally, I would like it if the outpost fired an arrow (If built in your own territory) and if the outposts could be upgraded into stronger towers in later phases. Preferably on a tower-by-tower basis.

[AceWild]

That's why I think technologies are a good solution. It allows us to change how strong they are at each point of the game instead of needing to be overbearing to still hold relevance in the later stages.

I'd also like to say that I am in agreement with you that there should be some very weak tower in the village phase. Personally, I would like it if the outpost fired an arrow (If built in your own territory) and if the outposts could be upgraded into stronger towers in later phases. Preferably on a tower-by-tower basis.

Well said. I share similar thoughts to you hollth.

Edited June 13, 2014 by AceWild

[AceWild]

Iv'e noticed lately that many players are complaining that cavalry raiding is OP and that skirmisher cavalry are OP............ "Towers are a good answer to this"............ I think nerfing towers will result to increases in cavalry raiding.

Edited June 12, 2014 by AceWild

[auron2401]

Considering the complaints arent to cavalry raiding, but to javcavs themselves, your thoughts are silly and irrelevent.

So the problem cant be resolved by "stop it before it does happen", that's silly elitist thoughts. The problem is that It's an UNBEATABLE STRATEGY if it can be pulled off! and on certain maps, it's far stronger than on others. (mountain passes for ex, are easy as hell to block off)

what on earth are you supposed to do if theres 30 javelin infantry infront of your base building a civ centre with 10+ javcav to guard it? that civ centre will go up in 5 seconds, with the tower up in 10. with current pathfinding, it'll take 30 seconds to organise your army to attack that position. that's a lost battle.

with current balance (assuming pathfinding is perfekt) it's still a lost battle even if you had 60 men.

towers should reinforce positions, not hold them all by themselves right up until siege is avaliable.

[AceWild]

I've had entire games ruined by people rushing to town phase, building a market and rushing over to my territory, building a civ centre and 3 towers. you cant beat it, until at least you hit fortress age, but by then you've lost all your expansion possibilities + economy expansion possibilties. 'tis gee gee.

This is not hard to beat. Iv'e had players try this on me but it didn't work...... Early scouting is the key. If you see that your opponent is rushing to town phase, then attack well before they can build a civic centre..... If you happen to be late on scouting and you notice that your opponent is in town phase very early, then scout for there civic centre and attack before it is built - civic centres take along time to build and if your opponent has invested all those resources in rushing to town phase and is building a civic centre then there not going to have much of an army to defend.

Edited June 13, 2014 by AceWild