I would like to discuss the role of defenses in AOM. With new god power offense, myth unit attacks, and larger army sizes. Defense will be important when abroad fighting at the enemy's base. Here are my thoughts on defense...
In AOK certain defenses were useful, certain defenses were cheap, and certain defenses are worthless... Here they are...
< Just reviewing the ups and downs of each aok defense… I am covering new ideas down the page... Outpost- Well, not really a defense, but this building I never really used. Is has no attack, can be taken down easily by a scout cavalry, and really does not provide much recon. The only age these structures would be useful in would be dark, when towers are not available and units are weaker. In the Dark Age though, it is just a waste of an important resources. I cannot remember last building an outpost. Maybe I never have... Watch tower- feudal defense with weak attack. This building has one purpose, actually two. It is useful in guarding outlying gold and wood villagers from minor threats. It is also useful in tower rushing Guard tower- What to say? It is an upgraded watchtower, with better HP and attack. Still there is no minimum range, until you get murder holes, which is available after building a university in the castle age. Still it is useless by itself, and when trying to build that important castle, which enables imperialing, it is costly to build several of them. I personally do not use towers for defense, or towers at all, unless I am facing a great rusher or am tower rushing... Keep- By the time you build this structure, you should have plenty of stone villagers. Why then, would you build a keep with only limited garrison, when you can get a castle? Sure it is a lot cheaper, but the benefits of a castle are huge, when forward building ect. Keeps just will not cut it in late games. They may be good for "recon" and keeping little hit and run attacks against the economy under control, but why bother with them? Castle: Ah, the ultimate defense. Not only does this building have a deadly attack, but also it has an extensive garrison. This building can take out most every castle age unit with murder holes (with the exception of ram), and is effective defense in the imperial age as well. The great siege unit, the treb, is built here, as well as unique units and techs. This building is worth the extra stone, and can tear apart both building and unit when forward built. It also offers a good place to lure the enemy too, or to hit and run too... Everyone uses castles... Bombard tower- practically invincible to everything except bombards and trebs, this structure is deadly with murder holes. It can take out any unit, and can pick off guys running parallel to it... One thing I found very annoying is that the computer built bombards throughout there base preventing me from the glory of razing their base… L … Really though, bombards are too expensive to build a lot of them until very late. Wall- What is there to say? I personally never wall, as I am a rusher, except maybe walling off choke points occasionally. Walls are not very effective on open maps like Arabia, unless you go at great lengths to defend. On maps like black forest they are a must for the channel between the bases. Palisade- Anything can take out palisade, and the only use for it for me is the dark age palisade walling in black forest… Gate- stronger wall that you can pass through, not much more to say here anyway… All of the above defenses, even though they vary in usefulness, are musts in the next es game. < Here are my ideas for defenses new for the upcoming AOM… Mythological Towers- Specifics: -Fire tower: good against the frost giant, and can take out troops standing close to one another. Special bonus against buildings and especially ships… Can set trees on fire as well… These are just examples, there could be many others… Another idea for myth towers is that they are similar to the component tower in Tyberian Sun. These towers are upgradeable. The catch is, you do not put a special fire component on it to make it flame tower. Instead, there is room for one garrisoned unit. Send in a archer, and more arrows come out. Send in an infantry, and it shoots faster. Send in a fire giant, and torch your enemies on their funeral pyre. Put in a frost giant, and freeze your enemies from afar. And yes, medusas turn enemies to rock. You catch my drift, these towers would increase the attack of whatever unit you put in, particularly… myth units… I have heard that they are called sleepers, but I am not sure… Trench- What happens is, you ask a villager to build this defense. He or she goes to the desired spot, then takes out his shovel and starts digging. When the building is done (you see it getting deeper), it is up to you to garrison spearmen or halberdiers inside. Then the fun part comes. When an enemy unit comes and walks across the trench, the spearmen jab there spears and attack the vulnerable troop. You might be able to see the trenches, as they could be covered with leaves, or sticks, but if you told a unit to attack the enemy base, then he would not avoid the trenches. You could dodge them manually. Siege units could force attack on these structures and level them… -Now that I think about it, putting spears inside the trenches just would not work well… to hard to manage…It would probably be better to just have holes where units can fall to their death. Well, that’s all I got for now… Tell me what you think, and if you think they are too impractical… Or just say any other defenses I haven’t mentioned… -thanks, Vladimir87
Yep you guessed it, towers that use faith and fire lightning, flames, ice, and whatever else…The plus to these towers (they are more expensive) is that besides doing plenty of damage to every troop, it has special bonuses against certain men… You catch my drift. These towers would be extremely expensive, and might take a bit off your faith every time they fire. In this way they would be balanced…
-Lightning tower- good against infantry; can strike multiple targets at once. Especially good against archers. Also successful against ships.
-ice tower- Freezes units from long range. Weak against buildings and ships
My second idea for now for a new defense in aom is harder to manage,