Towers are an important tool in a good player's repertoire. Players should learn what Towers can do for them and how they can use them effectively.

Tower Concepts

Towers Reign Supreme Only Early On
Towers become increasingly easy to kill as the game progresses. Early in the game Demolishers, Glaive Throwers, Mortar Teams, and Meat Wagons are the big enemy. Later on Goblin Sappers, Blizzard, Earthquake, Death and Decay, Flame Strike, Stampede, Tornado, and Starfall can quickly clear towers. Towers are best used early on in the game, for offensive towering, or to help support troops when you have a lot of money and a large army.

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 Demolisher can kill a town full of Towers if there are no units such as Footmen, Grunts, Ghouls, Archers or Huntresses to defend the Town. Towers need to be your backup system for when your forces are defeated or when your forces can use some help.

Towers can provide auxiliary damage
Towers can help provide additional damage to enemy units to help you and your allies' troops. This additional damage can often turn the tide of battle in your favor and force the enemy to run away.

Towers scare people away
Towers often scare away even experienced players. Many players doubt their ability to take on towers without siege weapons and retreat even though they could easily defeat the towers if they just attacked. Towers can also sometimes prevent enemy players from scouting your town because the enemy does not wish to risk being hit by towers.

Towers provide additional sight or Invisibility Detection
Towers can sometimes extend your sight radius. Human Towers can also be upgraded so that they can detect invisible units, especially when facing Undead who might use Shades.

Towers take the focus off of valuable buildings or workers
Enemy players typically focus all of their attention first on destroying your towers rather than on attacking your army, Town Hall, or workers. Since your towers are designed for combat, this is exactly what you want. Without towers the enemy would be immediately attacking your workers, Town Hall, or other valuable buildings.

Towers provide extra time and defense while you're away
You cannot defend your town with your army all of the time. Warcraft III requires a lot of offense so your troops are typically not defending your base. If you are attacked you need something to delay the enemy until you can get back to defend your base. That's where towers come in.

The enemy will typically attack your towers first. While they are spending their time attacking your towers you can teleport back to your Town Hall or walk there from your current location. This additional time can often be all you need to return to your town and defend it while not taking any serious damage. When facing both an army and towers the enemy might run away or be destroyed by both your army and towers. Having towers around also might also give you additional time to request help from your allies as well. Without towers your town will be taking serious damage right from the start of the battle.

Towers can hit air units and sometimes save armies
Towers can often save your town against air units. Sometimes players are attacked by air units when they only have melee units which cannot touch air units. They can run back to towers and use those towers to save themselves from those air units.

Without towers you will find your towns and expansion towns are easily taken before you can defend them. You might also find it difficult to defend your bases even if you're able to respond quickly. Build towers to try to prevent that from happening.

Control them during Battle
When a battle starts, double click on a tower, or group select them and instruct them all to fire on the same target. Pick units that are already almost dead. You might consider attacking a Hero if it is already damaged but you might have more success picking regular units since they have less hit points and the enemy is less likely to be controlling them. You can use command queuing to set up an order of targets the towers should attack.

Back each other up
Place towers near each other so that they can protect each other. If you build them close enough, all your towers can fire at any melee or short ranged units which are attacking one of the towers. You should probably put some space in-between the towers because otherwise they might be easily killed by Blizzard, Earthquake, Death and Decay, Goblin Sappers, and Starfall.

Surround Towers with buildings
"Wall-in" your towers by surrounding them with buildings whenever possible. This will make it more difficult for enemy melee units to reach the towers.

Don't Go Tower Crazy
Newbie players often build way too many towers. Keep in mind that towers are easily killed by Demolishers, Glaive Throwers, Mortar Teams, Siege Engines, and Meat Wagons. You should only consider building a lot of towers when you have a huge army, are at the 80 unit high upkeep number, and have a lot of money. The exception can be in team games where other allies can back your towers up. Don't build so many towers that your army is neglected.

Fight By the Towers Whenever 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 hold position they will be forced to follow out of the protection of their Towers.

Repair Towers While They Are Being Attacked
Towers survive much longer when they are repaired during an attack. If the enemy attacks the workers repairing, run the workers away then return after they are no longer being targeted.

[ Click to Enlarge - 272 KB ] Several Wisps repair Ancient Protectors while they are being attacked.

Offensive Towers

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

Offensive Towering was very common early on but less so in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne because of changes to Towers.

In order to tower offensively, you must first find the enemy. Early in the game, players should send workers to locate the enemy. In some games, you might be able to figure out where the enemy is by comparing how many players the map supports to how many are playing the game. After you have spotted the enemy town, be sure to not give away your plan. Sneak outside the town, build several towers, and then tower your way in. Support your towers with workers to repair and combat units. In team games, use your allies to help defend the towers.

[ Click to Enlarge - 268 KB ] A Night Elf player moves an Ancient Protector to an enemy expansion then Roots it, attacking the enemy Great Hall.

Human players should use Guard Towers for Offensive Towering
Guard Towers are less expensive and do not miss.

Orc players can use either Orc Burrows or Watch Tower
Usually it's better to use Watch Towers since they have armor but Orc Burrows can be useful because the Peons can retreat into the Burrow when hurt then pop out again when it's safe to repair.

[ Click to Enlarge - 106 KB ] An Orc player towers into a Human town.

Tower Your Way In
A strategy that works on 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, unless the enemy is using Demolishers or other long-range siege weapons. Once that Tower is complete keep building Towers closer and closer to 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 attacked. 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.

Early Unit Support
While building Towers send Footmen, Ghouls, Grunts, or Archers/Huntresses to protect the Towers. If you get in trouble, take the combat units 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 Demolishers, often the enemy does not build Demolishers which you can use to your advantage. After the enemy has Demolishers it's time to give up this strategy if you cannot kill them.

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

Stop Offensive Towering Before It Starts
Players should be making regular patrols around their town 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.

Use your Hero, early Barracks units, and your workers to attack the towers. Try to kill the workers so they cannot repair the towers.

Build a Tower in your town so the enemy can't build towers any closer to your town. While Orc Towers have more range, this can still help you.

[ Click to Enlarge - 113 KB ] A Wisp scouts for Offensive Towers.

Siege Weapons
Build up to Demolishers, Glaive Throwers, Mortar Teams, or Meat Wagons to fire at the towers from range. This can be difficult to do since it takes a while to upgrade and train those units. In team games your best option is to have your ally help save you.

Attack their Town
People who offensive tower usually have nothing defending their town. Send your Hero and combat units over there and take over their town.

Races
Usually it's Humans and Orcs that offensive tower. Orcs offensive tower more than other races so expect it when playing Orcs. It's very unlikely to happen from Night Elves, and least likely to be done by Undead.

[ Click to Enlarge - 240 KB ] TillerMan builds several Towers and holds his army outside of an enemy town.	[ Click to Enlarge - 269 KB ] Once TillerMan's towers are complete he uses Demolishers to bomb the enemy base from afar.