siege weapon field tactics

Hi folks. Just wanted to open up a discussion on people's experience with all roman siege weapons (yes, even the non ornager ones) during field battle (NOT sieges).

I personally found most siege weapons to be too *damn* slow to be effective. With my fighting style I need something more along the lines of a mortar than a howitzer. (light enough to move with the troops but packs enough punch to suppress/route the enemy)

So far that role has been filled by 2 cretean archers and 2 roman archers (i'd use 4 creteans, except I try to limit my cretean archer losses if battles happen to turn out bad since I don't reload a botched fight. just adds more realism and impact to the war losses). But since this is a thread about siege weapons strictly, I was tooling around with repeating ballistas but not having much success (the range is too short).

I like ballistas in spqr and rtr, as they have increased the weapon:unit ratio to more realistic levels, making the units useful.

Personally I just find theres nothing as satisfying as having a few units of scorpions bombarding the enemy general. And nothing as cinematic as hitting him when hes charging and watching him literally fly accross the screen in his death animation.

I have found artillery to be a waste of money out side of sieges, they just don't do enough damage unless the AI puts its troops in 1 big clump and sits still, all in all in a field battle i'd rather an extra unit of archers, or cavalry, or infantry, well anything really except skirmishers

Repeating ballistas usually are good for forty kills a game for me. It's the fact that those kills are of the hardest enemy units that makes them worth while. Spartans, Bastarnae, Generals, you name it, they kill it.

Maybe its because my artillary are crewed by raw recruits and they can't hit a barn door from 3 paces.
I have completely ceased artillary production because of the dissapointing results they give in field battles, the fact i can usually wait 1 turn to assault a city (or even better send a spy or 2 into the city to open the gate for me), and finally they slow the army down on the campeign map (unless of course you plant the army on a boat, which is not always possible).

Perhaps i should get a pantheon of mars and a top level artillary builiding place (?!?) and try some 3 chevron repeating ballistas

I only use them when defending, not attacking - because as you said they are just to slow.

Also in vanilla RTW I also practicly never used them, only since RTR have I started.
More machines a unit make them worth their money, especially the repeating balista's
Still in RTR I also just use them for defending ~;)

:balloon2:

Unless you train them with +3 experience, artillery is only good in sieges. On the field, I never use balistas, as my Archers are good enough. If I happen to have onagers in my army I tend to go straight on the offensive with the rest of my units, thereby keeping the onagers well away from the action, and any enemy cav.

I rarely use any form of ballistas instead when I field artillery I use scorpions. I only wish they reloaded quicker but then I agai nI don't because it would be like some sort of ancient machine gun.

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Originally Posted by Garvanko

On the field, I never use balistas, as my Archers are good enough.

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What happens when you come up against heavily armoured troops (cataphracts) or two hit point troops?

In middle game I start to move 2 ballista with my armies, the additional morale hits on the enemy makes battles much shorter. I will also use a standard 2 (merc) hoplite, 2 ballista or onager, 2 archer unit for bridge duty. Its a small enough force not to cost much, but heavy enough to destroy enemies attempting to cross with almost twice as many units.

mfberg

I barely use siege weapons, and when I do I generally use Onagers.

Once when using repeating balistas as my general was charging he reared his horse to do the whole sword waving troop encouragement bit and was hit by a balista shot (my own). Needless to say it killed him and his bodygaurd routed soon after that. IMO the friendly fire potential of siege weapons is too great for anything less than Onagers with flaming shot or Onagers vs. walls to be used, and they should only be used before you send your troops in.

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Originally Posted by dgb

What happens when you come up against heavily armoured troops (cataphracts) or two hit point troops?

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I lose.

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Originally Posted by dgb

What happens when you come up against heavily armoured troops (cataphracts) or two hit point troops?

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Use some form of elite spearmen, and shoot the 2 HP units twice as much?

I haven't found them too useful either. Range is good but as soon as you get one hit off the AI just starts running its troops all over the place and its hard to get any good hits in. Sometimes they just start outright charging which makes the siege units completely useless because friendly fire chance is just too high.

I generally only use artillery as a chokepoint defense, for example, on bridges.

Having scorpions hit anything on the bridge from the wide while your onagers hit their ranged weapons pretty much is an unstoppable combo, especially with any kind of phalanx blocking the bridge.

