Towers/fortress ammo

[Alexander82]

I always see proposals about fire towers, poison towers and such.
I think that creating a brand new tower to fire poisoned arrows would be a nonsense... you just give poisoned arrows to the archer on the tower!
My idea is to create different techs to give towers a "skill" that allows you to change ammo.

Fire arrows: it gives the tower bonuses against wooden units such as siege weapons and ships (and maybe buildings too) and the burn effect
Poison arrows: it gives a poison effect and a bonus against flesh and blood units
Gunpowder: it changes the tower damage type from pierce to normal
Steel arrows: upgrade for the standard arrow for additional damage

If you research more ammo types you just switch between them when you manually select it.
ammo shifting shouldn't consume actions

[RiverRaider 1097]

These are realistic capabilities dude good thinking I would build more fortresses if they were implemented! Darn good idea )

[lordtalamar]

This would over power fortresses. Only trebuchets can reach them. If you have poison or fire on far reaching fortresses the game would be very unbalanced unless trebuchets were created much easier. A plus 1 to power and range tech would be good for towers in general but separate fire and poison towers with less power and range than fortresses could be handy but not overpowered.

[ejm29]

I like the idea! I do agree that as It is, towers would be OP. But if/when the master craftsmen unit is implemented trebutchets will be alot easier to produce.

[Alexander82]

Why should that be unbalanced? Right now towers are pretty weak against ships and are almost useless against them. On land the trebuchets outrange the fortresses

To balance that we might reduce the range for fire and poison arrows compared to normal and steel arrows

I like the idea! I do agree that as It is, towers would be OP. But if/when the master craftsmen unit is implemented trebutchets will be alot easier to produce.

i agree

[RiverRaider 1097]

But dude they are not called a Fortress for being weak or handy. As is, Fortresses are being used as walls that can shoot back, I mean these things spring up like wild weeds choking the map space. Where one of these Fortress's would dominate the area like it was Boss. It would be more realistic if they were shorter larger diameter structures maybe a 2x2 with the upgrade mentioned above.Build time should take as log as a castle. A lot cleaner map look than the tall mushrooms taking up valuable map space.They should have Elite capabilities with Elite firepower which could hold 4 units with the ability to build trebuchet or cats now that's a Fortress. More map room, cleaner look compared to the mushroom patch ), would definitely change the strategy of the attacking army with trebuchet and cats.if what they was attacking was stronger than they was? An in place Fortress should have the edge on an attacking force )

[lordtalamar]

Why don't we use the techs for other improvements such as +1 to range and damage. and. double shot where fortresses and castles get twice the amount of shots they have. Let people have to choose do I make a fire or poison tower or fortress Or castle? Just a thought alex if your ally had a poison guard tower up right away would my rush have worked? I would rather have a tower that can poison or fire right away than research. Plus rember ai gets all techs so when a time waster gets booted on small map ai dominates us with those before we can research balistics or same said tech.

[lordtalamar]

I do like the idea of flipping ammo types from peirce to normal damage but believe that should take a towers turn unless it has double shot.

[Alexander82]

I still think that fortress wouldn't become op. I think that we might balance it with a turn cost, as you said. And if we find that to be a too strong advantage we might also add a cooldown for the ammo switch.
So, as you have said, you have to choos what kind of tower you need for some time.

About researching time, i think that would be fair. Imho AI is not smart enough to gain a sensitive benefit from this upgrade, and if we make the skill with a cooldown it might be stuck with the wrong ammo type for a while.
Also we might also decide to change the damage bonus based on the ammo type, so we can make some kind of ammo almost useless against some kind of units (ie. fire arrows might deal very low damage against armored units, and poison arrows could make near to no damage to siege weapons).

[Ness]

I think these ammo types should be in

Heavy arrows, lower range more damage
Normal
Light arrows, longer range less damage
Fire arrows, weaker damage but has burning effect
Poison arrows, weaker damage but has poison effect
Muskets, bad accuracy lower range more damage makes normal damage not piercing