The outpost, commandery, blockhouse, war huts, and others only create the impression of protection; in fact, the enemy will not lose anything if he goes to immediately destroy the TC, because they cause as much damage as one musketeer. Many will say that they have a lot of HP. But you don’t need to break them, you can simply ignore them. For the resources they cost, you can build 2.5 musketeers, which will be more useful. The TC were also unlucky. 90 damage city center can only stop archers, but no one else.
What is the idea of the towers if all 7 of them cost 1750 resources and will not be able to stop an army of the same cost. And what kind of stupid quantity limit is this? It feels like the building is an absolute annihilator. The negative multiplier against settlers plays a cruel joke at age 4. When an enemy peasant, being under fire from two towers, built three stables and left to cut down the forest. It’s disgusting. Russia, for example, has an age increase for 900 food, which allows blockhouses to provide a population. That is, it is intended that Russia at the age of 2 uses turtle tactics, but it does not. Because for the same money you can build houses and strelets, which (terribly!) are more useful. Towers of the third upgrade are only good against horsemen because of the multiplier.
Forts are simply a point for absorbing damage. They are as short-sighted as moles, and will not stop anyone except the infantry. And then if these are not grenadiers who take out the fort with the loss of a maximum of 1-2 people. This is ridiculous. What is the point of these buildings, just cut them out of the game then. Don’t confuse newbies.
Solution:
Give the outpost the same ability as the Baja California trading posts. They shoot with a regular attack, base 45. And on the third grade they have a siege attack, which does not replace the main one, but is added to it.
Commandary and war huts damage also increased. With upgrades they attacke multiple targets like inca stronghold.
For forts, the attack range should be the same as the culverin. And they must fire in bursts of 3.
The idea behind this post is somewhat misguided. Outposts do make a difference in case of a rush, and most people will avoid rushing into a TC with 2 outposts. The idea isn’t to defend via towers alone, but to combine them with a unit shipment or minutemen, and smart building placement to maximize tower uptime.
However, forts should do siege damage, so they are more effective against falconets and cavalry.
I didn’t mean that you need to defend yourself only with towers. I’m talking about economic practicability. In the current build, towers do not need to be built AT ALL. It is better to take more soldiers with these resources. This is exactly the problem. They don’t work for their own money.
It depends. I wouldn’t say they are entirely useless. They can defend a trade post from a small party of pikemen, prevent harassment of villagers out hunting, locking down enemy resources so they need to commit soldiers to it, shoo away boats.
They will not stop a game ending push on their own. But they can contribute.
This is one thing that I found out somewhat recently, forts may fire cannonballs, but they always deat RANGED damage which shouldn’t be the case (Anti ship attack excepted).
As a player since 2008, it does feel like they need a buff
The health they have doesn’t reflect the cost, and new players do indeed tend to focus their resources on making outposts with little reward (I always see the infinite 2 outposts card in new players).
Having weird tags like half damage against siege units doesn’t help, the high ranged armor most of them have is already part of the counter.
The villager multiplier should just disappear, no one attacks with settlers, and it’s your fault if you get too close to the enemy base.
And why the arbitrary extra against cavalry?? (Oprichnicks make a small argument to keep it tho).
I’d lower their costs or improve the attacks, 250 for a blockhouse is good tho, they are 550 wood in just 1 building.
The way I use them is to expand further as settlers can take shelter in the outpost, and I also tend to use them to advance my army, as they have great line of sight while also receiving shipments.
Am I misinterpreting this? They literally don’t have a bonus, they do a quarter of the damage to villagers, so if you get raided by villagers, they barely damage them (Not that they need to, they do like 5 siege damage).
And I say that in the late game, towers that are supposed to control the area simply show it. This negative bonus against villagers allows them to build a complete base around your tower without any problems. This is simply wrong.
And 250 wood for an observation tower is very expensive.
I think you need to go back and play aom and aoe2 to understand the design of towers (and many others).
However, they did remain unchanged since vanilla, and the game has changed a lot since.
Some points that could be considered as part of a balance patch:
The level 1 towers should be left largely untouched.
The level 2 towers should have the villager penalty removed.
The level 3 towers (aka bombard towers) can gain a bit more damage and HP
The siege unit penalty should be removed upon researching the arsenal upgrade
Forts need to gain siege damage, either by default or by the fort damage upgrade.
So they are not needed anywhere else. At the age of 4 you are already at the army limit. It would, of course, be nice if the towers also prevented settlers from building a base around them, but this is not particularly important.
I’ve been playing strategy games since Warcraft 2. And of course I’ve played both ages for many hours. In these games, towers perform the same role that forts perform in age 3. They are a very difficult obstacle there, and not cardboard boxes for hiding settlers.
Since this gun is exclusively anti-ship, this was probably due to the fact that it sank ships too well. Although, as for me, a structure that eats up the population limit should be absolutely OP.
Fixed guns were nerfed cause they killed culvs cost effectively, which whenever a unit kills its counters its a problem. as is, they are pretty fine. not for treaty maybe but in supremacy a range 33, 60 bombard, # ### cannon does work
Regarding Outposts; they are weak as a very intentional game design reason. The devs didn’t want the AoE2 “just build towers” type of play style because it slows the game too much.
What they do: Their LoS is massive, they also allow you to garrison vills while rushing your army over to save them. Not to mention that they act as a shipment point which is EXTREMELY useful when rushing the enemy or if your expensive TC is destroyed and you need those shipments coming in. Of course the anti ship damage is huge too.
In treaty when upgraded they are extremely useful as they are pop-free DPS that you can send infinite nats or other units to.
Could they use a small buff? Probably. But the key word is “small” because we don’t want to make rushes weaker, we’re already in kinda an “age and boom cycle” I think, so we don’t want to push it further in that direction (not saying it has to move another direction, but we don’t want to further reinforce the current more FF/FI meta)
To begin with there is no ff meta. There are nations that are very weak at age 4-5, and they only play 1vs1 or 2vs2 to take age 3 at 6:00 and instantly kill the opponent, otherwise defeat.
Then you can reduce their limit to 1. If that’s their job. I have never seen anyone build towers even in team games.
It differs in different nations. Many times I saw the Ottoman resign after the attack of the 3rd age failed. Because at 4-5 they are weak. Nations must play differently. Malta should not play through age 2 rush. At the moment, defensive buildings leave players no choice. They only have the rush option at 2.
I’m not seeing these arguments. Towers are perfect the way they are.
They are definitely very useful defending against a rush. One of the worst things you can do while rushing is trying to dive into the defensive buildings too early.
We need to remember they are only 250 wood. What do you expect from them if they’re facing 20 musketeers worth 2000 res? Even if you build all 7 and include villager seconds in their cost, it’s still only equivalent in resources to an army of 25 musketeers.
They aren’t just there to shoot at enemies, they also provide LOS, a shipment point, and a garrison for villagers.
You’ll be hard-pressed to find games where people aren’t building outposts. They’re already in a sweet spot where they are obviously useful and necessary, but you can’t just play AOE: Tower Defense with them.