Although cruel and probably has no chance of making it past the game censors, it would have been nice to be able to fling dead and or live bodies with your siege weapons in order to greatly reduce the enemy morale (or piss them off really badly). As a variation you might even go as far as flining diseased animal or human corpses, thus being able to induce plague at will. An offset to the potential destructive powers of this could then be something like everyone in the same stack as the artilary of the damned would suffer morale penalties and has higher risk of contracting disease. Also the artilary can only load up on fresh "ammo" after a battle by collecting corpeses. (yes, I realize this is almost like that warcraft 3 unit. I hate warcraft 3 with a passion).

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Originally Posted by Dutch_guy

I only use them when defending, not attacking - because as you said they are just to slow.

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On the contrary, I find siege weaponry to be extremely useful when attacking, especially the Onager class. If you are attacked, usually the enemy rushes or moves towards you rather soon, which leaves you very little time to exploit their abilities due to the horrible hit percentage and friendly fire (I think most of you know how it feels to have an important unit hit straight into the back by a flaming pot [?]).
If you are on the offensive, the enemy tends to occupy the highest availabe ground and wait for you. Well, let him --- shoot him to pieces resp. ashes with your onagers (deploy more than two to really bring them into effect) whose missiles have a greater range than any of their archers'. Keep your machinery protected by a line of spearmen in case the enemy abandons his position.
Not only is this a nice spectacle if you use flaming missiles, but it will likely grant you a much easier victory than otherwise because all you basically have to do is to clean up afterwards, preferably with your cav. Just cease fire soon enough to let your troops get towards the enemy safely.

Sitting out victories .... nice thing.

@cruix,
if you are out for that special kick: okay, machines won't so, but British Head Hurlers. The heads could have been made more distinct, though.

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Originally Posted by cruix

Although cruel and probably has no chance of making it past the game censors, it would have been nice to be able to fling dead and or live bodies with your siege weapons in order to greatly reduce the enemy morale (or piss them off really badly). As a variation you might even go as far as flining diseased animal or human corpses, thus being able to induce plague at will. An offset to the potential destructive powers of this could then be something like everyone in the same stack as the artilary of the damned would suffer morale penalties and has higher risk of contracting disease. Also the artilary can only load up on fresh "ammo" after a battle by collecting corpeses. (yes, I realize this is almost like that warcraft 3 unit. I hate warcraft 3 with a passion).

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Not only is that a ripoff of Warcraft III it is also way to far out. I think they wanted the game to be 'somewhat' historical. This may have happened before historically but it would not have been widely used.

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Originally Posted by Krauser

I think they wanted the game to be 'somewhat' historical.

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~:eek: :dizzy2:
Warpigs?"
Wardogs?
Egypt?

I think they've failed that one allready, they may as well wreck it completely.

I always use seige weapons (when available) for both offense and defense. I use onagers to pound the enemy reserves and cav and repeating ballistas in the center of my front line to break any heavily armoured units. They're not necessary in order to win of course, but its more fun to have em.

Once in a while when I feel like it! I put 3 units Of onagers w/ my army. when I meet a worthy foe, I usually have them use their flame ability and see their little barbarian Bodies go to a crisp. Then after the battle is done I send my wardogs to feast on their Flesh. ~:handball:

I have tried using ballistas against elephants but they seem to be aiming for the driver and they always miss. Does anyone know how to fix this with some mod?

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Originally Posted by YoungMaster

I have tried using ballistas against elephants but they seem to be aiming for the driver and they always miss. Does anyone know how to fix this with some mod?

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i believe this may be the historical origin of that saying about not being able to hit the side of a barn.

If the wall is stone or higher, a few siege towers does the heart good. And the walls bad.

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Originally Posted by Kourutsu

If the wall is stone or higher, a few siege towers does the heart good. And the walls bad.

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where the heck do you get walls during a field battle??? I did say "not sieges" on the very first post.

Not just onagers are good for attack, I actually found that the other siege weapons work better when you attack than when you defend. Whenever I defend with siege weapons the AI always rushes my position no matter what.

When I attack the AI only rushes sometimes. Plus as mentioned before the siege weapons are excellent for driving the enemy off the hill.

The best non-siege use for these units would probably be attacking bridges, because you can use lesser units for defending bridges.

