Tower Capture & Defense: Is it Worth It?
I’d like to discuss this from the point of view of the attacking force, operating on a Borderland not your own.
Discussion, criticism, and debate encouraged. Trolling & flames are not — we’re all grown adults here. Stay classy, please.
We’ve all participated in multiple tower captures by this point. You rush in, get your rams down, maybe a catapault or two on a wall, and some arrow carts or a ballista for counter-siege.
The door goes down, any defenders are wiped, and the Tower NPC dies. Yay! You win!
What’s next?
Do you hold the tower, hoping for attackers to come?
Do you quickly build a treb on the roof and start trebbing the Garrison walls?
Do you even bother to upgrade the tower?
All of those questions vary depending on the circumstances — ask yourself these questions:
Do we have the numbers to hold this tower against a significant (20+) enemy force?
Do we have a supply camp running dolyak’s and feeding supply to the tower?
If not, is it possible to take (and hold!) the neccessary supply camps?
NOTE: The western tower (ie, Longview) is only fed by the Northern Supply Camp. This is notoriously hard to hold as an attacking force, and requires a significant occupying force due to the fast respawn of the defending server.
After taking Longview last night, then spending an hour running supply back and forth from Arah’s in order to blockade run the defending server’s forces and keep the tower, here are my thoughts:
- Towers are good for short term defense as map changers and distraction tactics.
Example: last night we were able to occupy almost the entirety of the defending server’s forces for a good 60 minutes, allowing our other forces to push on the Garrison.
- Towers are good for temporary safe siege on the Garrison, working as a staging point for an eventual attack.
- Towers, especially when not upgraded, are too easy to flip. 10 people can flip a tower in 5 minutes or less.
- Because of this, towers require almost constant guarding, which is costly in terms of limited server manpower.
- Towers are hard to supply, especially when they are only fed from one (hard to control) Supply Camp. It costs yet more manpower to control the supply camp necessary to feed the tower so that you can hold it for long term.
In Conclusion:
I view towers as an excellent short-term distraction that are useful as a side project or staging step to your ultimate goal. Once that goal is achieved, however, it is not worth wasting the supply or manpower to hold the tower against a focused assault.
Discuss.