Watch/Scout Tower 550 200
	Guard Tower 500 150
	Cannon Tower 1000 300

Tower	Armor	Damage	Range	Sight	Hit Points
Guard Tower	20	6-16	6	9	130
Cannon Tower	20	10-50	7	9	160

Towers are an offensive siege building, supportive device for land troops and a primary backup defense system when land troops fail to defend the town.

Guard Towers and Cannon Towers Both Have Their Place
You need one tower for one situation and the other for another. it's up to you to make the choice based on what you know and what you need.

Catapults, Demolition Squads and Death Knights Are a Towers Biggest Enemy
Catapults are a big worry in the Town Hall stage. If the enemy brings one in, and you can't stop it, your Tower is gone. A common practice in team games is for one person to make one Catapult and send it in on the enemy's walled-in Tower along with any teammate's army. If the Catapult can't be killed, the enemy usually defeats the walled-in player with that plan. Goblin Sappers become an even bigger worry. So what you have to do is make your Towers sapper resistant. Surround them with walls and farms. Death and Decay/Blizzard is the biggest worry. It can be cast so far away, it's usually a Tower's death.

Towers Are Almost Useless Unless Walled In
An un walled in Tower is a dead Tower. Towers can be easily directly assaulted with Footmen and Knights. They can also be destroyed easily by Demolition Squads quite easily and that's what people will most likely do. A Guard Tower can be distracted allowing the Demolition Squad 6 level 1 Footmen can rush and kill quite a few un walled-in Towers... even Cannon Towers. So if you plan on making any Towers, wall them in using either walls, farms and/or buildings.

Properly Wall in Towers
Towers should be surrounded by Farms. While walls sometimes work, they can be broken through pretty quickly since they only have 40 hit points. If you do use walls, try to place two layers of walls. Be warned however, Footmen or Knights can get through one set of walls pretty quickly.

Towers Reign Supreme Only Early On
Towers become increasingly easy to kill as the game progresses. Early in the game Catapults are the big enemy however Catapults take a long time to make and can easily be destroyed. The danger from Catapults is usually pretty remote in the Town hall Stage. Once Goblin Sappers are available, Towers are quite easily destroyed. Goblin Sappers are much more deadly then Catapults since they are fast. Once Blizzard is researched, Towers are virtually useless unless you can keep the Mages away from them. Towers are best used early on in the game, for offensive towering, and both defensively and offensively on water maps.

Make it costly to use Goblin Sappers and Demolition Squads
Once Goblin Sappers are available build walls around them so that it costs the enemy more resources to kill a Tower then they are willing to spend. Your goal is for the enemy to think: "That is too hard to destroy, I'll pick an easier target."

If the Tower is surrounded by walls, the enemy has to waste a Goblin Sapper on walls. This is a great trade for you as walls are very cheap.

Refer to Preventing Goblin Sapper and Demolition Squad Damage.

Quickly Plug Up Holes
If you see a Demolition Squad coming for your Towers, place a Peon right by them. If the enemy blows up a Farm around the Tower, build another right in it's place. If the enemy tries to attack the Farm that is plugging up the recent hole, attack your enemy's backs with Grunts or Ogres.

Also prevent Peons from chopping away the trees around the Tower. If that happens, quickly fill up the holes with walls or Farms.

Towers Are Best Used a Secondary Defense System Not a Primary Defense System
While Towers can prevent early rushes, they cannot become the primary defense of the town. One Catapult can kill a town full of Towers if there are no units such as Footmen to defend the Town. Once the game reaches the Keep or Stronghold phase it becomes easier to kill Towers with Demolition Squads. At the Castle or Fortress stage, Blizzards and Death and Decay make Towers virtually useless except on water maps, and in situations where you can block Mages and Death Knights from reaching the Towers. Towers need to be your backup system for when your land forces are defeated. Build enough troops to kill any Catapult that would come. To be offensive you need to build large land forces with just few Towers for defense.

Place Towers By Peasants and Peons Mining Gold

A Tower by your peons does one thing, it give the enemy something to attack giving you time to get forces there to repulse the attack.

If the enemy here attacks the Peasants, the Towers will cut them apart. If they attack the Towers place a lot of Peasants around the Towers and repair them until the attacking units die.

Fight By the Towers If Possible
Try to do all the fighting by your Towers. If you are about to be attacked, rather than going out to meet the incoming enemy try to bait them back to within range of your Towers so that they can provide extra hits on the enemy.

