Bombard Tower

"Powerful attack with extensive line of sight. Attack bonus vs. ships."

- Age of Empires II description

The Bombard Tower is a gunpowder tower in Age of Empires II that becomes available once the Imperial Age is reached and the Bombard Tower technology is researched. The Bombard Tower has an extremely powerful attack, but its projectiles travel quite slowly.

Tactics and Placement
Towers are an essential part of any kind of fortification. Bombard Towers are very useful and valuable for defending the player's settlement against enemy raiding parties, and can tackle heavily armored and well rounded units, unlike the regular Towers. Turtling strategies becomes more successful with the inclusion of Bombard Towers among regular Towers and Castles in order to create a strong fortification. When going for a Wonder or Relic win, Bombard Towers are very valuable when included in the defensive structures.

Bombard Towers should be placed in choke points to make them more effective or behind cliffs or forests. They work better if placed within the range of each other, within the range of regular Towers or within the range of a friendly Castle since those buildings will provide cover fire for each other. Using Walls protects them to some extent from Rams, but against Rams, the help of melee units is needed. In maps like Archipelago and Islands it is a wise idea to have several Bombard Towers near the shore line in order to take down potentially dangerous enemy fleets and give some support to the player's own fleet near the coast.

Offensively, Bombard Towers can also be used for front line support as in a retreat they can garrison troops that can be healed and it also provides cover fire for buildings like Barracks, Stables, Archery Ranges, or Siege Workshops if they are placed near an enemy town. In this regard they are better than a Castle since they are cheaper and are created quicker, while also featuring a high attack. Bombard Towers can even be used like a siege support building, if a player is attacking an enemy location they can take some Villagers to create several Bombard Towers outside and around the opponents fortifications in order to take them down with the support of units.

A Bombard Tower has 120 attack, enough to one-hit-kill any infantry or archer and two-hit-kill any other unit that isn't an Elephant, Ram, or Turtle Ship. However, they can be outranged by Trebuchets, Cannon Galleons, and Bombard Cannons. So essentially, these three units and the aforementioned Rams are the only units Bombard Towers have to really fear.

Elite Longbowmen also outrange Bombard Towers, but deal very little damage and are a much smaller threat.

Turkish Bombard Towers have an extra long range and can only be outranged by Trebuchets, Elite Cannon Galleons, and Turkish Bombard Cannons, making them even harder to deal with.

Civilization Bonuses

 * Byzantines: Bombard Towers have +40% HP. Town Watch is free.
 * Chinese: Technologies that benefits Bombard Towers are 20% cheaper.
 * Koreans: Bombard Tower is free. Bombard Towers are built.
 * Spanish: Bombard Towers are built 30% faster.
 * Teutons: Bombard Towers can garrison up to 10 units. Murder Holes is free.
 * Turks: The Bombard Tower technology is 50% cheaper. Chemistry is free.

Team Bonuses

 * A team containing Ethiopians: Bombard Towers have +3 Line of Sight.
 * A team containing Malians: University technologies that benefit Bombard Towers are researched 80% faster.

The Age of Kings

 * Bombard Towers deal melee damage.
 * Bombard Towers have an attack bonus of +7 against camels because they share an armor class with ships.

The Conquerors

 * Bombard Towers now deal pierce damage. Even though is does not make much of a difference in many cases, it is of utmost importance since now they have to fear Rams.
 * Herbal Medicine introduced.
 * Heresy introduced.
 * Turks: Artillery introduced.

The Forgotten

 * Chinese: Great Wall introduced.
 * Koreans: Bombard Towers are now built 25% faster.

The African Kingdoms

 * Camels are moved out of the ship armor class, and the Watch Towers lose their attack bonus against them. They now have +1 attack against them.

Trivia

 * The Aztecs and Mayans do not have access to Bombard Towers. Thus, there was no design for the Native American Bombard Tower in The Conquerors and if given a Bombard Tower in the Scenario Editor (or via the Full Tech Tree), it would have the Central European look. If a game like this was started, it would not load or the game would crash completely. That was fixed in The Forgotten, and the Native American civilizations got their own Bombard Tower.
 * Bombard Towers usually fire one cannonball. Teutonic Bombard Towers can garrison up to 10 units, and garrisoning 10 Hand Cannoneers gives the Bombard Tower a second projectile. If 10 Elite Janissaries are garrisoned, even three cannonballs are fired.

History
"By the end of the Middle Ages the development of cannon had changed military engineering by making standard castles obsolete. Their high vertical walls were particularly susceptible to direct cannon fire aimed at their base. Military engineers responded by building new structures that were less susceptible to cannon fire and by mounting cannon within these structures to augment their defensive positions along coasts, at important river crossings, and at other strategic points. These new bombard towers swept the approaches to harbors and towns, making them more difficult to attack."