The only other thing I use siege weapons for is killing elephants, which they don't do very well, except onagers, but even they're barely adequate, and this is with temple of mars pantheon. I need to kill at least a significant percentage of one elephant unit and the onagers maybe kill about 20-25% of them.

I tried using scorpions on elephants; the elephants just charged and stepped on them. 2 scorpions + 2 archers vs. 1 war elephant = 2 dead scorpions + 2 dead archers.

I find siege weapons very effective during battles as well, both in attack and defence. Siege weapons are an absolute must for your bridge defence armies and its always useful to have 2 onagers in your invasion forces. I also find it extremely useful to have siege weapons (usually a wide array) for your defence forces inside frontier towns that get invaded often (especially if you have stone walls), onagers are good at taking out siege towers (if your lucky enough to hit them) relatively quickly, and you can places balistas inside your walls facing the gates/wall breaches to give the enemy hell when they inevitably get inside your city through those small chokepoints. The effect they have on morale make them particulary good I think.

Other good points about siege engines:
- burning as much of those gallic cities to the ground, just because you can.
- getting lucky and hitting the enemy general and getting a cheap easy kill.
- that great feeling you get when your onager fireball gets a direct hit on an enemy phalanx
- cheap and easy kills on elephants (again if your lucky)
- the fact it mixes up battles a bit more cause of that big risk of the fireballs smashing into your own troops instead of the enemy
- they're fun

that's quite counterproductive, from my POV. But that's just my personal bias.

a) why would you want to burn all those gallic cities to the ground when all that eventually happens is that you'll have to repair the damned barbarian buildings again? They don't disappear off the 'town' display, they just show up as 100% damaged, and will deprive you of retraining and public order facilities that you eventually have to spend on. Obviously you weren't listening to Marcus the Centurion's admonition: Your objective is to capture the city, not destroy it.

b) Cheap easy kills are okay, it's exciting, but is it worth taking up one entire unit card (or two, in your case) just so you get that 5% chance of hitting the enemy general?

c) I wholeheartedly agree on this one. Just that, well, most of the time they're too damned inaccurate anyway to hit. So not worth the time, the risk, the expense, and the lower mobility of armies and manoeuvre with siege weapons to burden the movement.

d) More likely (read the post just before yours) the stupid elephants will just step on you. It's dumb to hope to kill elephants with lucky hits--you'd need at least 13 of them. Spook them, maybe. But not kill them.

e) I fail to see why you're so excited about friendly fire. Most people on this forum are searching for ways to minimise FF.

f) ...and they're practically useless in most contexts.

In the campaign, the AI likes to have some siege weapons on hand so I usually try to counter that with my own seige weapons. Besides, its fun to see the people go up in flames and cry out ~D

I keep 1-2 Onagers behind my archer line which is behind my frontline to take out any artillery on the field.

I find that the AI when defending seems to just sit there letting you pelt them with fireballs until 50% of their army is gone. I don't use siege for normal fighting most times. On the way to a new settlement I might come across rebels or some defenders of the settlement and will get a chance to use it in a normal battle but they are definitely not needed.

I've played only two imperial campaign so far, before and after patch 1.2. Both on VH and with the Scipii. I based all my tactics on Onagers, giving a battery of 3 as soon as possible to every army and making a sort of siege park in reserve when I start to assault cities. They did wonders, in attacking batlles, cause they burned from 60 to 150 men each ( I'm playing with 160 men's unit). Using flamed loads I usually target the central unit in front of the enemy general's squadron. Rounds spreaded as you know, but you have a good chance to flame the general ( I experienced a 25% ratio at worst). If the enemy had some tough nut, like elephants or cataphracts, I switch one of the onagers, the best ranked to precision fire with solid shots to soften'em, if the elephants shows no willing to advance fast I try also the flamed shots to "ignite" a stampede.
The best onager's scenario, a true heaven, is the bridge defense. Here also the more linear deployment of the 1.2 patch is forced to switch in long columns. You must only target a mid column unit and watch for the slaughter. You must only be quick to switch target if the unit start a charge to avoid the back shot on your defenders. If you think that the pause command is too gamey switch to solid shot, they seldom to never cause friendly fire when you hold your position.
Also in pure defensive battles onager shines. Yes enemy rushes, but a couple of well aimed shots are possible and if the enemies had tight formation like hoplites or phalanx, every hit did 20 casualties. then you could turn you aim to one of the flank. With solid shots you can slow or stop the usual cavalry flanking.

