Should I even bother with mounted crossbows?

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

The black dragons and dust bandits always break open my gate before I can get much more than 2-3 shots from my mounted crossbow guys, I do put my melee fighters out front to distract them but they always seem to see my turrets as a bigger threat and swarm my gate with my guys trying to stab them in the back futilely and they just bust in.

At this point I've just accepted my food getting stolen because I can just buy some replacement with my grog profits (You would think they would be more interested in that) and the ass kicking just serves to make my teams stronger afterword. So i'm starting to think that its just better to have everyone fight in melee and just get them tougher rather then even bothering with crossbows at all?

Also I don't really get why grog is the most valuable booze, I would think that the sake would take that place, or at least make it the heavies/most cumbersome to transport which makes since as its described that you need to drink more than other alcohols.

[Hatsune Neko Gaming]

you need to adjust how you setup your front gate then.

[Rusted Cake]

I once made a swamp base defended mainly by mounted crossbows, as Neko said it's all about setup. Good positioning makes a massive difference indeed & if the crossbows don't kill them all it should at least greatly soften them up from all the damage.

As for drink value? Cultural preferences I say. Seems the beings of Kenshi really like their Grog.

[Bo Cardwell]

If they're coming in an announced raid, don't give their leader a chance to talk. As soon as they're able, you should have your turret gunners turn the war leader into a pin cushion. Secondly, don't leave your gate an easy obstacle to get to. You can set up a maze of makeshift walls to funnel an incoming army into a firing zone for your crossbow gunners. Try and build watchtowers to put your crossbow gunners in, as they will get bonus damage based on their height from the ground.

If the ninjas reach your gate by that point, take your turret gunners off their defenses and put them either into the fight/somewhere safe, depending on how badly you need that extra hand. Leaving the gunners on will risk your fighters being incapacitated by friendly fire, and leaving you not only with your bread baskets emptied, but your defending force potentially dying/dead. Have your gate guards/melee defenders have TAUNT on, as it will increase the likelihood that the enemies will go after them instead.

To go from there, I would recommend making it clear who is a worker, and who is a fighter. Segregate laborers from your guards and gunners, your medics, your scouts, etc. This will allow you to get weaker characters out from danger. When I'm preparing for an attack by a credible threat, I lock away my Farming, Labor, and Smithing divisions in Outposts & disable their jobs to try and keep them from getting caught in the crossfire. Rescue teams don't get involved with the fighting if they can help it. Turret gunners leave the fight as soon as the gate's integrity is about to go, and join the rest in the bunker as last-resort defenders.

[Guts]

Eventually you'll be able to 1 shot people easily with the crossbows, so you can pick off people 1 by 1 while your melee fighters defend in front of your gates. You just need them to have around 70 precision so you don't friendly fire much.

[Plom]

Build a killbox, 20 guys on turrets and 10 guys to repair the gate.
Never had a problem ever again with raids.

Here's mine, you can see the entrance is very narrow so enemies will enter one by one.


https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/830261972724520817/3B5672B56C0971816B8997830EA297C645E552F8/?imw=1024&imh=640&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=true

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/830261972724521950/2FF1D24BCCD760BA5CD5B28E6D293BEA9EA86D1F/?imw=2048&imh=1280&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=true

[Bones Johnson]

Yeah, with only a few guys, crossbows aren't too great, but numbers helps out a ton. I found that unless you have 15 or so guys, or made it so guys have to swim to get to your gate, crossbows won't be able to stop a raid on their own, but they can weaken it.

So, yeah. They are worth it, because safe damage before they hurt your guys is safe damage, and later on, should you have a large work force, they can defend it on their own.

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

Alright guys thanks, I guess ill make a better death trap to my gate, I also had an idea to build a second gate to wall in a storage building for my food, that would give me even more time.

Originally posted by Bones Johnson:

Yeah, with only a few guys, crossbows aren't too great, but numbers helps out a ton. I found that unless you have 15 or so guys, or made it so guys have to swim to get to your gate, crossbows won't be able to stop a raid on their own, but they can weaken it.

So, yeah. They are worth it, because safe damage before they hurt your guys is safe damage, and later on, should you have a large work force, they can defend it on their own.

This is another thing Im not sure about, how big should base farmers/crafters/workers be and how big should my dedicated combat squad be for exploring?

