Tribal melee Killboxes - Need some ideas

[Cleftin Twain]

So I know there is a diagonal kill box for melee that's just broken. I am not sure if this works without the doors though, can anyone answer that?

On the topic itself, what are some other melee kill boxes that you guys have used successfully in the past? Even if not kill boxes, combat strategies are also welcome. The game I am trying currently is not is to use Neolithic weapons, and no offensive technology after Electricity.

So, what ideas do you guys have? Feel free to use symbols to demonstrate your layouts such as:

= walls
* sandbags/barricade/fence
@ Pawn

Thanks guys!

[di eshor ribly]

If you're doing a melee style run, you get a very simple "killbox".

Build a wall. Open the doors, have three pawns stand inside your walls blocking said door. One enemy approaches, enters the door space, and gets clubbed by 3 guys. Rinse and repeat for every door and invader.

Or embrace the big melee he-man mentality and just give the order to CHARGE! Of course, since you'll be outnumbered all the time you still have to rely on having the better gear and better trained fighting force. Your enemies may be wearing loincloths, but your fighters should all be in full plate.

[dot]

Idk, but I'm avoiding doing any kind of limited killbox, the kill box is the wholemap, i have my cave where the vital things are, mortar proof. Then the way that i defend is having traps all around the map, spring traps and ieds, and just taking safe shots flanking them roaming all around and picking safely those that separate from the big group with other. having one or two animal pulse artifacs help in the naughtiest situations too.

Really most of the times what i've been getting is sieges with mortars, clusters and a couple of mechanoids attacks with thermites, i see no point in planning a static defence.

Tame some animals for combat if you can if you are going melee imo, i always do it to have them as front line body sponges to debilitate and rushing them more safely.

[Astasia]

█████OXx
██___OXx
██_██OXx
██_██
___██
█████

This is my usual tribal melee strong "killbox." The O is a melee pawn, the X/x is a ranged one (big X can be a barricade instead), █ is a wall, _ is an empty tile. It greatly restricts how many enemies can engage at once and keeps them close range so they are easy to kill with bad weapons. If you aren't using any ranged at all there will be an issue of enemies stopping at the corners and shooting at your guys, I don't know of a good solution to that other than to just pull back out of LoS until they move forward, nor do I have experience with a better melee friendly killbox design. If I had to guess, this might work though:

████OX
██___O
██_█OX
██_██
___██
█████

Have a door on each of those O locations with a melee pawn standing in the door, then they can step back and close the door to pull ranged enemies closer without breaking the enemy line and causing them to flood. X locations might work with more melee pawns while the doors are open, not sure.

[Cleftin Twain]

Originally posted by Astasia:

█████OXx
██___OXx
██_██OXx
██_██
___██
█████

This is my usual tribal melee strong "killbox." The O is a melee pawn, the X/x is a ranged one (big X can be a barricade instead), █ is a wall, _ is an empty tile. It greatly restricts how many enemies can engage at once and keeps them close range so they are easy to kill with bad weapons. If you aren't using any ranged at all there will be an issue of enemies stopping at the corners and shooting at your guys, I don't know of a good solution to that other than to just pull back out of LoS until they move forward, nor do I have experience with a better melee friendly killbox design. If I had to guess, this might work though:

████OX
██___O
██_█OX
██_██
___██
█████

Have a door on each of those O locations with a melee pawn standing in the door, then they can step back and close the door to pull ranged enemies closer without breaking the enemy line and causing them to flood. X locations might work with more melee pawns while the doors are open, not sure.

Neat. Thank you. I'm assuming you just put some traps down the hallway as well?

[Astasia]

I don't personally use traps, haven't since they were nerfed to have a re-arm cost. If you throw some doors in there and make it longer then ya you could also use it to trap a bunch of enemies as well.

[Mimoslav]

https://i.imgur.com/ckm1dC7.jpeg

This design allows you to hit enemies through walls but enemies can't hit back. Add trained attack animals and you'll be able to tear through big raids with no problems.

