[963] Assault Towers

Attack towers, assault towers - cheap and hastily built towers used to stake claim on a piece of territory. The idea itself has been there ever since KAG classic. And although, the advent of kegs, and drills have reduced the attraction of building one, assault towers still have their use when done correctly and when done in the presence of aggressive team mates or at least dedicated knights and archers around.

Before going on, I acknowledge that there is no such thing as a perfect tower/castle. No tower cannot hope to hold long against an enemy attack. The purpose of assault towers are to deny enemies chance of advancing, and forestalling their march towards your flag or hall in an economical way.

I present to you my design:

The Sentinel Tower I
Costs at about 180-250 stone, it's cheap enough and can be built quickly. First few blocks are double layered, while you save on resources by using backwalls on the upper layers. In KAB, knights can now jump higher, even more so with jump slashing or with the help of a shield boost or arrow ladder. Most people noobishly counter that by making a taller and resource hungry tower; a simpler solution would be to build an overhang. Knight tries to climb; bumps his head on stone, simple. Backwalls are important to support integrity, incorporate it into your building instead of thinking (oh, it's too early for the enemy to have bombs, I'll just build it later) well, you'll never know... Take note also that there is a hole on that overhang, something many builders fail to see. Designed for your friendly neighborhood archerman to shoot down on any knight or builder humping on the lower blocks of your tower.

The Sentinel Tower I shines at stopping those early knight rushes. I often do this in tandem of allied knights and archers charging, keeping the enemy at bay while I bravely build the tower at the middle of the battlefield, early game.

While knights cannot climb it, archers can. Albeit with difficulty due to the overhang, they can still do it with skill. The solution is simple. While your builder muscles cannot hack through knight armor, it's bulging enough to squash archer felt hats. Stand where I am standing and wack away.



Sentinel Tower II
With the additional investment of stone and wood, you build an archer's nest. Easy to build, and the archer will subconsciously have a crush on you if they personally see you building it. Also notice that additional block layers and backwalls are added, to further deter easy collapse by an enemy builder. It is important for the lower, easy-to-reach-by-jumping parts built on stone. For the layering, you can use wood. Though I advise keeping the first 2-3 layers as stone

Now you might have noticed, the Sentinel tower is a one-way crossing. Friendlies cannot get back up. The rational to this is that early game, friendly knights go out to raid and eventually die out there, while archers can easily grapple back. Your objective is to make an unassailable tower as quick as possible, switching to doors and such can be time consuming and the stone doors cost you alot of resources, better put to use by expanding the overhang or back layers. We'll worry about the safety of your friendly knights later.




Guard Tower I
Like right now... Let's add doors, break those front blocks above the 5th or 7th block (preferably when there is no enemy around) and build stone doors. Spikes by the door also help, since they push back enemies if they are placed horizontally. The rationale here is that the doors are above ground level. Avoid building ground level doors. Back in KAG classic, this is a given, since it makes it easy for enemies to jab on wooden doors (there were no stone doors back then). While Knights cannot break stone doors on KAB, they can still enter it if it is open (usually caused by the friendly he was chasing or a dead body). Minimize the chances by making the enemy jump to even attempt entering. The other use is that it will attract enemies to stay on that corridor directly below that overhang sniping hole. As they try to jump up and down, not attentive of what's above them, an archer can easily shoot on them from above.

Also notice that I have padded the ground area with some stone blocks, making it harder for enemies to dig themselves below. As well as clearing the front of trees to stop it from being used by enemy archers as ladders. (When you fell a tree, press C, the first thing you'll pick up is the seed) now put it somewhere else, away from the front tower.)



Guard Tower II
Two situations, either there is a hiatus on the battlefield giving you time to improve upon non-frontline towers. Or this is a Front-line tower (meaning the next thing you'll see to the left are enemy fortifications). The Sentinel Towers are designed to be early-game constructs. By mid-game, kegs and bomb arrows will start rolling in, and you'd better start reinforcing your now "Guard Tower". The most important is by having a rear wall (to distinguish it from the back wall which you could pass through) This supporting wall will hold your tower intact despite a blast from a keg or bomb arrows. You can build it with cheap wood. The above picture is just a basic template, supporting the most important parts of the tower, the base. You could try reinforcing the upper areas as well but most of the time it is redundant or unneccessary - but it is all pretty situational, use your best judgement if you'd want to support the upper blocks as well.

