Ballista and Cannon Towers - the money worth?

[Granatenwerfer]

Are Ballista and Cannon Towers their money worth?

This sounds like a noob question - but it isn't!

I observed that the siege towers of an attacking force like e.g. the Mongols are getting harder relatively to the towers the city/castel is equiped with.
When I defend a city by catapults or trebuchets I can destroy siege towers by these weapons, provided that my towers have arrows, only. But when my defending city has cannon towers the siege towers seem to be made of a harder wood so both neither the cannon towers nor my trebuchets can make any damage at the siege towers.

Hence I have the feeling I should not upgrade the towers with ballistas or cannons. What does the forum think?

BTW I play vanilla GC, difficulty level: hard/hard.

[poisoned goat]

Upgraded towers are awesome. The main point of these towers is to kill enemy units, not siege equipment. Cannon towers absolutely slaughter enemy units because of their absurd range. With that being said, upgraded towers are also better at destroying siege towers and rams compared to arrow towers..

BTW siege towers upgrade in appearance depending on the level of the walls, not the level of the towers.

[MDCCLXXVI]

Ballista towers have marginal utility. Certainly if you can pin an enemy outside the relevant wall, then they are effective.

Cannon towers are great in cities until field/siege cannons become the norm, then they lose some effectiveness.


Cannon towers in citadels are just overpowered, when they work correctly.



One gripe about these towers is that when I have infantry on the walls defending a section, the ballista/cannon towers do absurd amount of friendly fire into the backs/sides of my own infantry.

[JSAN82]

I'd recommend cannon towers. Just had them destroy 2 siege towers, a ram, and a bunch of mongols. The towers made it to about 50m of the walls before going down, the first ram unit was routed before they even got close, then it just took shots are the mongol horde while my spear wall whittled them down at the gate. The cannon was doing ~50% of damage per shot when it connected, if I remember correctly, on M/M.

Worth every penny if you ask me.

Never got a chance to really try out my ballista towers though but I do remember them having some use when the enemy army is clustered up.

[Kataphractos]

Cannon towers can easily wreck an enemy army, and since the AI will merrily march its troops into their range (which is ridiculously far, btw) and doesn't target towers, it is definitely in your best interests to get them.

[michaeljassonsklt]

Yes, it's worth it. I'm only just try balista tower, I'm not experienced using cannon towers. I'm very happy to saw full stack crusader army attack constantinople, they march bravely to range of the my balista tower and get slaughter. But I'm experienced that after upgrading balista tower in venice, the tower still firing normal arrows, not a balista.

[Dimitri Kastav]

Towers are worth it. Later on you should have a powerhouse economy so that it doesn't seem like they cost all that much money. Plus they are just awesome, forcing your attackers to run a gauntlet of death...

[Aymer de Valence]

They can shred an attacking army in no time. Worth it? Definitely.....but only if you wouldn't miss a proper wall by wall, street by street, last-stand-in-the-town-centre style battle

[Kataphractos]

They can shred an attacking army in no time. Worth it? Definitely.....but only if you wouldn't miss a proper wall by wall, street by street, last-stand-in-the-town-centre style battle

I'm all for a street battle and final showdown in the town square, but I will MAKE that attacker earn his prize when I only have four units to defend with.

[MDCCLXXVI]

I'm all for a street battle and final showdown in the town square, but I will MAKE that attacker earn his prize when I only have four units to defend with.

My goal is always to make the enemy army Exhausted by the time they reach the town square. fighting at a series of choke points, even to the point of losing a unit, is worth it IMO, if it causes the enemy to tire, using maneuvers/stamina, before they reach my fresh troops in the square.

I always put up at least a semblance of a fight for the walls/gatehouse, usually sacrificing one of my best morale units to hold it as long as possible. Then usually one or two skirmishes along the streets up the middle route, to 'suck in' the enemy and stop them from trying to flank the square.


Against archer-heavy factions like mongols/timurids, I'd rather hold the walls/gate than let them sit on the street shooting my guys in the square.

[lolIsuck]

Great against the hordes with their ridiculous stacks, it also saves you quite a lot of army upkeep because you'd need less troops to defend the cities.

[King Gambrinus]

If only to take out elephants during a siege. If you're Spain or Portugal or something then no.

[Sar1n]

IMO improved towers are worth only building along the frontline that you intend to hold and not advance further.

BTW, tower upgrade is recognizeable by weapon ports. Normal towers have just arrow slits, ballista towers have larger slits with ballistas sticking through them, and cannon towers have large round ports with cannons visible. And they're definitely worth it, I've had siege defense with no losses on my side and 1500 kills on enemy side thanks to cannon towers. But they do make sieges extremely easy. Just have unit or two of heavy cavalry, and when enemy attacks just charge their artillery units (if they have them). This will get their siege equipment moving, but without proper artillery bombardment, any attack against cannon towers is doomed.

[MDCCLXXVI]

IMO improved towers are worth only building along the frontline that you intend to hold and not advance further.

BTW, tower upgrade is recognizeable by weapon ports. Normal towers have just arrow slits, ballista towers have larger slits with ballistas sticking through them, and cannon towers have large round ports with cannons visible. And they're definitely worth it, I've had siege defense with no losses on my side and 1500 kills on enemy side thanks to cannon towers. But they do make sieges extremely easy. Just have unit or two of heavy cavalry, and when enemy attacks just charge their artillery units (if they have them). This will get their siege equipment moving, but without proper artillery bombardment, any attack against cannon towers is doomed.

This.

Even better if you have a small stack of light horse/missile cav deployed in the region, with the sole mission of taking out enemy siege equipment.

[Sicky Mouse]

i only build them in cities that border my enemies but they are well worth the money. towers and crossbowmen on the walls...the attackers are going to take losses.

[Aymer de Valence]

I've never assaulted a city defended by these towers, but I can't imagine what it must be like. A bloody red mess filled with arrow riddled corpses and destroyed siege machinery!

[Redgrave]

Towers are definitely worth it. With 2 highland militia units, and 1 weak archer unit (as well as ballista towers) I routed a full English stack, with the ballista towers winning the day by destroying a siege tower.

[Sicky Mouse]

Towers are definitely worth it. With 2 highland militia units, and 1 weak archer unit (as well as ballista towers) I routed a full English stack, with the ballista towers winning the day by destroying a siege tower.

Luck E

[Kahath]

As everyone in this thread has said prior to me, cannon towers are the #$#%. City towers are a big investment that can really pay off in the long run, the reason being because cannon towers especially can make a city completely impenetrable under certain circumstances as they easily destroy siege towers, rams, and shred enemy units to bits. If you can't take out the cannons from outside of their range, they pretty much make the long haul method(by that I mean laying siege and not attacking for x number of days) of besieging a city the only viable option.