Archery Tower
| Archery Tower | |
|---|---|
| |
| Vital statistics | |
| Size (obj)Structure footprint in tile units.<br><br><i>Rounded-up from source.<br>Source: 1.072 x 1.072</i> | 1.1 x 1.1 |
| Skill(s) RequiredSpecific needed skills that enable a given object or item. | Yeomanry |
| Discovery Req.This(<i>discoveryreq</i>) is only for items that need to be discovered in addition to items listed in "Object(s) Required"/<i>(<i>objectsreq</i>).</i><small><br><b><i>(Temporary active on all pages, but leave empty if "None".</i></b><small> | (None or Unknown) |
| Object(s) Required | Cloth x8, Block of Wood x20, Board x10, Rope x2 |
| Repaired With | Cloth |
| Can be Lifted | No |
| Hit Points | Yes (Value Unknown) |
| Soak Value | 6 |
| Go to Objects | |
Build > Siege Equipment > Archery Tower
Archery Tower automatically fires at, and damage, any siege machine within range.
Building and Preparation
Archery Tower need a Game: 3h (Real: 0h 55m) minutes charge to start attacking other siege machines. It must be constructed with at least five tiles spacing between each archery tower (border to border). (Geek level minimal distance: Somewhere between 4.949747~ and 4.981992~ tiles. (ergo: 5.0 tiles)). Has to be loaded with arrows.
Tactical usage
In general, defending a claim against an attacker is kinda like a little chess game. With the attacker having the benefit of deciding when to attack. Usually when they think your not online. Having additional helping players to lower the offline time would help.
(with catapult support)
One can use additional catapults to defend a claim. These would be in a sense moveable archery towers with a slightly bigger range. But with the down sides that: 1) catapults don't fire automatically, and 2) catapults will need brimstone (+seigecraft skill) to be build. (Because brimstone decays over time one needs a ready to get supply or maintain ones own local stockpile.)
A good supply of Bone Glue, needed to repair catapults, is also a good idea here.
Note: Archery Towers don't care about who build them or in which claim (if any) there in. Any siege engine in there target range will be fired upon, including yours if they can.
(without additional catapult support)
Due to catapult having a bigger range then Archery Towers(AT) its generally not useful to build ATs in advanced. Catapult can just take them down one at a time without getting targeted themself. This means one needs to be online and keep an eye out until there is something in range to shoot at to have a successful defense.
So starting by placing a full row (no AT gaps to account for potential AT rebuild delay) right up to the wall is kinda a bad tactic. It makes more sens to place/build them 'FIRST' as far away from the wall, but still in range to target catapults or Brams that are closing up to the wall. At this point you probably lose some At's (which will block rebuilding them for some time). Here is where building the closer to the wall ATs come in play, for cleaning up the now definitely in range catapults (and maybe even some misplaced Bram's). With this tactic ATs would probably hold back an attacker way better. Hopefully until they get bored, or run out of firepower/brimstone.
Leaving AT build-spots initially unused (between two activated ATs - same row) allows for direct replacement of destroyed ATs.
The general reason for using multiple rows is also to delay the attackers success until destroyed ATs can be rebuild again (if/when needed).
The AT exclusion range allows for 3 different row setup.
With a 6.0* tiles row-spacing (default tile-centered placed AT's) row-3 covers 1.(50..75) to 2* tiles in front of the wall.
With a 5.(1/11)* row-spacing (compact checkerboard) row-3 covers 4 to 5 tiles in front of the wall.
With a 4.(7/11)* row-spacing (compact diamond pattern) row-3 covers 5 to 6 tiles in front of the wall.
* Gaps between archery towers. Tower itself is 1.(1/11) tile (same as straw stockpile).
* Using placegrid 11 setting for the two compact setups.
* Default tile-centered placed AT's: Its questionable if the 3'ed row is actually useful considering its limited targeting range across the wall.
Range and Damage
Effective radius is fixed about 18 tiles deep from the placement point, 180 degrees in front of it. Cannot damage players, animals, and other archery towers, only siege machines such as Catapult, Battering Ram. Effectively fire an arrow every five minutes. Quality of arrows does not matter (nor does the type of arrow), damage is random, taking between 4 and 20 shots to destroy a ram. Doesn't take damage when attacking unlike Catapults.
Decay and Destruction
~60 (w16) hours real time after being built, the archery tower will begin decaying over time. A single tick of decay deal 3-4% health and happens every ~15 minutes. This means, if left alone, the tower can decay fully in 7 hours. Repairing the tower requires 1 cloth per 25% health. Decay does not prevent the tower from being repaired.
Towers can be hand-bashed.
The exclusion zone is active while the Rubble of an archery tower remains, meaning that destroyed towers will for some time (~20..24h(rt) I think) also block the construction of new towers.
Notes
- (Flat ground) Archery tower's allows for a 1m (10 level units) ground deviation across the tiles is built upon.
- The exclusion zone (5 tiles (World15)) is measured between the archery tower hitboxes. Effectively being a very rounded square.
- Although a finished archery tower will prevent starting to build an other archery tower in its exclusion zone. A still unfinished archery tower build will not. (ie: no warning its to close to some other unfinished archery tower)
- Finished archery towers will block completing unfinished archery tower builds. (ie: it will take all build resources, but will stay in construction mode)
- To potentially prevent an attacker from building archery tower's near your walls, to hinder you from building yours, extend your claim accordingly.
- (Technical drawing below) The archery tower new Obst-hitbox is slightly smaller(1.072) than the used old Neg-hitbox (12/11=1.09).
See Also
Gallery
Exclusion zone min-distance example.
Exclusion zone (Technical drawing).
Archery Tower Pre-Setup Example.
Compact setups (Technical drawing).
Game Development
- Listed Wound (2025-01-31)◎ >"Ranges for "Archery Tower"s and "Catapult"s are no longer randomized, but rather fixed to their medium ranges (~20 tiles for "Catapult"s, and ~18 tiles for "Archery Tower"s)."
- Raft Notified (2022-01-23)◎ >"You can now inspect rubble left by "Archery Tower"s to see how long it will last."
- Raft Notified (2022-01-23)◎ >""Archery Tower"s now drop their arrows when they get destroyed."
- An Arrow to the Knee (2020-02-02)◎ >"The exclusion zone for Archery Towers is now active while the rubble of it remains, meaning that destroyed towers will for some time block the construction of new towers."
- Siege Chess (2019-04-03)◎ >"Added Archery Towers. Archery towers can be loaded with arrows and automatically fire at, and damage, any siege machine within 180 degrees in front of them. They can be hand-bashed. Archery towers must be constructed at least five tiles away from other towers."
- Siege Chess (2019-04-03)◎ >"Archery towers need a one hour charge to attack other siege machines. They can never attack other archery towers."
- Siege Chess (2019-04-03)◎ >"After 60 hours, Archery Towers will begin decaying over time."