Well, imo, it's very dependent on whether you're.. er... 'utilizing'(?) the AI or not.
And the downside of the way they 'built' the spikes now; they're designed to kill, not maim, so lots of lost xp compared to how the old cone ones worked.
If you try for a pure A16, early game (before concrete), melee base you'll need a lot spikes since if they reach your walls in numbers they will break through. So a huge field of wooden spikes, which again, my opinion, just isn't worth doing. Way to much time & effort early game to chop ~3400+ wood just for spikes (6 deep in a full 360).
Iron spikes are more durable and at 4 forged iron, fairly cheap as you progress a bit. Yet still a very long way from the removed road cone spikes. If you leverage the AI pathing then barb wire can be quite useful to slow them down. Vendui's vids show some great applications.
faatal's already made some AI improvements so this may all be a moot point, but for b240: Personally I think you're basically forced to be at least a bit cheesy early game for horde nights. Clarification: I think standing on top of a tower is a bit cheesy. Likewise using a POI. Not saying it's not valid; MM recommended using POIs early on. Just my opinion since it's easy to be completely safe.
As an example: this b240 game I again took over a house on day 1 for a base. First took out all stairs to 2nd floor. Next took out the front wall and replaced w cobbelstone poles, and a door. Added an inner layer of cobb poles around other four walls, leaving outside wood walls & filling in gaps. This basically encourages visitors to use the front. Then tore out the floor of the upstairs and replaced with a wood bar balcony. Created a collapsible ladder by hanging a wood frame out from wood bars then hanging ladder down. Picking up the frame drops the ladder. So defense is simple shoot/melee through poles then if needed climb up ladder to 2nd floor and pick up frame so z's are stuck below.
There are no traps at all. Upgrades have been to double the poles & add an outside wood bar porch around the upstairs. Daytime Screamer & wandering hordes I take on out in the open field. Around day 19 had a nighttime horde, a fat hawaian broke through the back wall while I was defending the front. Just one though so didn't wind up needing to retreat upstairs.
1st 7 day horde used a 3x3x4-high cobblestone tower w 2 rows of iron spikes around it. Birdcage on top using wood bars. 2nd horde I upgraded lower 3 layers to reinforced concrete. 3rd horde added another tower w 5-block gap between filled w iron spikes, and 2 layers around new tower. Couldn't lure the z's to move around much after they spawn in, but wasn't an issue, changing position had new spawns path to 2nd tower. In the end they only took out a single block & about 30 spikes.
Final bit. One thing I know I will be looking for is a modlet that either brings back something like the road cone spikes or something 'steel' that isn't so damn fragile. And not so much damage output as the current iron spikes. I liked that in A16 you could have 6 or more 'rows' of spikes that the z's had to go over before getting to your walls, it softened them up some and the occasional dismemeberment helped spread out the mass. Big plus being that outer rows seldom took serious damage so were a repair vs. replace.
For mid-game on. I'm just not going to be willing to replace fifty or a hundred iron spikes every horde night.