Other things you'd see here is the small room by the door, what I'd like to call double doors or the panic room. Should an enemy be able to enter the first set, there will be a second set to hold him back until reinforcements arrive. Should a bomb jumper suddenly creep on top of your tower howling at the moon, sword bared like claws of malice, you as a builder can take refuge here and pray your knights in shining armor get to you in time.

And just to illustrate the use of a rear wall (which doesn't really need to be expensive and fat like a monolith castle):

Guard Tower II after direct keg detonation
Block easy to access passages with stone immediately, and hope that your allies fend off the incursion. And when they're pushed back or if you're feeling brave, you can go outside and rebuild it again. The Assault Towers (Sentinel/Guard) will last longer as long as it is manned by a builder, and preferably an archer. Knights will come and go. They are cheap, and are good at early and mid game, which if in perfect concert with an attacking team, will make the enemy play defensive.

Here's also another variant, which is a little bit resource heavy, but just to show that the Guard Towers are more of a template rather than an exact design:

Guard Tower Variant
You'll notice its built upon the standard Sentinel overhang, and with the Guard doors. Also, you should add a reinforcing rear wall (something I did not do in this). Here I'd like to bring attention to "Rooms" When you fully cover an enclosed building with back walls it'll turn into a room, and the enemy cannot see inside it, you'll know it'll turn into a room when it becomes dark. Rooms are nice, good for ambushing such as what I'm doing now, dropping a boulder (which now costs 30 stone) unto unsuspecting enemies. Archers can surprise fire also, downwards or from the front. Also important is that there is an access towards the top area. Just in case a pesky enemy knight or archer manages to clamber up there.


The Principle of Assault Towers, weaknesses and strengths
The Sentinel, and Guard towers are just a template front. You can add above it and behind it, making them bomb jumper proof by making them tall or turning it into a porcupine if you feel like playing minecraft. But going back to my first point, it is designed to take ground and claim it for your side - meaning you're making the enemy exert effort just to step unto the ground behind the tower. Assault towers were really supposed to be multiple towers rather than just stand alone, like so:

(3 assault towers, enemy is on the left and the home base is on the right) From left to right, designate it as Tower A, B and C
Now just for the sake of picturing it all out, I've built this towers to the absolute minimum distance from each other. In game, the distances between two towers that I make are from Towers A and C.

As have been hinted throughout the thread, assault towers are not bomb jumper proof. An enemy knight can assail it, if they're one of the veterans. But from my funny experiences, majority of the player base out there keep bomb jumping too close and bump themselves on overhang, or fall to short. Now of course there will be veterans out there that'll laugh at such construct and just jump over it like the Space Marines they are. "Now time to raid their base!, oh wait there's another tower, good thing I have another bomb :) ; oh wait... a third one... and defending knights are coming."

The thing I want to point out also here: that if unmanned - a tower will be useless and will eventually fall prey to enemy reactions. But given the chances that this is in the middle of the battlefield, and you have sensibly active team mates, you'll bet that friendlies will be there to fight throughout them towers.

Scenarios
Notice also that the most heavily built will be the front tower. Imagine the events that would have led to this.
Progressive Scenario A: Game begins, and you rush to build tower C. Which stops enemies from going further. Your friendly knights manage to push back the enemy back towards their base. After having furnished the first into a sentinel tower II, you leave it and move forward to build Tower B. And again later on you move to build tower A - much closer to the enemy now, that it is constantly assailed that you decide to improve upon it and make it a guard tower.
Progressive Scenario B: Game begins and you build tower B. But enemy resistance is strong and their clash with your armed forces are turning out to be a stalemate. So you improve upon Tower B towards a modest Sentinel II. Then just for good measure, you go back towards the base and build Sentinel Tower C, making it basic, before returning to Tower B to enact repairs or continue improving it.
Reactive Scenario C: In continuation with B, you decide to hold on to your stone and wood and decided to pass from improving tower B further, you see in the battlefield that the enemy is being pushed back, you decide to join the next wave of fighters and bravely build Tower A near combat, if you fail or things get too hairy you run back to to Tower B and wait for the next wave.


Enemies of the Assault Towers
Knight Bomb Jumpers - yep, if they're good at it your sentinel/guard tower can no longer be Gandalf. But thankfully they have a limited number of bombs, and you have several towers by the mid-game time when multiple bombs start rolling. When this happens, retreat to your panic room or go back to a previous tower. Sometimes I build underground shops if I have the spare time, changing to a knight or archer can be useful.

Archers - I have already covered this, requires some degree of skill. And their attempts of making arrow ladders for team mates are easily hampered by the overhang.

Drill - yep, when a smart player decides to buy a drill early game and changes to knight class and pockets them. You have two options, if you have a friendly knight nearby who will eventually engage him; your job is to save the tower by adding layers and backwalls. Drills will overheat after the first layer, giving you time. However, if no friendlies are nearby and all your team mates have the "Early game Minecraft syndrome" trying to build a monolith to worship their deity. Then retreat and abandon, presumably you haven't expanded your tower too much so, not much resources are lost. (remember this is early game)

Enemy Builders - Two mindsets that are almost always true most of the time (being redundant just to emphasize). If enemies see a fat tower they will think (I will take it, I will make it mine). The first thing they would do is try to block the doors (which is why we don't build them at ground level). Then they will build a ladder to the top, because the access to the top means control of the tower.
On the other hand if they see a thin, flimsy tower (as is the case of Sentinel towers) they will deign to collapse it just for the giggles. To counter this, you must be on the other side building reinforcing walls or backwalls just to keep the tower standing long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Or if its early game and he's all alone and you're feeling like a bully, go out and meet him and engage in a romantic ballet of overhead swings and jumping. In the midgame, you could build roomed or underground shops so that you can change to knight and take him on. Or have other elaborate traps such as surprise boulders, use your imagination or look at the other constructs in these forums :)

Kegs and Bomb Arrows- mid to late game, so I take it you already have made a guard tower with reinforced back walls huh? Nothing else to it but to be just there to man that tower and constantly repair it or defend it, hopefully your team mates are there to push back the enemy, and you must do your part to repair things.

Eventually your tower will fall or be too badly ruined to improve upon, you'll most probably fall back to a previous tower and improve it until the situation has stabilized for you to return and fix it.

Useless Team mates - well if you have this, despite successfully building several towers, they will fall one by one if you're the only one concerned of defending it. (Usually happens when the map has several lanes (tunnel lanes, sea lanes, mountain lanes)

Tower Height, Placement, and Influence
Try not to make the front tower higher than the previous ones; and if you do have to, make sure the distance from each tower to the next is far away that the enemy can't easily bomb jump or jump towards the next towers.
In their basic form they are not designed to be majestic testaments of Human Strength and Glory, rather they should represent the resistant/persistent Human drive to expand. If the enemy underestimate your tower, then you are doing things right. By not taking it seriously they will fall into mistakes such as wasting time skirmishing in front of the tower - and when they finally evolve into proper Homo sapiens and develop the wits to call a builder or make a concentrated keg and bomb attack; they'll find that their gain is minimal as the next tower is already being fortified and (presumably) a reactionary attack from your allies is coming.

In a way, by advancing and claiming territory you benefit your team by giving them open ground for mining and a leisurely time carrying kegs or siege equipment without the fear of a Assault Space Marine suddenly bearing down on them... Oh wait, well, maybe there is still the risk, but it is reduced. With the Assault Tower gameplay, losing one tower isn't a big loss as you already have assurances in the form of other towers.

Also, there is always that chance that, the enemy seeing that ground is lost instead decides to pursue on developing their home base further into a castle. Which means your side will mostly likely be on the attack, so build up that tower to Guard specifications, erect tunnels, and join the attack as Assault Pioneer!



Early Game Tips
Assault towers are early game mostly, and by mid to late game will serve their purpose to some extent. Here is a tip if you're planning to follow this:
At the beginning of the game, start collecting stone, usually 600 stone is enough for 2 towers.
Then as soon as the "Blood rain that terrifies every player in the game" stops. You rush out and try to build a tower at the center of the map. It is recommended that you entice a team mate to attack as a knight so they can buy you time.
But in the case that you go forth alone here's a tip:

See that Wooden T to the left of the screen? Let's assume that's an enemy knight. If you haven't laid down the first block of your tower then he's going to reach you. Fall back.


This skeleton of a Sentinel Tower took me 12 seconds to build, by then an enemy knight could have jump near you, enough to slash at you, but not exactly climb the tower. Just jump to evade and try to wack back or bop on his head to drive him back to the ground (risky I now, but such is the life of an early game rush). The overhang is built to stop archer of grappling up as well.

If you're facing an enemy builder though:

You might want to add layers first, and unfortunately, you're going to have to go out to play with that builder. You know, that game called tag? But this time you're touching him with the sharp end of a pick ax.