Also, if the enemy tries to bait you into their Towers, make hit and run attacks with several units to bait the enemy away from their Towers. If they are not on attack ground they will be forced to follow out of the protection of their Towers.

Guard Towers have a place in the game but much less than Cannons. Their main strength is their ability to fire at Flying Machines, and Dragons especially, and they do not miss and are cheap compared to Cannon Towers.

Strengths of Guard Towers

Guard Towers Are Cheap
It only costs 550 Gold and 150 Lumber to upgrade them.

Guard Towers Never Miss
Guard Towers never miss. They sometimes fire at stuff you don't want them too but do not miss.

Guard Towers Hit Flying Units
Guard Towers can hit Gryphons and Flying machines.

Guard Towers Scare Flying Machines Away
Most people do and should run away when their Flying Machines are hit by Guard Towers. This sometimes keeps enemy Flying Machines away from the town in the future. Many People don't want to return to a town protected by Guard Towers.

Towers Hit Gryphons and Dragons
Although an experienced Gryphon controller will not be damaged much by Towers, for those people who don't know what to do, Towers kill Gryphons.

Guard Towers Do Not Do a Lot of Damage Unsupported
Guard Towers are not able to prevent large groups of enemies from attacking. Against large forces, they often are simply an annoyance to the enemy. If you can repair them or prevent the enemy from reaching them, eventually they will destroy their targets but Cannon Towers are best used against large land forces.

Cannon Towers are used to protect Peasants mining and to fend of early Footmen attacks. Their main strength is in their massive damage.

Strength of Cannon Towers

Cannon Towers Do Serious Damage
Cannon Towers can destroy large attacking armies using splash damage, and intense direct damage given enough time. That's something you don't see with Guard Towers. Cannon Towers can take large groups of Footmen. This is the main strength of the Cannon tower over the Guard tower.

Cannon Towers Are Expensive
Guard Towers cost 550 Gold, 150 Lumber to upgrade. Cannon Towers are 1000 Gold, 300 Lumber. You can almost upgrade two Guard Towers for the price of upgrading one Cannon Tower.

Cannons Towers can't easily Hit Goblin Sappers or Demolition Squads
Cannon Towers overshoot Goblin Sappers because they have an area attack. Once they have fired, Goblin Sappers can quickly move out of the way. Guard Towers, however, if not distracted, will hit Goblin Sappers.

Cannons Towers Often Cannot Hit Close Targets
Cannon Towers need the enemy to be about a Peasant distance (1X1) away before they can hit. While they can do some splash damage, it is often not enough to kill units attacking the Tower.

Cannons Towers Can Be Killed By Gryphons
Because Cannon Towers cannot fire at air targets the enemy can use a few Gryphons to clean out large numbers of Cannon Towers.

Cannons Towers Miss
Cannon Towers over shoot the enemy like Battleships, and Catapults.

These Peons are safe because the Cannon Tower is there to back them up. However it will only take one Goblin Sapper to destroy the Farm blocking the Peons in.

This Formation is easily set up by one Peon. Be warned that walls are much easier to break through than Farms.

The Nate Formation
Here is a formation pioneered by {{NaTe}}

Nate Formation Animated Gif
[ 318 KB ] by AragornSr

The walls make it more difficult to use Goblin Sappers on the formation.

[ Click to Enlarge - 25 KB ] Sometimes you can build a Tower in such a way that the Peon pops into a safe zone. Here the Peon can repair the Tower yet no melee unit can reach him.	[ Click to Enlarge - 56 KB ] Towers from one ally are built all around the town on Friends.

[ Click to Enlarge - 50 KB ] This player made the mistake of trying to go for Footman AND a NaTe formation at the same time. Jack of all trades, master of none. By heading down both paths, this player was caught without a Guard Tower, and did not have Footmen.	[ Click to Enlarge - 61 KB ] 3 Footmen destroy an enemy, this shouldn't happen if they're playing correctly. Either go for quick Footmen or quickly build a Guard Tower for defenses. Trying both at the same time is very risky.

[ Click to Enlarge - 58 KB ] This player improperly walled in their Tower. Farms should be placed around the Tower so that the Footmen cannot reach it on the first pass. The Cannon Tower only has 160 hit points which is much easier to destroy than a Farm with armor and 400.	[ Click to Enlarge - 42 KB ] It didn't take long to break into this sloppy wallin.

