a few ideas

i think AI-controlled character should despawn after some time (5 minutes maybe?) so some of the bot exploits are impossible and the next idea makes sense.

when archers are made to stay on towers, they don't get down until tower is destroyed or they despawn.

teams get a boost to experience and drops depending on their team sum of points. if they're winning, it's just like now, but when they're losing in points, they get bouses. perhaps the formula for it would be [xp multiplier]=[#1 team's points]/[your team's points. there would be also a luck statistic which would increase the chance of better drops, with drops taking a much wider range of possibilities, but with the vast majority of cases of drops with luck 1 (being the #1 team) being the same as current drops. on higher levels of luck grass would have just more drops, same with animals and enemies, but e.g. trees could also drop food or sth.

ballista which would essentially work like catapult, but could only attack humans and would deal 3 dmg when without shield and 2 when with it, but would have a very slow fire rate