Artillery weapons

[DrNo]

Armies in MTW were allowed only 16 units. If you wanted to field 4 artillery/siege weapons that would mean you would only field 12 normal units at battle start.
No matter how a good a siege weapon is, I have never ever seen a case where I would want to field a siege weapon in place of an archer, foot, or Cavalry unit. Except in a fun use when totally outclassing enemy units. Usually when a rebellion occurs and you're up against a couple of units.

What's even worse is that when an AI army has invaded one of your regions with say 60 units and perhaps 10 of those are siege weapons, it would start the battle with 8 siege weapons and 8 other units making it's initial attack force too small to be any use.

So a way around this for RTW would be to have say the 20 slots for regular units in an army and an optional 6 to 10 spaces for artillery only units.
Artillery units could then not be included in the 20 slots for regular units.
Solves the AI problem and solves the issue of deciding if to include artillery in your army and even if it's worse building them.

I know(as quoted in PC Zone preview) that in RTW it will be possible to have multiple armies fielded on the battlefield, but with only 1 being under your control it would be difficult to rely on the AI to place the artillery weapons in an effective position. i.e. fielding 20 regular units in your army and an additional 10 units of artillery in a second army(AI controlled) might work out very frustrating. The other option of fielding 10 regular units and 10 artillery units in your army and an additional 10 regular units in second army would be a way around this, but again the army under your control is reduced in strength and you will rely on AI coordinating with you effectively.
You would probably still choose to field 30 regular units in this situation rather than any artillery at all.

[some_totalwar_dude]

they solved this problem by giving several siege weapons to one slot. So normally one ballista would take up 1 slote but IIRC you can now have 4 of them in one slot making them much more effective.

[Catiline]

Depends really on whether you want RTW to be entirely a game,. or some sort of simulation. In the later case then apart from sieges, overall artillery wsn't that significant feature of ancient warfare, and if you take it at all you deserve to be losing slots. THe campaign AI and the ballista invasion of Kent needs fixing tho

[hoom]

Also, if you think artillery is no use in M:TW, then you've never faced 15 high valour culverins on the field
A volley can obliterate entire units (I've personally watched an 80 strong unit of chiv knights reduced to 3 running cowards by one volley) and their morale sapping is nothing to be sneezed at either.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Quote[/b] ]I've personally watched an 80 strong unit of chiv knights reduced to 3 running cowards by one volley
ROTFLMAO http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-laugh4.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-laugh4.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-laugh4.gif

Awesome http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif

[o_loompah_the_delayer]

The AIs inept use of artillery should certainly be fixed, but dont underestimate the power of artillery in battle especially in defensive ones (not to mention bridge battles). Even bombards can be effective, in one game as the English against a superior Areagon army, even thouhg the AI repeatedly manouevered to stay out of the target area of the three bombards I had. But eventually when it finally attcked it had ot come in front and somthing like forty royal knights and a lot of archers got killed (love the bouncing effect http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif ) and Aragon routed

[LordKhaine]

A well placed large rock has caused the downfall of many generals ;)

[DrNo]

Thanks for info some_totalwar_dude. That's what I was kinds hoping for. Still not sure I would want to field 4 balistas in place of an archer unit though.


arrse, can't believe that 15 culverins would beat 15 cavlary units if controlled by human or even AI.
Simply split 15 units into 5 sections of 3 units and attack from all angles. Cannons will get perhaps 4 shots away but then that's it.

But lets not forget no gunpowder in Rome Total War hence my concern over artillery being completly useless in the game if same problems as in MTW exist.
As Catiline points out, ancient artillery wasn't great and even in sieges wasn't that good either.

[RisingSun]

In sieges we no longer have to rely on artillery. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Omar Mena]

Quote[/b] (RisingSun @ Feb. 06 2004,20:13)]In sieges we no longer have to rely on artillery. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
That's right. Now they invented something called a.....??
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif LADDER

[Catiline]

Quote[/b] (DrNo @ Feb. 06 2004,21:03)]As Catiline points out, ancient artillery wasn't great and even in sieges wasn't that good either.
THat's not quite what I meant. Some ancient artillery was highly powerful and highly accurate. That saidit wasn't used much on the normal battlefield. the imperial Romans used it to a degree, and even had versions mounted on mule carts for swift beattlefield deployment. But in numercal terms it wasn't significant, and hte example above was outside the period. Philip of Macedon got his fingers burnt by the Phocians who pelted him with stones. This may have been artillery, or it might have been blokes chucking rocks. either way he learnt his lesson, and butchered htem tat the Battle of the Crocus Fields the next year. 6000 were killed outright, 3000 were drowned as temple robbers (they'd taken money from the treasuries at Delphi to fund the war). just in case the point wasn't made he also cricified the corpse of the Phocian commander Onomarchus.

This however is the only example of a field battle from the peiod where artillery was a significant feature.

[Kraxis]

Bah... I think it will get interesting with the several units in one slot. 4 catapults are one unit worth in my oppinion, even on the battlefield.

[o_loompah_the_delayer]

I suppose they are thinking of it more as a battery of artillery than individual pieces.

Ladders sound good Do we get siege towers as well?

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (o_loompah @ Feb. 08 2004,22:04)]Do we get siege towers as well?
Yes. You can see a siege tower in the Egyptian-movie. It is fully functional (can move and soldiers can walk up the stairs). However, it is not shown that the soldiers actually use it to get up the wall, and the unit animation of the climbing soldiers is not brilliant.

[hoom]

By the sounds of it, I'd say that pelting with rocks would have been with slings...

DrNo, sure, I wouldn't want to take on 15 heavy cav run by a person.
Maybe 12 culverins + 4 chiv sergeants?

Controlled by the Medieval AI however would be not so big a problem (certainly the battle I previously referred to was the entire Danish line of royal knights plus their one unit of chiv knights. They were soundly defeated) since it walks slowly up to you staying mostly in one big group.

However, when you're getting hit during the whole battle by guns on the far edge of the battlefield, the human will suffer (well I've suffered at the hands of my friends' cannon anyway) morale & unit depletion all the way across.
A way to decrease this is to run, but then that tires your troops.
Either way, once they get close, individual units will start taking some really quite serious casualties.
When an elite unit routs & everyone else is already quite demoralised...