All in all, a standard Sentinel I takes about 40 seconds to build:

Approx 180-250 stone and 200 wood.


Remember, this is Attack oriented and requires an active team. The towers are just templates, you can expand upon them if you want; really the designs are just a jump off for me to reintroduce the concept/principle of building several towers instead of monoliths. You can build your own variants. :)

 

I wouldn't use any of these, honestly. It's a good effort, but if it costs 250 stone for something that easy to bomb jump over, it's not worth it. Also, the overhangs actually prevent archers from doing anything worthwhile, and the whole thing can be brought down with 2-4 bombs at the base. Sheer walls with archer platforms sticking out have proven again and again to be the most reliable towers against the enemy hordes and I will continue to stick with those.

 

;3 That was one good read <3 And gave me some good ideas! Thanks a lot ^^ Think I'll be a better builder now!

+1

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 9, 2013, Original Post Date: Dec 9, 2013 ---

But just for early game I suppose it works nicely! I also go with your idea later on, or if I am a part of the builders that work back at the main-base defenses

 

Big brothers, big brothers please... I did add the disclaimer that its weakness are bomb jumpers. :D I have also stated that the sentinel towers are for early game, in ctf there are no bombs and in tth barely enough to do much damage. By the time the enemy bombs start rolling, you would have already upgraded it to a guard tower with reinforcements.
And it is an assault tower, not designed to be your main base tower which as Klokinator said, could be tall towers with archer spots. :O your objective with the assault towers are to grab ground, pressuring the enemy. The principle is different here and I'll cover more on it when I get back home. ;)

 

Except it's a terrible tower, no matter the purpose. A 7 block tall tower with a 2 block straight overhang/rotated wood platforms would be just as effective and cost way less. And if you know how to bombjump, it only takes one kill to purchase a bomb, and as short as that structure is, it can be bomb jumped over with only one bomb, same as our theoretical 7 tall 2 block overhang tower.

 

Just a curious builder, how long did it take you to build the first tower, and later on as it progress? I just want to know the time frame because I casually swap as a knight afterwards then go back to builder again if there aren't enough builders in the team.

 

12 seconds just to make it knight proof. 40 seconds to build a standard doorless Sentinel.
I've also updated the original post with the Principle of Attack Towers.

Oh and thanks for the critique Klokinator :)

 

Noice :) I will be implementing this and probably add my own style in tower building. It is quite good for starters and an excellent tower if added at the perfect elevation (edge of the waterline, cliff, or in plain terrain.) Added in my 'how-to-build-properly' list.

 

Also, one note, if you're in a water map with large expanses of water that would guarantee boat building, it's advised not to build past the beach. Boats cannot penetrate through ground/sand, but they will ram through stone and wood blocks as long as they could reach it. If you plan to expand unto the water front at least make sure part of your tower is still standing at solid ground and that it is difficult or hard to access despite the compromise of the front (waterborne) tower.

 

tl;dr, you need to make a way back in for all of your towers. All of them. I don't care if you just set it up in a couple of seconds, while getting shot at by archers; if I bombjump into the enemies base, grab their flag, run out with 5 of them chasing me, make it all the way back to our front, only to get killed and lose the flag because some scrub didn't put doors in their tower, I will be MAAAAAAAAAD.

 

I just want to say something. First of all, will you be capable of doing that kind of feat in a game that early (early bombjumping at their base, doing your own thing)? Maybe you are only looking at the towers with no doors or means of entrance/exit.

You don't even have to read the whole instruction. Just by looking at the pictures you can already tell that it goes in a transition, not just a plain doorless hunk of tower. Regarding the bottom pictures, it does say that a simple tower is a countermeasure for charging knights.

Please, before you criticise someone's thought-out building strategy, you might wanna rethink your criticism and do a more convincing advice instead of whining why it is always the builder's fault. I ain't a pro builder, but I do depend on the knight to defend and be the vanguard while the builder is still building. You just don't see the beauty and effort of building a tower like this although we all know it can be brought down any minute. It is better to have one though than none at all.

tl;dr Please read; don't just criticise blatantly with a sole idea of discriminating the builder's effort. Kind of makes you an ass.

 

Ofc. That's the easiest time to do it, before they get up any real defenses.

Oh, you mean like not putting doors in your tower when it only takes you literally 3 more seconds?

 

Not every instance, so it is not likely that you will get the flag or not. It depends if the opposing builder is just farming all the resources without putting up any defenses. Please, don't make it too general that every time you play the flag is always open for taking.

