[228]The Dog House

Hey guys, some of you may have seen me around some may not. I've been pouring over the forums for some really awesome designs for structures, like Acavado's trap and variations of it, archer perches different traps, ways to build things ect. I thought it was about time I posted something. I came up with a little combination of two avocados and a decent archer perch. It could use a little work . . . What am I missing here?

Keep in mind, I have the double acavado so archers can snipe people trying to "hop" step past the 2nd acavado if they make it past the first.


Thanks to Wyeth for his cool archer perch! (Seen here)

EDIT:

Alright here is V2:


Pretty much as Wyeth suggested, except I put two bridges on the back as Luigi pointed out so if knights decide to bomb jump, they can't just enter the back of it, anymore suggestions to make it better? (One thing I can think of is adding an archer shop/quarters and another layer of archer nest).

Also current build cost is:

348 wood
420 stone

Pretty costly, but then again it can do a lot!

 

That building on the left blocks shooting zone,it is possible to bombjump over archer tower.

Everything else is just perfect : deadly,stylish,not obvious.Especially that door between 2 acavados.
Dat shooting hole.

 

Well, I was just messing around on an empty server, and it looked good so I took a pic and posted it. I don't know if its worth the extra resources to make it taller to avoid bomb jumping? Thanks for the input. =)

 

First off, please only show the structure you want to present, there is no reason to post a full screenshot if you just want us to focus on the structure in the middle, like so:

Feel free to use this cutout in the OP.

Secondly, let's get down to buisness. I like your structure, it has no redundancies, no excess castle walls or pointless pieces. Everything is well thought out and has its place. But enough of that; you didn't come here to be praised you came here to recieve criticism, so here we go.



Okay, why exactly did you leave the rectangle there free of castle walls? I assume that has no specific reason, but it makes your structure slightly less stable for no real reason. Furthermore don't forget to ladder up in front of the archer nest, archers like to climb on top and suicide and knights like to blow themselves up while failing to bombjump, gotta know your clientele.
Lately I put trap bridges instead of ladders under the archer /drop chutes. If you can spare the extra wood I would definately do this instead of ladders (that's more of a hint).
I am sorta worried about that one piece of trap bridge over the teamdoor. These weird diagonal edges do all kinds of shenanigans (knights slashing through them or even teleporting through, archers shooting through etc), also it feels flimsy, I personally rather build everything as sturdy as possible if I can somehow manage to do so. So I would advice ladders + castle wall instead of a single trap bridge.
Now two very minor but eventually essential improvements. If you put spikes on the left circle it has a good part and a bad part. Bad part: Your own knights might manage to impale themselves on them (while failing to jump into the walkway for some reason) I think this is rather unlikely, but it might happen. The good part is so do enemies, but different from your teammates they actually gotta be very careful while jumping up the walkway, so if they jump slightly too low they immediately fall onto the spikes and hurt themselves. Through the magic of auto-spikes the enemies will impale themselves as soon as the upper teambridge is opened (which is exactly when they are walking into the spikes) and they walk into it. This makes these spikes potentially more dangerous towards your enemies than towards your teammates. I would go for it, but you might want to leave it be if you don't think your team is mentally up to it. You can also add another teambridge above the spikes to make it even more safe for teammates (training wheels so to say). Again it depends if you want to spare the expense.
The second circle is my major improvement. It contains of adding a hole in the ground directly before the inner wall and another hole to the right, then spikes get placed into the middle. The additional third trap bridge makes this completely team safe. Your team cannot possibly impale on these spikes as long as they are directed the way they are in my picture. I tested this throughly, but not from the other side. May be possible then, but I doubt it. This basically creates a quite dangerous air-spike trap for the enemy. Since these are quite potent, they will impale while walkover, standing there too long, looking at them funny or remembering them in a fevered flashback to the olden days. Also obviously while falling in, which is good for the same reasons stated before for the other auto-spike trap.
All these suggestions are easily seen in my picture I added. Hope this was helpful to you.

PS: Love the little archer chute for the inside!

 

Wow, just wow, I was thinking about the design and it looked pretty good to me, but your improvements probably make it at least 75% better, thanks for the input Wyeth! I will try to crop my screenshots in the future, it was late at the time and I wasn't thinking strait.

Counting up the stone/wood to make this thing, going to post an upgraded version in a bit with Wyeth's suggestions.

@ Luigi, and yeah, I left the back walls out to look like a dog. =P

(moved to first post for clarity)

 

its pretty normal for a tower like structure like that to cost a lot. I mean it is pretty sturdy. Only thing I am slightly worried about is the ease at which bombs may be thrown into it, but I may have an idea. See how they can easily lob bombs right into the heart of the structure? That makes it slightly less comfortable, people shouldnt be able to aim bombs so well, especially not at that price. Worst case scenario the whole thing is completely disarmed by 2 bombs :< I will add something later as an example what can be done.

After trying I do not think its possible to secure it more. I tried an overhead and working with ladders but both would lessen the structures effect a lot. If you really got security issues (that someone demolishes it with bombs all the time) I would consider thickening the back wall a bit (like adding additional columns of castle wall). All in all it should be fine.