are archer towers useful?

[jabberwok]

Does anyone else find archer towers useless? It seems like they either take bowmen away from the front line, or (if they're at the front line) cause my archers to get eaten by flyers pretty much every night, once the waves get more difficult.

[Merdoc]

Never have towers in front of your walls. When the flyers come you need archerbuff up 24/7 to ward the flyers off. Towers also have the advantage of being able to attack greed when they break through your walls. But I'm no expert.

[jabberwok]

Originally posted by Merdoc:

Never have towers in front of your walls. When the flyers come you need archerbuff up 24/7 to ward the flyers off. Towers also have the advantage of being able to attack greed when they break through your walls. But I'm no expert.

Yeah, I just haven't noticed enough benefit to account for the drawbacks. I'd rather just invest that gold in more archers, and not have to deal with the liabilities.

[jord]

what's a good archer count to have on either side? I'm on island four and having a hard time, they flyers are kidnapping my archers and I have yet to find the hermit.

[jabberwok]

Originally posted by jord:

what's a good archer count to have on either side? I'm on island four and having a hard time, they flyers are kidnapping my archers and I have yet to find the hermit.

I'm not good at keeping track, but I recruit as many as I possibly can, while still building solid walls. Massed together at the outer wall, they usually waste any flyers before they get too close. Seems like something needs to be altered about how they aim at flying enemies, though. They almost always fire too low (as if they're aiming at ground targets that aren't there) until the flyers are directly above them.

A good rule for me seems to be that if I can make it through a blood moon with no damage to the walls, then I have enough archers for the moment. Haven't tried out some of the later levels, though...

[Red Dragon]

Never have them in front of your outermost wall, around later days they will just get grabbed and eaten by floaters. Then once the area is clear one to three more vuluntary scarifices climb the tower. This is an inredible drain on your resources - mostly on the time you need to recruit new archers.

From my experience I don't recommend building towers at all, though rather close behind your outermost wall they can do a bit of good. The Ballista tower and the armory are really sweet though, but normal towers don't seem to be worth it. Not in front nor behind the front line. If a break-through happens at later stages then those three arches on top of a tower will rarely make the difference between winning or losing a game. If on the other hand you were to put all of that gold into recruiting archers, it seems you're much more likely to repel a wave and survive. (You can even drop 2-4 gold "behind" an empty vagrant camp - they will pick it up when they spawn).

In short it's a game balance issue, to be useful they need to have some kind of passive bonus. Maybe just a bush next to it that now and again spawns a rabbit at a very slow rate -even in winter. Also if there was some kind of special floater that is floating high over the first row of defenses and then descends would make it worth to buld the towers but some enemy that can prevent the first line of defense brings with it a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of other game flaws - what if the random world generation simply didn't bless you with conveniently placed tower spots?

[jabberwok]

Originally posted by Red Dragon:

Never have them in front of your outermost wall, around later days they will just get grabbed and eaten by floaters. Then once the area is clear one to three more vuluntary scarifices climb the tower. This is an inredible drain on your resources - mostly on the time you need to recruit new archers.

From my experience I don't recommend building towers at all, though rather close behind your outermost wall they can do a bit of good. The Ballista tower and the armory are really sweet though, but normal towers don't seem to be worth it. Not in front nor behind the front line. If a break-through happens at later stages then those three arches on top of a tower will rarely make the difference between winning or losing a game. If on the other hand you were to put all of that gold into recruiting archers, it seems you're much more likely to repel a wave and survive. (You can even drop 2-4 gold "behind" an empty vagrant camp - they will pick it up when they spawn).

In short it's a game balance issue, to be useful they need to have some kind of passive bonus. Maybe just a bush next to it that now and again spawns a rabbit at a very slow rate -even in winter. Also if there was some kind of special floater that is floating high over the first row of defenses and then descends would make it worth to buld the towers but some enemy that can prevent the first line of defense brings with it a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of other game flaws - what if the random world generation simply didn't bless you with conveniently placed tower spots?

Yeah, as I thought about it, the only use I could think of for a tower would be next to a thicket behind the front line, to kill rabbits. As a defensive structure, maybe towers should come with archers already, instead of draining your existing pool. If the archer gets killed, they could respawn in a couple days. I could see actually using them in that case, even if they had to cost a bit more for balance.

[Mutually Assured Docstruction]

Originally posted by Merdoc:

Never have towers in front of your walls. When the flyers come you need archerbuff up 24/7 to ward the flyers off. Towers also have the advantage of being able to attack greed when they break through your walls. But I'm no expert.

You can actualy have one guy outside.
The flyer will eat him and then bring him to your walls because he needs to eat at least another guy to head back.
You just loose his equipement - that is fairly cheap

You mighte say But what can one peasant do against greed army ?
Actualy a lot of things ife he has a balista :D

[Mutually Assured Docstruction]

Originally posted by jabberwok:

Originally posted by Red Dragon:

Never have them in front of your outermost wall, around later days they will just get grabbed and eaten by floaters. Then once the area is clear one to three more vuluntary scarifices climb the tower. This is an inredible drain on your resources - mostly on the time you need to recruit new archers.

