The fact that they have high HP is balanced by siege weapons, but being stationary means that they can't all concentrate during an offensive or retreat when outnumbered during an enemy attack.īeing cheaper than castles is balanced by having lower melee (standard) defense, though keeps do have more HP per resource cost. Towers in general aren't overpowered because they're stationary. I also think the mechanics could be changed so that if you got Arrowslits tech, the additional arrows could have the higher damage but the number of arrows would be reduced to compensate to keep the same base damage-per-second.

It's still less damage than a bombard tower, and won't save you from a bunch of war elephants or paladins, but I think the number of arrows could be reduced and still be balanced vs other unique techs. I think it is a little overpowered compared to the other unique techs: Celts +20% fire rate for towers and castles Britons +2 tower damage (and higher foot archer range). They shoot four arrows at a time but can shoot up to 8 with garrisoned units, which is still less than a Teuton tower can shoot with garrisoned units (9).

One tower destroys 7(!) mangonels if the tower and mangonels fight one by one. One single guard tower, costing only 125 stone and 25 wood with arrowslits destroy 3 mangonels attacking the guard tower simultanously. The tech most likely a last-minute addition to the game. I know developers can make mistakes, but this one shows lack of proper testing. Watch towers with bodkin arrow deal 1 attack to mangonels, and guard towers deal 2 attack vs mangonels.

I think developers forgot the attack and pierce armor of guard towers and mangonels were balanced in a way that mangonels can still deal with towers well, but not as easily as watch towers, so you need to need to use at least two mangonels at once to destroy an ungarrisoned guard tower.

They should've just reduced the cost of guard tower/keep tech imo. They were rarely used because of the guard towers high cost, and you need a university to research guard tower/keep. I knew guard towers/keeps are used as siege + monk counter in arena/LN/BF or to secure spots in semi water maps in AoC. I found them OP since the day I knew about the effect of the arrowslits tech (over 4 months ago), thought it was a horrible tech right away.

Japanese opera tower