Gatehouses both the pallisade and the stone castle age one have to my eyes a noticeable flaw.
Neither have any sort of defensive ability. I will explain my arguments as the following.
How Age of Empires IV portraits a gatehouse.
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A inmovable object that lets allied units through it.
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A inmovable object that denies enemies from moving through it.
A more historically accurate gatehouse.
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A defensive structure that wards of enemies and denies them access to go through by means of guards/defenders and ofcourse a gate.
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Lets allied people and so forth through.
The pallisade gate(house)
The pallisade “gate” is portrait as a big wooden swing gate with a small tower on either side. The towers being something of a gatehouse. To cut a long story short: Historically this type of gatehouse “the towers” will have people guarding/defending it. Also they are the ones opening and closing the gate. One would think that there would at least be a single archer and some spearmen at this gate.
This is why i think there should be an archer stationed by default within the gatehouse that will shoot enemies. Maybe even two spearmen.
The stone gate(house)
Historically at a gate would often be the place where battles where fought. Thats why they had all the countermeausures we sometimes see in movies. Like throwing down boiling oil, rocks, shooting arrows and so forth. None of this happens in Age of Empires IV.
Since we are talking about stone (castle age) walls i think there should at least be an upgrade possible that allows for boiling oil to be thrown down, maybe a couple of crossbowmen stationed there as default.
Mention worthy notes
The gate is the weakest link in a wall thats why it would often be the place for an attack and is also the reason it is well defended.
Too improve future gameplay one might wanna think about a second iron fallgate “portcullis” at the defender side of a stone gatehouse that needs to be raised or destroyed to slow down enemies. This has a low priority.
The original advertisement for Age of Empires IV claims that the video game is aiming to be historically accurate. (To a certain degree ofcourse.)
Conclusion
The gatehouses are underutilised in Age of Empires IV. It should be one of the senseable places where battles occur and the defender should have its benefits.
Last words
Check out the other topic i recently posted titled The battering ram. This topic might make more sense after reading that one.
I will also be posting another topic about the lack of display of banners during a match.
Edit: here is the link for that. Banners displayed on the playing field