LogFAQs > #944975246

Actually a courtyard usually means a wall that is a secondary line of defense besides the castle itself, it allows you to have more people in defensive positions, and also to store food/water (have cows etc) inside a guarded position so you can't just be starved out as easily.

A courtyward with solid walls surrounding the castle, and a moat around that is even better (with a drawbridge) as it prevents using many devices to try and smash through the wall, and makes scaling it more difficult as well. You can still use catapults etc though, but even if you do knock down the wall, if there is a dangerous moat, it still makes storming the castle more difficult.

Same kinda rules in a zombie invasion, you want a secure primary shelter with an outer wall that can be defended, and inside that wall you grow food, have cows, a water source etc. Eventually if you get enough people, you would want even another wall to provide some form of safety for everyone outside who is growing food etc. More lines of defense you have the better as you can make the enemy fight hard to over come each one, but then withdraw and do it all again.

If I was really going to make a castle like structure that was almost impossible to defeat, I would do it INTO a mountainside or large hill, then surround it with a couple of layers of walls for defense. Even catapults would not have any chance against that. You could even make it look like a traditional castle on the outside, but the actual living places would be underground/hill and pretty much impossible to damage.

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