discuss
Do they not? I know units get a hill bonus and I thought it applies to towers as well.
I mean shouldn’t their attack function as a +1 terrain elevation multiplier (1.5x) by default, and if something is on +1 hill then its equal, +2 hill then that unit gets the advantage vs tower, etc.
sort of like a flying unit would get, elevated unit
Hi, I was curious so I tested this in the UPatch (which AoE:DE is based off of)
Yes, towers do indeed have the hill bonus. But the damage output does not scale with hill height.
A Watch Tower (3 attack) on a hill firing at a Composite Bowman (0 pierce armor) does 5 damage/shot
A Sentry Tower (4 attack) on a hill does 6 damage/shot
A Guard Tower (6 attack) on a hill does 9 damage/shot
A Ballista Tower (20 attack) on a hill does 30 damage/shot
Thus, we can conclude that:
- The hill bonus does not scale with height, but instead is either activated (on any hill/cliff) or deactivated (not on any hill/cliff)
- It averages out to a ~50% damage boost, however it is calculated as such: The game takes half the damage of the tower, rounds it to the nearest whole number, and adds it on top (this explains the Watch Tower going from 3 to 5, since the game took 1.5, rounded it, and added it on top of the 3, thus making it 5)
I also tested this with cliffs, and it acts exactly the same way.
Hope I helped 
Tagging @qweytr24 since he/she asked
@RWNorthPole great testing mate, I’ve not had a chance to play the Upatch yet, so this is great. I thought historically there was a 1 in 3 chance of a unit on a higher elevation doing triple damage so great to know the uptodate facts.
@“Mystic Taboo” said:
@RWNorthPole great testing mate, I’ve not had a chance to play the Upatch yet, so this is great. I thought historically there was a 1 in 3 chance of a unit on a higher elevation doing triple damage so great to know the uptodate facts.
No problem 
I enjoy testing the little things. Maybe I should make videos…
The damage formula is:
DamageFormula AoE
n denotes normal attack / armor
p denotes pierce attack / armor
If the target belongs to the category i and the attacker has a bonus AttackBonus against i, then the bonus (minus BonusResist if the target has one) is added to the total damage.
kelev is the elevation multiplier (applied to both cliffs and hills), equal to 2/3 if a melee unit attacks below its target, 3/2 if a ranged unit attacks above its target or 1 otherwise.
So range unit get a bonus being elevated (tower being part of that) and melee got a debuff if they’re facing elevated unit.
@kinzo said:
The damage formula is:
DamageFormula AoE
n denotes normal attack / armor
p denotes pierce attack / armor
If the target belongs to the category i and the attacker has a bonus AttackBonus against i, then the bonus (minus BonusResist if the target has one) is added to the total damage.
kelev is the elevation multiplier (applied to both cliffs and hills), equal to 2/3 if a melee unit attacks below its target, 3/2 if a ranged unit attacks above its target or 1 otherwise.So range unit get a bonus being elevated (tower being part of that) and melee got a debuff if they’re facing elevated unit.
Yeah, this seems right. Just tested 2 Legions fighting - the one attacking uphill does 7 damage/hit (13 base - 2 armor + debuff), and the one downhill does 11 (13 base - 2 armor). Same idea.
Great, we’re so caught up in the excitement of being chosen for beta, that now we’re resorting to a scholarly statistical analysis of range units. Priceless.
@SammyyyyyyyyZA said:
@kinzo nice research. I think it’ll be safe to say they will be keeping the elevation bonus too
Yeah i guess, it’s a quite important mechanics.
Tbh i never knew the formula, but i knew controlling hills was important (i am a DM player, so space if those games are mostly all taken) because i was told so when i started online xD.
BTW i failed the source URL and can’t edit now.
Attack | Age of Empires Series Wiki | Fandom < here it is