“ | Wooden Wall that is cheap and easy to build. Slows down your enemies and warns you of their approach. | ” |
—Age of Empires II description |
The Palisade Wall is a wall in Age of Empires II. It is rather fragile but cheap and useful for early defense and tactical maneuvers.
Tactics and placement[]
Palisade Walls are helpful to perform a turtling strategy in the early game or to counter a Militia rush. Later on, they will fall off in utility and should be replaced with the much more effective Stone Walls if the player wishes to maintain their defenses. Palisade Walls do not cost any stone, which can greatly help the player get their first Castle or more Town Centers up quickly, as well as making them less committal.
Many rushing tactics can be improved if the player sends some Villagers to support the rush and builds Palisade Walls around critically important resources (like gold), blocking them from the enemy Villagers, though this comes with the risk of the Villager getting killed by the enemy's military. If the player performs a tower rush, Palisade Walls can become a useful tool to complement it by surrounding and protecting the rushing towers as they have minimum range before Murder Holes is researched that can be exploited by Feudal Age melee units such as Men-at-Arms. Palisade Walls may also be used to surround opponent's military production buildings, such as Barracks or Archery Ranges, to prevent those buildings from releasing their units outside.
Players with good micro skills use Palisade Walls for "quickwalling", which consists of defending Villagers that are away from the Town Center and being attacked by melee raiders by quickly placing Palisade Wall foundations and building each one up slightly, in order to make an enclosure that will either protect the Villager or trap the attackers in an enclosure of buildings. Preemptively making the fewest necessary number of walls around Villagers near resources and drop-off sites, such as Gold Mines and Mining Camps respectively, to counter melee raids, is also common to make the most efficient use of resources and time, and is called "small walling".
On densely forested maps, most prominently Black Forest, narrow paths divide the teams. Therefore, players often try to build Palisade Walls in the narrow points very early on in the game, sometimes driving the early game into a "walling war".
Further statistics[]
Unit strengths and weaknesses | |
---|---|
Strong vs. | Nothing |
Weak vs. | Everything except Monks |
Technologies | |
Hit points | Great Wall (+30%, Chinese only) |
Construction speed | Treadmill Crane (+20%) |
Civilization bonuses[]
- Byzantines: Palisade Walls have +10%/+20%/+30%/+40% hit points in the Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.
- Chinese: Technologies that benefit Palisade Walls are 10%/15% cheaper in the Castle/Imperial Age.
- Italians: Treadmill Crane is 33% cheaper.
- Georgians: Palisade Walls receive -20% damage (-40% instead of -25%) when fighting from higher elevation.
- Romans: Palisade Walls are built and repaired 5% faster.
- Sicilians: Palisade Walls are built 50% faster.
- Spanish: Palisade Walls are built 30% faster. Receive 20 gold after researching Treadmill Crane.
Team bonuses[]
- Cumans: Palisade Walls have +33% hit points.
- Georgians: Repairing Palisade Walls costs 25% fewer resources.
- Malians: Researching Treadmill Crane is 80% faster.
- Mayans: Palisade Walls are 50% cheaper (rounded up to 2 wood per segment).
- Portuguese: Technologies that benefit Palisade Walls are researched 25% faster.
Changelog[]
The Age of Kings[]
- Palisade Walls take 5 seconds to build.
- Palisade Walls have 2 pierce armor.
- Palisade Walls have 250 hit points regardless of the Age.
- Palisade Walls cost 2 wood.
- Palisade Walls under construction have same armor as fully constructed Palisade Walls.
The Conquerors[]
- With patch 1.0b, Palisade Walls have 5 pierce armor.
The Forgotten[]
- Palisade Walls take 6 seconds to build.
- Palisade Gate introduced.
- Chinese: Great Wall introduced.
- Koreans: Palisade Walls are built 33% faster.
Definitive Edition[]
- Cumans: Team bonus: Palisade Walls have +50% hit points.
- Koreans: Palisade Walls are no longer built 33% faster.
- With update 42848, Palisade Walls take 7 seconds to build.
- With update 42848, Palisade Walls under construction have 0/5 armor.
- With update 44725, Palisade Walls have 150 hit points before the Feudal Age.
Lords of the West[]
- Cumans: Team bonus: With update 47820, Palisade Walls have +33% hit points.
Dawn of the Dukes[]
- With update 56005, Palisade Walls cost 3 wood.
History[]
“ | Barbarian tribes were migrating across Europe during the Dark Ages, being displaced by other migrations from the East and searching for land to settle. Warrior bands roamed the landscape seeking plunder. In these turbulent times, defensive precautions were taken. Villages were fortified with palisades --- walls built of wood. Although stone walls were preferable, wood was abundant and easy to use, and a palisade could be erected in a fraction of the time a stone wall would take. At night the villagers would bring all their livestock, goods, and tools inside the palisade for protection. | ” |
Trivia[]
- A piece of Palisade Wall has two appearances. The default appearance of a wall piece changes to a middle section wall piece if that piece is joined by another Palisade Wall piece/Palisade Gate on the opposite sides.
- The cut technology Revetments upgraded Palisade Walls into Fortified Palisade Walls.