Milkshaker replied to So the nightly visits have began March 27, 2023 @ 4:16:37 am PDT
To elaborate on what has been said: Ground walls & trenches are the 101 go-to defense for a reason (two actually), being
- Trenches are for free, all you need is a pickaxe. They cost no building mats! (Actually, the digging yields half the stone you need to raise a wall of same height, so the basic trench & ground wall combo almost pays for itself.)
- Enemies can't damage or destroy ground. (Trolls can melee-swing through it, but at zero damage to the ground wall, so it permanently keeps them at distance.)
Note with the ground walls, it's not so much the height as the **steepness** angle that makes the terrain impassable for enemies. Enemies can walk over a curved hill. That's why people raise a wall and dig next to it, to get that sharp, defined near-vertical angle. You can stop or trap a troll with a ground wall as high as only 2 meters, if it's just steep enough.
Likewise, enemies avoid steep cliffs, so their pathfinding will avoid entering trenches. (Even if they do fall in, they're trapped because steep wall). This means, the trenches keep them away from the wall, which makes it much easier to aim+hit them with bow+arrows. (Shooting the bow downward at near-vertical angle is messy and awkward, the crosshair is way off.)
So you see a lot of synergies there. For all those reasons combined, popular basic defense is: raise a 2 meter ground wall, dig a 2 meter trench around it.
Boom anything too close will be trapped in front of an impassable indestructible 4m incline, while you conveniently pick away at the dummies confused by your trench.
Combine that with two ramps (one to jump from, one to land on) so you can jump over the trench in both directions (in and out of your base) - enemies can't jump, so you basically have a bridge with a gap.
Personally, I like to still put palisades on top (look & feel, spare wood, and protection from ranged attacks later), and thatch roofs in wall corners, so I have rainproof archery platforms to shoot over the palisades.
EDIT: The troll swing attack has a range of ~6 meters, so if he gets inside your trench or to your wall... keep a safety padding of 6 meters behind your palisades, and don't build your piece-of-art home inside the "danger zone" ;) I just put stuff like my wood storage or crop cultivation strip there, easy to rebuild and no harm done should a troll smash a few carrots planted.
- Trenches are for free, all you need is a pickaxe. They cost no building mats! (Actually, the digging yields half the stone you need to raise a wall of same height, so the basic trench & ground wall combo almost pays for itself.)
- Enemies can't damage or destroy ground. (Trolls can melee-swing through it, but at zero damage to the ground wall, so it permanently keeps them at distance.)
Note with the ground walls, it's not so much the height as the **steepness** angle that makes the terrain impassable for enemies. Enemies can walk over a curved hill. That's why people raise a wall and dig next to it, to get that sharp, defined near-vertical angle. You can stop or trap a troll with a ground wall as high as only 2 meters, if it's just steep enough.
Likewise, enemies avoid steep cliffs, so their pathfinding will avoid entering trenches. (Even if they do fall in, they're trapped because steep wall). This means, the trenches keep them away from the wall, which makes it much easier to aim+hit them with bow+arrows. (Shooting the bow downward at near-vertical angle is messy and awkward, the crosshair is way off.)
So you see a lot of synergies there. For all those reasons combined, popular basic defense is: raise a 2 meter ground wall, dig a 2 meter trench around it.
Boom anything too close will be trapped in front of an impassable indestructible 4m incline, while you conveniently pick away at the dummies confused by your trench.
Combine that with two ramps (one to jump from, one to land on) so you can jump over the trench in both directions (in and out of your base) - enemies can't jump, so you basically have a bridge with a gap.
Personally, I like to still put palisades on top (look & feel, spare wood, and protection from ranged attacks later), and thatch roofs in wall corners, so I have rainproof archery platforms to shoot over the palisades.
EDIT: The troll swing attack has a range of ~6 meters, so if he gets inside your trench or to your wall... keep a safety padding of 6 meters behind your palisades, and don't build your piece-of-art home inside the "danger zone" ;) I just put stuff like my wood storage or crop cultivation strip there, easy to rebuild and no harm done should a troll smash a few carrots planted.
5:13 pm, March 27, 2023