Hey guys, back after long time due to getting a new PC.
Anyways, on the topic: First of all, nottud's building rotator is an excellent tool, cause some times you can fit buildings in tight places (by rotating them), that otherwise don't fit unless you clear trees or whatever is near.
Second, on the matter of placing houses around Towers, it's a good tactic to protect the towers, but later on and depending on the civ you're facing, your opponent can take them out with a GP -destroying 4 houses and the tower together, thus limiting your pop in 1 blow.
For an eggy maybe it's OK, but for the other civs this can have serious effects.
The other option is, to place houses spread out near your base and rebuild if 1 is destroyed.
For protecting the Towers you could use wall connectors, and I will only give you the stats for the 2 to compare:
House: free for Eggie, but costs wood for Norse-40, Greek-50, and some gold for Atty-40w&25g.
HP: 450 armour: crush=5%, hack=30%, pierce=95% -Attie manors have 1000 HP but you get 5 of them instead of 10.
Now for the wall connectors:
HP: 600 armour: crush=5%, hack=64%, pierce=95%
The cost of 2 wall connectors that cover-protect the same space to the side of a tower, is 5 gold for each for the Atties, and 3 gold for the other civs. Thus, for the cost of 10 or 6 gold, you have superior to houses protection for your towers, plus saving your houses from being attacked outright.
In my view, wall connectors are better for Tower protection, but the downside is that you need to allocate the clicking time to make them, whereas with the houses is faster. It's your choice.
regards
the Elder
"imagination is more important than knowledge."
Albert Einstein