From my experience I don't recommend building towers at all, though rather close behind your outermost wall they can do a bit of good. The Ballista tower and the armory are really sweet though, but normal towers don't seem to be worth it. Not in front nor behind the front line. If a break-through happens at later stages then those three arches on top of a tower will rarely make the difference between winning or losing a game. If on the other hand you were to put all of that gold into recruiting archers, it seems you're much more likely to repel a wave and survive. (You can even drop 2-4 gold "behind" an empty vagrant camp - they will pick it up when they spawn).

In short it's a game balance issue, to be useful they need to have some kind of passive bonus. Maybe just a bush next to it that now and again spawns a rabbit at a very slow rate -even in winter. Also if there was some kind of special floater that is floating high over the first row of defenses and then descends would make it worth to buld the towers but some enemy that can prevent the first line of defense brings with it a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of other game flaws - what if the random world generation simply didn't bless you with conveniently placed tower spots?

Yeah, as I thought about it, the only use I could think of for a tower would be next to a thicket behind the front line, to kill rabbits. As a defensive structure, maybe towers should come with archers already, instead of draining your existing pool. If the archer gets killed, they could respawn in a couple days. I could see actually using them in that case, even if they had to cost a bit more for balance.

You know that tower archers do not target the rabits and that the rabit grass doesnt even grow inside your walls?

BTW: If you keep a patch of forest where it still has background as a forest deer will spawn there and roam inside your walls - easy 3 coins for each of them.

[jabberwok]

Originally posted by FatheriatorCZ:

Originally posted by jabberwok:

Yeah, as I thought about it, the only use I could think of for a tower would be next to a thicket behind the front line, to kill rabbits. As a defensive structure, maybe towers should come with archers already, instead of draining your existing pool. If the archer gets killed, they could respawn in a couple days. I could see actually using them in that case, even if they had to cost a bit more for balance.

You know that tower archers do not target the rabits and that the rabit grass doesnt even grow inside your walls?

BTW: If you keep a patch of forest where it still has background as a forest deer will spawn there and roam inside your walls - easy 3 coins for each of them.

Yeah, realized that after writing. Basically, I don't use towers at all. Ballistas are a different story, for sure. I don't have those yet.

[UchihaBlood305]

they were extremely important in the first game

[jabberwok]

Originally posted by Tuti:

they were extremely important in the first game

I didn't beat the original until I decided to stop building towers, then it became trivially easy. In New Lands, though, I've decided they're useful against retaliation attacks, as long as they aren't at the front line.

[UchihaBlood305]

Originally posted by jabberwok:

Originally posted by Tuti:

they were extremely important in the first game

I didn't beat the original until I decided to stop building towers, then it became trivially easy. In New Lands, though, I've decided they're useful against retaliation attacks, as long as they aren't at the front line.

so youre saying its actuallyeasier to skip towers, but they take down the walls so easy even if its the strongest wall i would leave the strongest towers next to it.

[CtenosaurOaxacana]

If you have the Archer Statue's auto-target buff enabled, they will do fairly good against fliers, ESPECIALLY if you get a pair of towers close together.

But the most important thing about towers is that they're never destroyed.
So let's say you ♥♥♥♥ up a Blood Moon wave and you've had to retreat behind two layers of walls. You just have to pay a few coin to get the walls back up, and archers will automatically retake the towers.

And if you get the Ballista hermit on your map, the towers become more powerful still, and cheaper to retake.

[jabberwok]

Originally posted by Vulpes Velox:

If you have the Archer Statue's auto-target buff enabled, they will do fairly good against fliers, ESPECIALLY if you get a pair of towers close together.

But the most important thing about towers is that they're never destroyed.
So let's say you ♥♥♥♥ up a Blood Moon wave and you've had to retreat behind two layers of walls. You just have to pay a few coin to get the walls back up, and archers will automatically retake the towers.

And if you get the Ballista hermit on your map, the towers become more powerful still, and cheaper to retake.

On the flipside, if you get stuck without enough coin or time to rebuild the walls after an attack, your archers will continually try to man towers that are outside the kingdom, and probably all be kidnapped by flyers on a nightly basis.

Ballistae are obviously great at the front line, and they're short enough that flyers don't usually get close enough to steal my workers. I can't say the same for my upgraded archer towers, though. On my hundred day run of the 2nd land, my archers at the front got kidnapped pretty regularly regardless of what I did [this might be mitigated some if the aiming code against flyers outside the wall was improved]. Which is especially bad, because keeping recruitment high is really important to long term survival. If I recruit 3 new peasants a day, but lose 3 to flyers every night, I'm not gaining anything. And my walls on those nights never came close to falling, so the towers weren't really benefiting me.

On the other hand, on earlier days, they could be very useful when there are no flyers around. But they can't be deconstructed, so it definitely pays to think ahead. And I am fairly convinced of their usefulness as a contingency on the cliff portal side, behind the front lines.

[UchihaBlood305]

thats what I was thinking, theyre sandtraps for archers if you start to go downhill and the monsters keep taking them. but they were neccessary for me to beat the original game.