Advice? ... on good use of Artillery Units...

[LuckyDog Trojan]

When laying siege to enemy towns & cities, I frequently use onagers, and to a lesser degree, ballistas, and they serve me well.

On the open battlefield however, the use of these long-range instruments of war (for me) leaves a bit to be desired. Again, the onagers serve me well in this application, but it's the ballistas, repeating ballistas and scorpions that I seem to have trouble with. Having to be 'exposed' and on the 'front line' to conduct operations, they all too often get chewed up - forcing me to take them back into a city for costly retraining.

Any useful tips or strategies I might try with these units to get more effective use of them? Or - due to purchase & upkeep cost - are they not worth having in the first place?

Thanks in advance for your comments & suggestions.

:barrel: :unitedstates:

[professorspatula]

I like scorpions and ballistae as they can be fun. However, if you are going to use them on the open battlefield, make sure you are the attacker! If you attack, the AI should go defensive and form a battleline and wait for you to advance. Not always, but most of the time. This gives you the chance to use those artillery pieces. Put them in the front row, between two other units. Slowly move your army forward... slow enough not to encourage the AI to charge your lines. Let the scorpions etc fire only when they are in range. Keep formation. You should get a few free shots where the AI does nothing, but it'll probably send cavalry or infantry after them. Either pull back the ballistae or send a unit in front of it to intercept the AI. Once the immediate threat is dealt with, you often have another chance to use the ballistae and scorpions before the enemy charges again. You're best off aiming for the centre of the enemy army as there's often 2 or more rows of troops to aim for. You can knock out a few bodyguard units this way. If the AI has elephants target them.

Onagers are easy to use when on attack. Load up the flaming shots and just pelt the enemy from the safety of the back of your army. A few direct hits can be lethal.

If you are on the defensive, the AI will probably charge your army before your ballista and scorpion units can fire off more than a couple of shots. If you have a hill to position your troops on, have your troops lower down the hill in front of the enemy, and the ballista above. Just keep them out of trouble really. Rarely do they do a lot of damage in defensive encounters.

Also note that the larger the unit scale you are playing on, the less effective your artillery units become. 2 Scorpions won't do much against 240 spearmen on huge, but against 60 spearmen on a smaller scale, they're much more effective (if they can hit). For this reason, I change the number of artillery pieces per unit to make them more worthwhile against larger unit numbers.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hi,
professorspatula has really said it all, yet I shall just add that you should try to avoid using artillery pieces on enemy units while you are in combat with them. This can cause your troops to suffer morale penalties and so called friendly fire which can be devastating to both your troops and the enemy's! I made that mistake once and lost my whole army! Good luck with your artillery. Cheers!

[Severous]

Artillery crews can be separated from their artillery.

Hold the 'alt' button and order the artillery to attack any enemy. This 'alt' attack forces the crew to use their secondary weapon (weak daggers). They abandon their artillery and move to attack the enemy. Cancel the attack order by moving the crew anywhere you like. You now have a very weak infantry unit.

I have three uses for this:
- Send crews chasing routers for experience gains
- When best crew is out of ammo swap crews around so best crew can continue firing
- Run crew away from attacking enemy.

I had two of those documented in my picture based Sassanid AAR. This bit of it shows the running away of a crew:
http://rtw.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=st&fn=10&tn=2521&st=37#post38

[professorspatula]

Another way to force the artillery crew to quickly abandon their machines is to tell them to withdraw. They'll start to scarper, but you can just tell them to do something else and they'll no longer rout but will be free to move around and command. You can then click on the artillery pieces to have them use them again.

Also, I believe artillery crews can use any abandoned artillery weapons that are the same as the ones they were originally using. Eg: if you have 3 scorpion units that are unmanned, any of the 3 crews can use any of the scorpions.


Finally, if you want some fun with scorpions, ballistas etc, do a custom battle in the Numidian basin. It's the one shaped like a large basin with a hill in the middle. Give yourself maximum scorpions/ballista or whatever and give your foe a few units of pikemen or elephants. Set your units at the back of the map on the ridge, so that the enemy has to march over the hill and then back down and up again before they can hit you. Put fire at will mode on and watch your ballistae obliterate the enemy before they can touch you. Always a laugh!

[Poulp']

Well, Professor Spatula basically said everything about operating artillery in open ground, I'll just add my two cents.

I like to field repeating ballistas in my battle line, between two blocks of Hastatii and one other block behind them to counter charge.
Normal ballistas and Scorpions are different, they have a low rate of fire so I prefer to field them on the side so that they get the opportunity to shot in enfilade.
I deploy Onagers either right behind my battle line if I have a long, single line formation and I can deploy on a high ground. Or else, I group them with the ballistas.

If I deploy a artillery ground on the side of my battle line, I usually dispatch a few units to defend it.
Mercenary Hoplites, Auxilias, Velites...
Any phalanx is great to hold chargers in place and give time for my cavalry to intevene. I use skirmishers to lure the enemy away from my artillery and buy time too.