[qualified turtle ship]

Pure melee killboxes are tough. If the enemy is all melee they work great. Fighting in the open works ok until the raiders start to dramatically outnumber you, then we need fortification force multipliers. The difficulty is when the raider come with all short ranged weapons. The hallway bend mitigates that issue but has issues. I'll make a few diagrams to illustrate:

Key: (note this works best with a non-spacing font like courier-new)
- = empty space
█ = Wall
D = door
E = Raider either shooting or in melee
e = raider not in fight
G = good Pawn in melee
g = good Pawn not in melee


With a bend at best you get 3v3
█████
eeeEE█
███E█
GGG

at worst 0v2 when they stop and shoot if not initially after the leading raider dies illustrated below
█████
eeeEE█
███-█
GGG
stepping forward doesn't solve the problem of it being numerically tilted in favor of the raiders. What would solve the issue is if you had a bunch of shooters behind your melee blockers. The psycast beckon is an option to force that reticent ranged raider into melee, however if the raiders are numerous that is a whole lot of beckons. [edit: skip also works but has the same, only works so many times issue.]

so... a diff design: (note this is similar to Astasia's suggestion above just rotated for illustration purposes, but differences will emerge later.

killbox when empty
█-███████
█-█----------
█-█DDDDDD
█-------------
███DDDDDD
███---------
█████████
...make at least as long as needed...which will depend on how many pawns you have.


killbox just before you start fighting
█e███████
█e█GGGGGG
█E█DDDDDD
█EEeeeeee
███DDDDDD
███GGGGGG
█████████


now what it looks like once the fight starts.
There are 2 enemy shooters in back but this achieves almost 2v1 in your favor for long boxes
█e███████
█e█------
█E█GGGGGG
█EEeeeeee
███GGGGGG
███------
█████████

unfortunately this isn't enough bc the whole reason we needed a kill box in the 1st place was bc raiders outnumbered us and once the above ambushed raiders are killed we get
█e███████
█e█------
█E█gg
█E-gg
███gg
███------
█████████
which is essentially the bend issue we started with :/ Now one might think we could simply reset the killbox ambush by having our pawns retreat back through the doors. Unfortunately, this doesn't work bc weapons and bodies drop in the doors forcing them open.
so.... we make the hallways bigger to catch bodies/items. Add door behind(initially held open so when we retreat through them they don't slow us down. And then, repeat the killbox pattern creating another hallway. Repeat the pattern to make the kill-box as big as needed.
X = a door that raider bodies/weapons is holding open that will not close again
O = door held open for our retreat & will close when our pawn runs through it
█-█████████
█-█----------██
█-█XXXXXX█████████████
█-------------------------------█
███XXXXXX███████████-█
███---------███████████-█
███---------███████████-█
███OOOOO███████████-█
███---------█-----------------█
███DDDDDD█-███████████
-----------------███████████
███DDDDDD█████████████
███----------██

[edit: fixed above diagram to include bend for the 2nd ambush spot.]
Now we can retreat to the next bend in the box.
How to buy time to retreat?
A berserk spell work, or a sacrificial animals (dryads or Huskies/Lynx). Note the animal needs to be zoned around the corner so it can't see the raiders (so it won't flee when not guarding/released)

If we have wall-rise then the job is much easier as we can simply build multiple kill-boxes and wall-raise to cover our retreat to the next one.

[Atrophus]

Originally posted by Dekk:

https://i.imgur.com/ckm1dC7.jpeg

This design allows you to hit enemies through walls but enemies can't hit back. Add trained attack animals and you'll be able to tear through big raids with no problems.

Lmao, that still works?
I remember back before they patched out overlapping work stations, where I had three work spots plus a sleeping bag all on 2 tiles, in my barracks-dining hall-rec room hybrid. And that killbox. That whole base was just one giant swiss cheddar of a cheese.
Guess Ill have to rebuild part of my killbox :D

[Dreay]

The killboxes will serve no purpose against the wall raids and mecanoid clusters

[Atrophus]

Originally posted by FRDreay:

The killboxes will serve no purpose against the wall raids and mecanoid clusters

Get a berserk/berserk pulse caster. When breach raid miners/grenadiers/termites are gone they behave like normal raids and enter the killbox. Same with clusters when the cluster is damaged enough.

[Cleftin Twain]

Great ideas and explanations posted. Gives me an idea I want to try. Thanks lads.