Tower Defense against cavalry raids

[Grugnas]

Skirmish-Knight  vs kizitom

( didn't mean to upload this replay but it is worth the deal )

Defense towers were the core strategy against cavalry raid.

This game was kinda hard because kizitom cavalry raid started before i could reach phase 2 and build towers.

Outposts are a quite nice defense against skirmish cavalry as long as they are cheap and more resistant than sentry towers in phase 1.

towerdefense.zip

[av93]

Now that has been some work with inconsistencies about unit cost, that could be looked. That should be the role of the sentry towers, and not of the outpost, right?

GG, BTW

[Grugnas]

Sentry towers required 3 soldiers in a static place, this means that i needed about 20 or more soldiers idle to keep my territory safe. Matter of fact, micro managing soldiers to garrison towers would be messy and perhaps they risk to die through the way.

Outposts damage is 16 pierce damage per arrow for a max of 1 arrow, while sentry tower has a max of 3 arrows for 4 x 9 damage = 38 damage ( 45 with sentry technology ).

Garrisoning 1 men into the outpost is far more efficient because you require 80 wood and 1 soldier for 16 pierce damage, instead of 100 wood and 1 soldier for 18 damage. The real deal is that sentry towers aren't worth to build as long as they are somehow weaker to pierce damage than outposts because of their low hp.

The nice  thing is that the combo of outpost + towers deal enough damage to force enemy cavalry to retreat. The down side of the coin is that the combo can't be used against archer cavalry because of the oputposts low range.

[Nescio]

(See also D914)

Part of the problem is that sentry towers have significantly less health (but rather surprisingly more capture points) than outposts or any other structures; here is a quick comparison:

                 ,health, capture points
storehouse       ,  800 ,  300
outpost          ,  800 ,  500
sentry tower     ,  250 ,  800
stone tower      , 1000 ,  500
Iberian tower    , 2400 ,  500
fortress         , 4500 , 4200
Iberian fortress , 6000 , 4200

Actually I proposed a couple of weeks ago to change it into e.g.:

                 ,health, capture points
outpost          ,  750 ,  500
sentry tower     , 1000 ,  750
stone tower      , 1500 , 1000
Iberian tower    , 2500 , 1250

However, “balance” changes are notoriously hard to get reviewed, accepted, and implemented, therefore I've shelved it for now

[Grugnas]

as if it would break the things

[tuk0z]

Interested to watch indeed for da reasons grugnas wrote (ie. tactics to counter early cav rushs && to rush vs towers building booming players)

On 29/10/2017 at 3:39 PM, Grugnas said:

The nice  thing is that the combo of outpost + towers deal enough damage to force enemy cavalry to retreat. The down side of the coin is that the combo can't be used against archer cavalry because of the oputposts low range.

Something I tried in that matter with some success is to add a layer of defense by surrounding towers with outposts (as satellites). Hinders my opponents' archers surprinsignly faster vs having just towers in phases I-II.

I noticed Kizitom was a bit lazy in his early eco dev IMHO, eg at 2:30 he'd gathered only 1/2 wood and as much food as Skirmish -who didn't wait 5' to start his 1st tech upgrade. Skirmish still had an eco advantage untill well after kizitom's effective raid.

Edited November 3, 2017 by tuk0z
Skirmish != Grugnas

[Grugnas]

39 minutes ago, tuk0z said:

I noticed Kizitom was a bit lazy in his early eco dev IMHO, eg at 2:30 he'd gathered only 1/2 wood and as much food as Skirmish -who didn't wait 5' to start his 1st tech upgrade. Skirmish still had an eco advantage untill well after kizitom's effective raid.

this is perhaps the only reason why the strategy worked.

At same skill level, this can be a discrete strategy in team games when opponents' focus is spread between the other players, but it won't work in 1v games or in 2 or more vs 1 because you would use too much wood and soldiers to garrison defense structures, which is a lower gathering rate resource to gain than food ( primary resource to train cavalry with ) especially in early game when you are able to research fruit increased gather speed and hunt nearby animals, which incentive also cavalry train.

Also, towers have a minimum distance build restriction thus 1 single tower has to deal with more cavalry than they could seriously damage and force to turn around defenses.

[tuk0z]

Oh! now you said it Grugnas that's right, the diff between 1v1 (where you just won't have enough free time/resources vs a skilled opponent) & team ones. Thought even in team matches, it may be not that fun to stay in da towerspider position ,-) while your buddies go make the loot ! he he

BTW 0 A.D. Alpha 22 Replays Game 4 Part 1 The City Fortress another good replay catched by Anavultus

[Grugnas]

12 hours ago, tuk0z said:

Oh! now you said it Grugnas that's right, the diff between 1v1 (where you just won't have enough free time/resources vs a skilled opponent) & team ones. Thought even in team matches, it may be not that fun to stay in da towerspider position ,-) while your buddies go make the loot ! he he

BTW 0 A.D. Alpha 22 Replays Game 4 Part 1 The City Fortress another good replay catched by Anavultus

lol, part 2 is even more interesting

Indeed a "tower spider" city will protect you from skirmish cavalry raids (melee cavalry is healthier and has higher mobility thus palisades may be a better choice) but the idea is to use towers as support to units into defending from cavalry while expanind elsewhere. Matter of fact cavalry is just a better version of infantry and this is a limit to strategies choices because everything infantry can do, cavalry does it  better as long as you can mass produce them ( that's the main reason of why ptol archer camels are overpowered ) which is kinda easy in early game because food is the easiest and the most important resource to gather at start ( see berries bushes with 100 wood costly tech and animals ), while later in the game your soldiers production is blocked by lack of other resources even after researching the wood technology ( while 15% wood gather rate isn't that big and perhaps just unlocked to search the next techs and not for a noticeable economy improvement, 50% wood gather rate allow you to keep max 15-20 women or soldiers on wood and use the rest of your population for massive attacks),  mostly by lack of wood ( another reason why towering the whole area is hard to do without keeping women uncovered ).

[tuk0z]

yeap I hope Anavultus will upload Part 2 when he can afford it. That's what the dude does usually (he's at what, 4-5 vids per week, game choice depending of the comments I think ).

4 hours ago, Grugnas said:

the idea is to use towers as support to units into defending from cavalry while expanind elsewhere.

To me the issue is that a good towers-spider strat (as of skirmisher here) requires quite some time/units to build, garison and support, that hinder my abilities to expand succesfully. Am NOT Borg though

Ha while I tested heavy cav/camel potential OP in early game, later on (let's say from 10-11') I've found a massive well mixed & upgraded infantry to be even more powerful, and flexible for the average player like me: it adds this gather/build/repair/trained faster abilities, and also do not require as much brilliant micro as Borg, Camel and alike are able to deal with. A couple examples? Merov and buddies vs Vercingetorix_ team (a21 though). Or the powerful sling, sling+Siege towers+Kleopatra rush vs CHAKIB/theway you recently produced (« Jeez! it's freakin raaaining stones & arrows today »). Oh my ^^ ooking at theway's camelry archers continuously melting as snow in july, how hard I LOLed

[tuk0z]

22 hours ago, tuk0z said:

Something I tried in that matter with some success is to add a layer of defense by surrounding towers with outposts (as satellites). Hinders my opponents' archers surprinsignly faster vs having just towers in phases I-II.

Taken that one image is worth a hundred words, found back a screen that I took at the end of a game (Acropolis ×4 map)

As you can see "only" 5 towers built while the action was on the other side. They did the job, ie crushing down the Mauryan troups he he