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Layered defenses work too. crossbows on the gates, and crossbows on some of your buildings. Fall back and lock the doors to the buildings.

[󠀡󠀡]

What's the best "murder box" though. I found a cliff with only ONE way in and want to make a funnel out of that, but not sure what's best way to do it.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

The Fishing Village right by the Forbidden Isle is a good example of a starter "Kill" box. Since enemies can't attack walls, you don't need anything but flat ground and lots of building material.

[󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

The Fishing Village right by the Forbidden Isle is a good example of a starter "Kill" box. Since enemies can't attack walls, you don't need anything but flat ground and lots of building material.

So winding walls and lots of archers

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Originally posted by Kotho:

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

The Fishing Village right by the Forbidden Isle is a good example of a starter "Kill" box. Since enemies can't attack walls, you don't need anything but flat ground and lots of building material.

So winding walls and lots of archers

Yeah, depending on how complicated you want to get, the primary purpose of the killbox is to orient more bows within a 45degree arc of the gate, where as simply putting them against a flat wall to gate configuration means some crossbows will have an obtuse and often obstructed attack angle.

More complicated setups involve creating a double wall, this type of Citadel defense is a bit irritating to make without perfectly flat land, because of how finnicky walls can be. For anything other than the most insane raids (Eyegore for example) a simple "U" box gate will suffice.

[󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

Originally posted by Kotho:

So winding walls and lots of archers

Yeah, depending on how complicated you want to get, the primary purpose of the killbox is to orient more bows within a 45degree arc of the gate, where as simply putting them against a flat wall to gate configuration means some crossbows will have an obtuse and often obstructed attack angle.

More complicated setups involve creating a double wall, this type of Citadel defense is a bit irritating to make without perfectly flat land, because of how finnicky walls can be. For anything other than the most insane raids (Eyegore for example) a simple "U" box gate will suffice.

The cliff that I am on has ONE entryway and it's just east of the hub above that river. I'll have to try to figure out how to make that gate there with the walls to kill off the newby bandits and still have room for my rum farm and wheatfarm operations. I've squished all of my farming and building in the back corner as best as I can, so hopefully it leaves me with plenty of room.

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

Originally posted by Kotho:

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

Yeah, depending on how complicated you want to get, the primary purpose of the killbox is to orient more bows within a 45degree arc of the gate, where as simply putting them against a flat wall to gate configuration means some crossbows will have an obtuse and often obstructed attack angle.

More complicated setups involve creating a double wall, this type of Citadel defense is a bit irritating to make without perfectly flat land, because of how finnicky walls can be. For anything other than the most insane raids (Eyegore for example) a simple "U" box gate will suffice.

The cliff that I am on has ONE entryway and it's just east of the hub above that river. I'll have to try to figure out how to make that gate there with the walls to kill off the newby bandits and still have room for my rum farm and wheatfarm operations. I've squished all of my farming and building in the back corner as best as I can, so hopefully it leaves me with plenty of room.

I thought about trying something like that but trying to cram my base into a small enclose area like that just seemed like too much of a pain.

If you want somewhere with plenty of wind, stone, copper, and iron id suggest looking around south eastern section of skinners roam. It may not have good growth rates for anything but cactus but you can manage wheatstraw, and its close to a lot of other capitals and in the center of everything so it makes a pretty good location for your home base.

My personal long term goal is to destroy both the Holy Nation and the United cities, the only faction I really like are the tech hunters.

[󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by Dio Brando:

Originally posted by Kotho:

The cliff that I am on has ONE entryway and it's just east of the hub above that river. I'll have to try to figure out how to make that gate there with the walls to kill off the newby bandits and still have room for my rum farm and wheatfarm operations. I've squished all of my farming and building in the back corner as best as I can, so hopefully it leaves me with plenty of room.

I thought about trying something like that but trying to cram my base into a small enclose area like that just seemed like too much of a pain.

If you want somewhere with plenty of wind, stone, copper, and iron id suggest looking around south eastern section of skinners roam. It may not have good growth rates for anything but cactus but you can manage wheatstraw, and its close to a lot of other capitals and in the center of everything so it makes a pretty good location for your home base.

My personal long term goal is to destroy both the Holy Nation and the United cities, the only faction I really like are the tech hunters.

I might move later on once I get more recruits and have my current squads leveled up, but I don't want to get demolished right off the bat. xD