Towers work great for defense, by why not use them offensively? Early on players discovered that Towers can actually be used as siege weapons, and with much more effectiveness than Catapults. While Catapults have long range and deal more damage, Towers can be repaired and kept alive for much longer. When training Catapults, Barracks are unable to train Footmen, but when using Towers Barracks can continue to build Footmen while building and using Towers at the same time.

To use this strategy you need a Lumber Mill for Guard Towers. Once you have that, you only need to find the enemy. Be sure to avoid the enemy spotting your scouting maneuver. Usually Peons will scout rather than Footmen because they are available sooner.

Use Guard Towers for Offensive Towering
Guard Towers are less expensive, do not miss, and are able to fire on targets attacking the Tower while Peons repair it.

While Cannon Towers do more damage, only use Cannon Towers if they are supported by Footmen or Guard Towers.

Tower the Gold Mine
The best place to Tower is by the enemy's Gold Mine. If you are able to put a Tower there and get it operational before the enemy notices you can kill all of the Peons mining Gold before they can do anything about it. Experienced players watch out for this strategy so it will not work on everyone.

Tower Your Way In
A strategy that works on a many players is the "Tower your way in" strategy. Place a Tower a little distance outside of the enemy town. Upgrade it to a Guard Tower, then build another Tower closer to the enemy. The first Tower will cover and fire on anyone trying to attack the new Tower while it is building and upgrading short of the enemy using Catapults. Once that Tower is complete keep building Towers closer and closer into the enemy town until you can start hitting buildings and eventually get a Tower firing on the enemy Peons mining Gold. When the enemy attacks the Towers repair them. If the enemy tries to attack the Peons repairing them, run with the Peons in circles around the Tower. The Tower will fire on the units pursuing the Peon. If the enemy goes back to attacking the Tower again, move the Peon back into position and repair the Tower while it is being attack. Repeat the cycle if the enemy attempts to attack the Peon again. The enemy may be frustrated by this strategy but it does work and work well.

Footmen Support
While building Towers send Footmen to protect the Towers. If you get in trouble, take the Footmen and run circles around the Towers letting the Towers fire on the pursuing enemy units.

Teammate Support
This strategy works even better with support from a teammate. The teammate can send a group of Footmen for support or build Towers of their own to help you pull this strategy off.

Early Game Strategy
This strategy is really more of an opening game strategy than something you will use later on in the game. While it might work at poorly defended enemy expansion towns you will find most players are able to easily stop this in the later part of the game. The reason this strategy is so effective early on is due to the enemy's lack of options and counters to stop it. Although they can use Catapults, often the enemy does not build Catapults which you can use to your advantage. After the enemy has Bloodlust, Goblin Sappers, Blizzard, it's time to give up this strategy except on expansion towns.

Offensive Tower defense
The enemy can do quite a few things to defeat offensive Towers.

Stop Offensive Towering Before It Starts
The enemy should be making regular patrols around their village to ensure that no such strategies are being attempted. Often when attempting Offensive Towering against very skilled players they will find the Tower before it is able to upgrade to a Guard Tower stopping the strategy before it starts.

Overwhelm Them With Footmen
If the enemy is able to get enough Footmen, they can easily destroy the Towers.

Catapults
If they are able to build a Catapult they can hit the Guard Towers from range. It is rare however that the enemy will build or have a Catapult around to stop this strategy.

Goblin Sappers and Death & Decay
Offensive Towering is really only effective early in the game. Once the enemy has Sappers and Blizzard, they can easily put a stop to this strategy.

[ Click to Enlarge - 56 KB ] A Tower is placed so that it can hit all enemy Peons trying to Mine Gold. It is important to place it out of the view of the enemy yet still within range. The most dangerous time will be the process of upgrading from a Watch Tower to a Guard Tower. If the Tower is attacked use the Peon to Repair.	[ Click to Enlarge - 62 KB ] One player chops close to the enemy mine and builds a Tower so that it can hit the enemy Peons mining on the other side of the Trees. That player should have had a Tower of their own protecting or should quickly build a Catapult to destroy the Tower.

Listed below is the order in which the AI will attack land units, followed by sea units. Included are those units which attack, Peons, Transports, and buildings shouldn't make any difference. Some have the same priority.

1. Catapult/Ballista
2. Mage/Death Knight
3. Gryphon/Dragon
4. Paladin/Ogre Mage
5. Knights/Ogre
6. Footman/Grunts
7. Ranger/Berserker
8. Archer/Axe thrower

1. Destroyer
2. Battleship/Juggernaught
3. Sub/Turtle

This is the order in which the AI will usually attack units, though it may not always be the case.