The main point is not to send too many units to preotect something that is just a support for the bulk of my army. (I dedicate at best a quarter of a full stack army to this purpose)

[Mooks]

I love using artillery in my army. Im like napolean, they are my "Beughtiful daughters".

[LuckyDog Trojan]

Thanks to all!
Some worthwhile advice that I'll put to go use.

[Mooks]

Iv never tried it, but is it worthwhile to save for one huge volley before the lines charge?

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hi,

Iv never tried it, but is it worthwhile to save for one huge volley before the lines charge?
You could, yet I would not recommend it, especially if your troops are in a tight formation. If the unit is charging then the chances are that inaccurate missiles, especially missile from onagers, could possibly hit your troops and damage their morale and numbers as well as your enemies. However, you could use them if you desperately need a way of forcing a route while the troops are in melee. In that case you need to make sure that the enemy unit has a lower morale that your unit's and are steady, yet this does work both ways. If your troops have lower morale than the enemies troops then the chances are that your troops will route instead of the enemies. Good luck with your artillery, cheers!

[mightilyoats]

Omanes, I did not recognize you...

I have only two uses for artillery. One, if you want to assault a settlement immediately. And two, to scare off elephants and scythed charriots before they get close to me.

Archers do way more actual damage to enemy troops (ok not in terms of morale...) And having artillery in your army greatly impedes your movement points on the campaign map (that irritates me to no end), so make sure you can use ships to transport them quicker.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Omanes, I did not recognize you... Ah yes, my new avatar, nice isn't it?

Anyhow, lets add a bit more to get my posts per day rating the highest out of everybody here to help everybody mange their artillery well. Unfortunately, artillery cannot be used for maximum effect in Germania, Brittannia and Gaul due to the large extensive forests, especially in the former. Artillery just cannot move through the dense forests found in these regions, as I learnt once with my epic full stack army of onagers who were deployed in a wooded clearing - I lost the battle with 5:1 odds :embarassed:

[mightilyoats]

Ah yes, my new avatar, nice isn't it?


No, its not that... Its the haircut... But seriously, nice avatar, I like it!

I can see how those big trees can be a problem... They tend to get in the way of the large boulders you are trying to hurl at the enemy.

I normally leave my siege equipment at home. I allow my governors to use them as for carnivals and parades - you know, for fireworks... :juggle2:

[LuckyDog Trojan]

Good post regarding the drawbacks of taking onagers along when operating in the 'forest lands'. And yes, no matter where you're going - having onagers definitely handicaps your rate of movement.

Still, there are times when I like to have them along - especially on the rolling hills and open plains. Coupled with archers (another one of my favorite units Mightilyoats), I like to peck away and harass the enemy before they get to my main line.

I saw one post (in the guide section) where a player likes to have six (6) onagers in his primary assault army. Talk about 'cry havoc'! That would soften up the line a bit. ~:eek:

[vonsch]

My question is are seige engines ever useful in seige defense? (Aside from those built into the walls?

I can see how some in MTW might be, but in RTW? I've tried to use cats lobbing over the walls outbound but seems you must have LOS to target. So far I've been entirely unsuccessful.

Seems to me you COULD target to tower tops by sight... I mean in reality.

[César Victor]

I've seen onagers used to destroy siege towers. I think.

But honestly, I can't stand onagers. They're too inaccurate. Half of the time they go way off and even though when they do hit, the result is spectacular, it aint worth risking yer own troops for a little boulder lobbing. Scorpions and ballistae are alright but only of any real use when used in a group.

But, meh, since I'm Germania now, I don't have any time for artillery. It's spearmen all the way!

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

My question is are seige engines ever useful in seige defense? (Aside from those built into the walls?
Sadly, usually, they are not effective. Especially Scorpions and other such Ballistics type artillery - they have the nasty habit of hitting your wall, particularly if the wall is a stone wall or above. Onagers are slightly better - they fire upwards, over the walls, rather than across, through the walls, yet if the walls are too high, large stone wall or above, then immense damage can be done to them causing them to collapse henceforth creating a gateway for the evil enemy to break through, get behind your mighty defences and take the town by storm! Good luck! Cheers!

[mightilyoats]

It would have been useful (and would have made sense) if you could mount your seige equipment on the walls for a defence. I guess that would have made it too easy probably...

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

It would have been useful (and would have made sense) if you could mount your siege equipment on the walls for a defence. I guess that would have made it too easy probably...Something like that. You would also have needed a huge crane to get them up there and in those days they probably didn't have the technology, the time or the resources to build one while they were under-siege.

[LuckyDog Trojan]

Cesar: Looks like you got a new haircut too.

[César Victor]

Hah, yeah.

I tell ya, siege is a [female dog] to fight against! During my Roman campaign as Julii, I encountered no siege craft against the Barbarians to the north. Suddenly, I was being torn apart by the Brutii and their onagers. I hate artillery.