Catapults and defense

[clovenhoof]

God bless the catapult Do you think its overkill to have four catapults in an army, when defending? My fav. defensive army is 4 catapults, 4 elite anti-calv (pikemen etc), 4 arbalesters, and 4 heavy/elite infantry. On the back-up, the back up army, are 12 arbalesters, 2 heavy calv, and 2 heavy inf. If possible, on a hill. It seems that nothing can beat this force.

Catapults are great for hammering the enemy before he gets to your formation and for hammering him as he flees. The more you use them, the more valor they get and a catapult with a valor of 5 can pick off an enemy general in three or four shots.

One battle, that I didn't save http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif , was a Polish Re-emergence- complete with several royal knight units and a bunch of elite infantry, about 1000 troops. All I had was one unit of spearmen, four catapults (valors 3/3/4/5 and a unit of arbalesters. There was a bridge. I put the spearmen at the foot of the bridge- on my side- the abalesters right behind them and the catapults behind the arbalesters with one right beside the bridge (for greater range hitting the other shore). The bodies of the enemies were stacked high, I killed the King and most of the attacking army. The rest fled and my catapults killed a good deal of them. Theres not too much in this game that I have ever enjoyed more than watching the stones from the catapults roll across that densly packed bridge and kill 5 and six enemy troops at a time.

Anyways, what do you think of catapults and how do you use them? Ever use them on offense (other than sieges)? A half decent tactic seems to be putting the catapults as far ahead of your army as possible, sending out mounted bowmen to pick a fight, and then having them retreat to within range of the catapults as the enemy draws near.

[Pablo Sanchez]

IMO:
Catapults are rather expensive and they take 2 years to produce, which negatively influences my opinion of them. In addition, if they are at low valor their accuracy is rather too poor to reliably hit a single unit. If I have a high-valor catapult unit in my stack and I get attack, then I'll use it to whatever advantage I can get. But I don't plan for it.

[HopAlongBunny]

Quote[/b] (clovenhoof @ July 15 2003,18:13)]God bless the catapult
Whatever works is my motto http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

I'm not too great using catapults on defence, so it doesn't happen very often. Cannon are my favourite shock troop when I can get them.

[GoldenKnightX2]

I love the cannon, picks off enemy generals easier, kills more people (more powerful. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[clovenhoof]

Well of course I prefer cannon, but until then....I build catapult valor up by using them against massed targets in large armies- if the enemy is still I aim for the central most unit, if its moving twords me, the forward unit, if its moving away from me the furthest one away. It seems pretty easy to build up their valor that way.

[Portuguese Rebel]

I don't like catapults or any siege weapons for regular battle. You must babysit them a lot and they don't move http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

Instead of those four catapults if you had four archer units you would get more kills.

[The_Emperor]

Quote[/b] (Portuguese Rebel @ July 16 2003,12:54)]I don't like catapults or any siege weapons for regular battle. You must babysit them a lot and they don't move http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

Instead of those four catapults if you had four archer units you would get more kills.
That is true... But Catapults have the added fear factor.

In Bridge defence they come into their own... A boulder bouncing down a tightly packed Bridge really rocks (pardon the pun)

[Portuguese Rebel]

Yes, bridge is a special matter for siege weapons, gotta love that rock falling in the midlle of the enemy troops http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[clovenhoof]

Right about the kills and right about the fear factor to. Given the fear factor its alot easier to route armies that are three and four times your own size. Kill the general or make him flee in the first wave and the waves that follow will often run away as soon as they start getting pelted by the boulders. Also, archers take up alot of space when strung out single or double file, a catapult takes up a very very small space. I think the shape of your troop formation is a factor in defense and the size difference between an archer unit and a catapult unit is huge, affecting the shape factor in a big way.

Its pretty obvious that being able to defend against armies three and four times the size of yours is a huge bonus. I also think, as was said, the field your playing in makes a huge difference. A bridge is one thing and another is hills, the steeper the better.

I'll have to do an experiment to see which kills more: a unit of archers or a catapult unit- both the same valor etc. both being used to their maximum efficiency. That is, archers on a hill, in single file. And catapult on a hill, aiming at closest units of an advancing army and at the furthest units of a retreating army. I think I'll do it now and save the game. If I can think of any way to upload it I will.

[Red Harvest]

Targeting the AI general with catapults or cannon fire is bad form. Yeah, makes for an easy win because the AI won't get him out of the line of fire, but it is a cheesy tactic. I consider it an unfortunate loophole in the game so using this tactic has a gaming the game feel to it. If you want to increase the difficulty a bit, try not to target the general with the catapults in normal battle. I still run into trouble hitting him with stray rounds, but it gives the AI a fighting chance. I do target him during sieges though, he is well protected and will move about to avoid getting hit so it doesn't seem so implausible.

On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with surrounding and killing the AI general when he rushes into combat to exploit a gap or attack skirmishers--same as my general gets killed if I do the same. If unchecked, a general rushing about like that can be quite deadly and rapidly produce a rout...so I will use units to neutralize him when it happens.

[Oaty]

Well I can say that catapults had saved my butt from the great khan even though I lost. I had 2 catapults and a trebuchet thought I'd test it out to see how it does in battle. The trebuchet did a nice job but took a while to exhaust its rounds since it has a limited left to right range. Anyways the golden horde troops must have some massive morale because I had to inflict 3 to 1 casualties for them to route but this made it great when they routed because the great khan was no wus. So I surronded him and he tried to run away quite a few times but guess he had some trouble with 5 units surrounding him. Then he routed himself and became a goodrunner. That being said that was the end of him being a good attacker. I'd hate to see what the mongol units morale is considering what it took to route them even with reducing there morale with artillery fire. What really sucked is this probably really hurt my kings stats as I dont think the A.I recognizes inflicting 2000 casualties to yr 500 then withdrawing yr remaining force. Now even though I lost the territory in all reality it is a bit of a victory, just dont keep winning the battles this way or you'll run out of territories to win battles this way.( :

[Darkchampion]

Catapults work ok I guess but I would rather have an extra unit of archers or cavalry instead. Their range isn't particularly impressive and of course that combined with poor accuracy + slow reload cuts down on their effectiveness.

But it's a different story when it comes to serpentines. I absolutely love those things and field them regularly in my armies as soon as they become available. Their range is so great that you can use them effectively even in an attack by placing them as far forward as possible. (although against the AI i never target their general's unit with them and once I killed my own monarch on accident with one http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif )