Our ladders on the ground do not stop cav, it just stops them from couching and slows them down.
It slows cav down to to almost a complete stop taking away there biggest advantage. Now you need mayb 1-2 pikers to lock your entire spawn down because they get way longer to react.
Every big field battle results in the defense laddering the ground around their spawn, by their archers, and on their blindsides.. They then proceed to camp the spawn and average 1.5:1 kd or more with minimal strategy until the attacker spawn is nearly double the defense.
Not exactly my idea of a good strategy game. Shit defense tactics that results in an easy win every time for them, and it is mostly because of insta-defense from ladders. Although the attacking sidesi have been in against heavy ladder use have been very poorly managed and none of them forward spawned, however if attacker cav cant kill enemy archers or infantry because of 15 gold ladders (And in every battle all i could was cav v cav against enemies trying to couch spawn) the defense will still roll a much higher KD and just push out when their timers are 30+ and destroy the forward spawns.
Im not saying defense shouldnt be able to better their positions, but ladders are way to OP for the cost, and they make the gameplay shit.
I feel that as of right now, open field shiny v shiny is the worst situation for attackers. I would list them from easiest to hardest:
Village-town-castle-open field
Now obviously some castles are OP, but with the exception of wooden castles, every castle can be shot up and many are just terrible. Once the offense gets a breach point, the KD ratios instantly turn in favor of offense, and taking back walls that attackers have breached is a death trap. I wish there was data around to show the stats of each "even" geared castle battle. I know in the 7 or so hospi/tkov bulugha seiges last strat the results were always within 200 tickets when they could breach walls. (1500 vs castle) we would start out doing very strong, walls get breached it turns in their favor.
The open field battles since the new timer? Always huge slaughters in favor of defense. I feel cav and archers are the main factors for this, and they are ineffective for attackers. Defense cav rack up tons of spawn kills/ open field behind the back NA 1 style lancings. Destroy archers as well. Offensive cav cant touch these defensive ladder forts->archers->infantry
Unlike every type of seige, offense cant do any flanking and defense gets to see their every move. So with infantry being equal, a clash of attacker infantry vs defender infantry results in a 1:1 KD with equal numbers. Offense never clashes with equal numbers because of ranged/cav, the result: defense gets a much betterKD then 1:1 and that coupled with the constant cav spawn rape, defense is flirting with a 2:1 which with the spawn timers is auto win for defense.
There are no cav in castles and once the walls are breached archers are way less effective for defense. Not mention you can raid a castle.
I guess what im getting at is ladders ruin open field battles because of how they destroy 1 class for 1 side, a class designed for open field. If we are going to allow this, they need to way more expensive. To me strat battles should be won with strategy, something that requires more then spawn camping with ladders until your opponent spawns twice as slow as you.