hmmm
i think that 4$ is fair price for a thing with 9 HP and there is no need to reduce it.
though maybe it will be ok to have in MA some primitive stationary defence unit - pill box
not moving price 3 6HP range 2 firepower 2 for example

I used to play an old game on the TurboGFX called "military madness", and it is VERY similar to Massive Assault. There was a simple unit in that game that basically just took up space. It had no firepower and no movement, but once you placed it, it had extremely high defense so it took the enemy several turns to kill it. It was great for putting it in narrow passages and making the enemy waste several turns to kill it while you launched long range attacks from other units. Having a similar unit in MA might be cool - a unit with no movement and no attack, but like 12-15 hitpoints. . . maybe cost $2. Only problem with it that I could forsee would be if you wanted to get rid of it yourself, there is no self destruct feature in MA right now, so that might make things difficult. But then that would be the risks of placing such a unit.

Then again, it would also slow games down, and I don't think I'd like to have slower games. . .

I did that once with a high resource country... My opponent invaded, and left a nice transport with two rocket launchers parked in it 4 spaces away from my border. It was a lot better to get two towers to whack it then use a transport-heavy bot combo or a RL. RLs would be too vulnerable on my border, and I would have had to invade and risk his guerrilla before I could handle it if I used a transport, not to mention leaving my high resource country undefended.

The towers also served as a core to a solid border force as I drove him back out of my country. There's a success story for you!

I have to agree with Coffee and the others that it would be too much to lower the price of the towers.... If so you would have things happening like my story in medium resource countries. I think they're fine as they are.

How about being able to decommision them for 1 or 2 dollars (if they've had no or little damage?) once the battle has moved on? It would make them a lot more attractive to use.

something for thought:

how about if the towers were attatched to a moving thingy and in order to move them they cant fire? (movement 1)

Not a bad idea. Might be kind of cool if we can deploy/undeploy towers. It takes a full turn to deploy or undeploy. That way they are pretty stationary, but can be packed up and moved when the fight moves on. And it would have a better animation than a solid looking tower scooting through some trees

I was thinking of the game Rise of Nationsthis game is a command and conquer one that takes you into the anchiet times to the future. The unit I was reffering to is the catapult (and the later adaptions) is moved around by a mule or car, then takes time to get ready for fire. Kinda like the missle launchers (shouldn't THEY be 3$?)

Oh, yeah... I can imagine this will end up in requests for LOTR-II-style walking trees...

I say it's worth a shot lowering the cost of towers to $3, but to keep the game from becoming *too* defensive, also lower the armor of the tower from 9 to 8 or even 7. That's still a lot of defense, and a lot more reasonable for a $3 pricetag. And since you'd see more of them with the lower price, the lower armor would mean offensive forces could at least have a chance against multiple towers. $6 for 18 armor? Sounds kinda unfair. $6 for 14 armor though... that sounds a little bit better.

Why do you want to change them?

As it is now, the towers do have their uses and the game plays nice.

If their stats are changed, the towers will just get other (probably more) uses and the game will play differently (better or worse).

"If it ain't broken, don't fix it."

(And please don't make them mobile.)

Thats what normal people say! Engineers (and unfortunately Marketing as well) believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet!

While I am a firm believer in tweaking, this is one of the most beautifully balanced games I have ever seen, at least in terms of units. I have watched countless replays, and not one unit dominates, you see every unit combination under the sun in any Medium+ game, and THAT is a very impressive feat.

I like the idea of a pillbox:

stationary, decent defense, low attack, short range, cheap
8/0/1/1/2


Now you might say these would be great to deploy like crazy, but remember you cant move thru their spot, and you cant disband it, and cant move it.

Wouldn't it be much better to simply buy two LAVs for the cost of this pillbox? Combined, they have just as many hit points, are mobile, has twice the firepower, costs the same and may block twice the space. If one LAV gets destroyed you just move the other one into that space and you get effectively 8 HP blocking a spot.

8 HP for 2$ is completely unprecedented. If you have a small border, those things could really make your opponent annoyed. I know I would use them a lot as they are as they could really hold up a border.

Who would even bother trying to kill them? Its almost not worth it. They don't do enough damage to bother them, and are too tough to bring down. For that reason they would be a bastion of defense. Of course for larger borders its much better to have 2 LAVs, but these would be perfect for a small border you are just trying to hold off the enemy at.

Sometimes tower may be bomber-like. It's hard to destroy and long range. They can be used also to protect your airfield when you need bombers to destroy annihilators (against AI, not real players)

It'd be better to make difference from towers. Phantoms could have a 12 HP tower and Free Union towers with range of 5. It could make real difference between sides without destroying the balance.

MA: Phantom Renaissance is going to introduce different units for the two sides.

And a lot of disbalance as well?

Hopefully they'll keep it balanced.

Imo, *most* difference will be because of new pillboxes (even more defensible than LAV) and helicopters (full crazyness). And these are for two sides. Other units do not change much. For example, i do not see now much good in two shot Heavy Bots...