Have you tried swapping from blocks to doors with an approaching enemy? Exactly.

 

Please, don't make it too general that every time you play you can build the exact same door-less tower, because your teammates will never want to get back inside to heal or buy bombs after they fight off the other side's first rush. You seem to be taking the flag example too seriously; your team will have a host of reasons to want to, you know, get back inside their base, with all of their shops and supplies.

Bro, if they're close enough to slow you, then unless they're completely incompetent, they're gonna be able to kill you regardless of the .25 seconds you save from neglecting to switch to doors.

Try harder.

Doors go at the top of the tower, if you're already at a significant height, and there are enemies approaching, just make a 1 or 2 block overhang to stop them from getting up, then you have all the time in the world to finish your work. Put in a doorway, put a new overhang above it, then just break the original overhang to allow your teammates back into the tower.

ie.

Spoiler: example

Not only will this literally take you only a few seconds, it will actually be safer than just pillaring up with stone, unless your initial overhang is low enough for your opponents to jump onto.

 

Hi there Alpaca,
To turn the other cheek, well let me hold your hand and guide you to the acknowledgement of the doorless tower:

Spoiler

Now you might have noticed, the Sentinel tower is a one-way crossing. Friendlies cannot get back up. The rational to this is that early game, friendly knights go out to raid and eventually die out there, while archers can easily grapple back. Your objective is to make an unassailable tower as quick as possible, switching to doors and such can be time consuming and the stone doors cost you alot of resources, better put to use by expanding the overhang or back layers. We'll worry about the safety of your friendly knights later.

The objective is to stop knight rushes... and yes I've been into a situation that a brave friendly knight (like you) sallies forth and steals a flag and gets back in mere minutes from the end of the "blood rain". As a builder I would have heard the chime, and the solution is simple, anticipate the knight's return, and build a door or a ladder. Usually by the time the "doorless" sentinel tower is finished, the builder would be collecting more stone and wood to improve and add doors, but upon hearing said "capture tune" he can easily run back to the front tower and build you an entrance.

Options range from:
1.) building a back wall and breaking open the front blocks to allow access
2.) breaking the overhang and building ladders for the knight
3.) pray for gestalt consciousness and hope for that knight to throw the flag at you as you stand at the top of the tower.
4.) Jump out the tower and build a "boosting wall" (basically a 3-5 height; relative to your tower height) so long as the overhang of the sentinel is not elaborate yet, the knight can easily scale it.

You have to be smart as a builder as well, if your ally is being chased, you have to be ready to block access. Since the door is not ground level, a friendly wack can push back a jumping enemy knight, giving you time to plug the whole or extend the overhang further, denying the enemy. and of course "Bully smiley face" is mandatory once you succeed, try to avoid the "F U" sign please, it usually makes them buy drills and spam your little tower.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 17, 2013, Original Post Date: Dec 17, 2013 ---

Sometimes those 3 seconds can mean the difference against an enemy knight rush, especially when your side has not sallied forth early game and you find yourself alone at the middle of the map.

It also has something to do with resources, sure you'd be able to collect as many as you can to make 2 sentinel towers or 1 guard tower once the match starts. But you can never tell when you'll have many or little resources.

And lastly, I usually play with 200+ to 300+ ping, and that switching can sometimes cost me 5-6 seconds :P but that's just me and a few minority of the player base :3

 

I have exams to study for, so I'm going to make this quick:
tl;dr, and no no no no, let ME hold YOUR hand and guide YOU to the acknowledgement of not being an asshole and building one way towers.

I've already explained that, using my above design, time is no longer an issue. As for resources, any skilled player will tell you that the lives of every knight on your team are FAR more valuable than 100 stone.

I don't want to hear "No, you can't come back and heal or get bombs, it would cost me 100 stone. I'm busy defending us from the enemy rush." Well, guess what. Having a decent knight at full health with some bombs versus having a knight with half a heart and no weapons can be the difference between needing a tower to defend against a hoard of rushing enemies, and not having a single opponent on screen.

 

You could always make your assault tower, put backwall, break two blocks, and put doors once your knights have rushed over. You know. If you're smart :V

 

Or you could do one stone door/one wood if you're super frugal :3

 

That's a better way of putting it I guess XD

*rolls eyes*
*checks hypocrisy detector*
*puts on jet pack*
Nothing to do here

Smart, i do that when running low, and just replace it later on after another mining trip.