Traps

Wood Spikes

Sharpened stakes set in the approach at a horse's chest height. Laid against the charge.

Entity ID: spikes
Punishes: Cavalry — and nothing else
Kills per armed trap (tier 0): 3
Kills per armed trap (tier 10): 13
Traps laid per invested tier: 5
Traps laid at tier 10: 50
Disarmed by: Siege only — each siege unit clears 2 of these before the battle proper
Siege needed to disarm a full tier-10 lay: 25 siege units

How Wood Spikes resolve

Traps bite before the battle proper, and they bite one troop type only. Wood Spikes punish cavalry: each trap still armed when the host arrives kills its quota of them, spread across that type's tiers from the lowest up. Siege is the only answer — every siege unit in the attacking host disarms 2 traps of each type before anything is triggered — which is why a smart assault on a trapped keep brings engines, and why a defender who sees siege in an inbound host knows their wall is about to be read correctly.

The tier ladder

Each of the three trap types is raised independently through 10 tiers. A tier both lays more of them and makes each one hit harder — 5 extra traps and one extra kill per trap, per tier — so the investment compounds rather than merely widening.

Wood Spikes: what each tier lays, what it kills, and what it costs to reach.
Tier	Traps laid	Kills per trap	Kills if all stay armed	Wood	Stone	Iron
0	0	3	0	—	—	—
1	5	4	20	150	150	100
2	10	5	50	225	225	150
3	15	6	90	338	338	225
4	20	7	140	506	506	338
5	25	8	200	759	759	506
6	30	9	270	1,139	1,139	759
7	35	10	350	1,709	1,709	1,139
8	40	11	440	2,563	2,563	1,709
9	45	12	540	3,844	3,844	2,563
10	50	13	650	5,767	5,767	3,844

The free ramparts your Keep already gives you

Before any tier investment, the Keep itself lays traps of all three types — one per Keep level, capped at twelve. Those are free, they are laid whether you think about them or not, and they are what a raider without siege actually runs into.

Free wood spikes from the Keep alone, and what they kill.
Keep level	Free wood spikes	Cavalry killed (no siege present)
1	1	3
5	5	15
10	10	30
12	12	36
20	12	36
30	12	36
45	12	36

What cavalry are worth killing

Cavalry are the charge — twice infantry's speed and the largest carrying capacity of the field types, bought with the thinnest defense on the field. They beat infantry and lose to archers. Stakes set at a horse's chest are the oldest answer there is.

A trap's value is the host it removes before a single blow is struck, and losses are spread across the target type's tiers from the lowest up — so the first thing your wood spikes eat is the cheapest cavalry in the column, and the last is the most expensive.

Cavalry at every tier: what a trap is taking off the field.
Tier	Rank	Attack	Defense	Health	Load	Power
T1	Levy	16	8	24	35	5
T2	Footman	20	10	30	44	6
T3	Man-at-Arms	25	13	38	55	8
T4	Veteran	31	16	47	68	10
T5	Sergeant	39	20	59	85	12
T6	Guardsman	49	24	73	107	15
T7	Knight	61	31	92	134	19
T8	Vanguard	76	38	114	167	24
T9	Champion	95	48	143	209	30
T10	Warlord	119	60	179	261	37
T11	Myrmidon	149	75	224	326	47
T12	Paragon	186	93	279	407	58
T13	Legend	233	116	349	509	73

Power removed by a full tier-10 lay of wood spikes (50 traps × 13 kills), against cavalry of each tier.
Tier of the attacker's column	Cavalry killed	Power removed	Health removed
T1 — Levy	650	3,250	15,600
T4 — Veteran	650	6,500	30,550
T7 — Knight	650	12,350	59,800
T10 — Warlord	650	24,050	116,350
T13 — Legend	650	47,450	226,850

Guides: The Combat Guide · Defending Your Keep. Troop data: Cavalry · Siege engines. Index: all three traps · the whole database.

The other traps: Scalding Oil (vs infantry) · Bolt Throwers (vs archers)

Every figure above is generated from the shipped game code — the same constants and formulas the running game uses — and regenerated whenever the balance changes. Nothing on this page is hand-typed.

Wood Spikes

How Wood Spikes resolve

The tier ladder

The free ramparts your Keep already gives you

What cavalry are worth killing

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