Why are makeshift walls and gates so useless?

[Baleur]

I understand the challenge, i love it, i get it.
But this makes no sense, because there is no purpose in those walls and gates even existing if they dont delay random 5-man hungry bandits for more than 1 minute of them bashing on the doors.

The only purpose for walls and gates, is to encircle and defend an area, or at the very least withstand a siege long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
1 minute is not enough (on normal speed 1 lol).

Now, there is a mod that buffs gate HP by 10x, which is great. But unfortunately the AI is now smart enough to attack wall pieces as well, which hilariously have even LOWER hitpoints than vanilla gates.
Which again, makes no sense, because a gate should by its very nature have lower hitpoints than walls, since otherwise there would be no purpose for any enemy to focus on the gates.

I love this game, but it is absolutely enfuriating to be raided 10 times in 15 days, every single time seeing your walls and gates fall in 1 minute to even passing bandits with no more than wooden clubs equipped.

Even if you triple the cost of walls and gates, just please make them useful.

[ipsos]

Makeshift tier is pretty useless, only really good for forcing enemies to come through at the same place and giving you a moment to gather your defenders. I actually don't tend to bother building walls until I get some I can build turrets on. Once I have a top-tier gate protected by 2-6 gatling or mk2 harpoon turrets supported by a few people on emergency repair duty nothing ever gets through, even elite UC assault teams and the Wrath of God. I leave 2 defenders on turrets at all times and that takes care of random bandits and swamp raptors. I man all 6 and get ready to repair when I am being raided.

Walls have lower hp than gates because they are never "supposed" to be attacked, unless the enemy can't calculate a path into your base through destroying a gate, in which case they are supposed to be destroyed almost instantly to prevent you from creating an exploitative base structure with no gates at all. It used to be that if pathing couldn't be calculated your walls would simply be deleted by "wall termites" as a punishment mechanic so they were made attackable instead to make a bit more sense.

Of course the pathing in this game is pretty bad, so you can unintentionally create a situation where they can't find a path even if it seems like it would be pretty obvious. If your walls are attacked that means you have a pathing problem and should try rebuilding the navmesh or redesigning some things so that pathing can be calculated. By avoiding tight spaces in my base and making sure there is room to move around I have never had enemies attack a wall, though.

So they are useful if you defend them properly and avoid weird pathing problems (which are often stupid and one of the real problems this game has).

[Baleur]

But you're talking about mid-late game, I'm nowhere near that. I just don't see the purpose of having "useless" things in the game. You gotta agree that at least a few times stronger makeshift walls and gates makes sense. It would hardly be exploitable if they just last longer than literally less than a minute.. There's a gradient of balance here, it's not just black or white :) Makeshift should be weak, but not weak as a wooden door.

[Zourin]

Makeshift walls aren't terrible. As long as you have gates installed, you can still shoot through them with crossbows, which will soften them up considerably if your archers are worth their salt (toothpicks are great training weapons)

You don't *need* turrets early on, when usually just hiring some mercs should do the job.

[Forge Master]

Find a big enough building if you can in a city to fit a teir 2 reaseach bench. Then work up defence tiers for better walls. I prefer to build up my base outside a city after tier 3 reseach is done. That is the best I can offer for advice.