interesting. I did find them quite useless in defence battles for the reasons you mentioned: the enemy attacks you too soon to let your onagers really shine....and in my experience they hit cavalry only as long as the latter don't move.
maybe unit size matters? I'm playing on normal and they ARE useless while defending. Even if they manage to fire one of the two shots they have somewhat accurately, a very little percentage of enemy troops will be dead, and your onagers will be standing on the battlefield futilely until the battle ends.
about killing generals however you're definitely right. I have the same experience: Whenever you fire at units close to the general (and he will likely be close to some of his troops), he almost certainly gets killed by a shot. Of course provided you're attacking and thus have enough time to scrunch him.

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Originally Posted by Ashen

Personally I just find theres nothing as satisfying as having a few units of scorpions bombarding the enemy general. And nothing as cinematic as hitting him when hes charging and watching him literally fly accross the screen in his death animation.

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Here Here!

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Originally Posted by nameless

In the campaign, the AI likes to have some siege weapons on hand so I usually try to counter that with my own seige weapons. Besides, its fun to see the people go up in flames and cry out ~D

I keep 1-2 Onagers behind my archer line which is behind my frontline to take out any artillery on the field.

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the AI is too dumb to guard its artilary with spearmen. just one or two units of equities will take care of nearly all of their siege weapons. and if they're crazy enough to roll those lighter siege weapons along with their army line, just shoot them up with your archers. the 30-40 men running the siege engines crap out after 2 or 3 salvos.

Playing RTR, I liked to have a few units of scorpions - the larger unit sizes meant that a massive volume of fire could be directed at the enemy - whether it be defending or attacking. Just sitting on a hill was enough - the scorpions would kill a quarter to a third of the enemy before they got in range of my archers, who would kill off roughly the same again - so that by the time they got in range of my skirmishers, they'd rout. I'd typically have 100-150 kills per scorpion unit, 50-100 per archer unit, 0-30 per skirmisher unit, 0-15 per melee infantry unit. Cavalry would possibly have commensurate kill rates with the artillery, as they were in charge of chasing down routers. (N.B. Playing on normal unit sizes - I only have a battered old laptop)

Artillery is also especially useful against slow phalanx heavy armies - have a couple of cavalry units running around them as they advance, causing the AI to stick them into phalanx formation, then do some target practice - as they march oh so slowly to their deaths.

Also, as someone said - artillery is excellent for taking out hardened targets, such as legionnaires, armoured hoplites, cataphracts, spartans, elephants, generals, entire army units...

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Originally Posted by Somebody Else

Artillery is also especially useful against slow phalanx heavy armies - have a couple of cavalry units running around them as they advance, causing the AI to stick them into phalanx formation, then do some target practice - as they march oh so slowly to their deaths.

Also, as someone said - artillery is excellent for taking out hardened targets, such as legionnaires, armoured hoplites, cataphracts, spartans, elephants, generals, entire army units...

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Ah! Exactly! I usually take 2 of my best artillery with every army. I use them with fire bolts to soften up the enemy lines until they are within my archer's range. Even if they don't do much damage, they help by lowering the morale and ocasionally killing the enemy general.

Onagers are great for offensive battles. I am under the impression that if you aim them to the enemy flanks, they tend to mass in the centre. THEN you aim at the centre, thus buying time for that cavalry to flank and you main line to approach with those deadly archers. Anyone else tried this?

As for sieges, I use ballistas to destroy those wood towers while fighting barbarians. Three or four onagers make it quite easy to smash walls and disperse enemies within the city.

I tried a brief experiment with seige weaponary, i tried them in a battle where i thought they would excel

I fought a defensive bridge custom battle against the geramns, and i gave them 50% points than i had (give them a little chance).

My army was 3 units of triarii, 1 first legionary cohort, 4 auxilia archers, 6 repeating ballistas, 4 onagers and 2 heavy onagers.

Long story short, the top killers where the archers

The artillery did kill a lot of germans, unfortunatley as the germans advanced i had some firendlty fire problems, and a charcoal general :no:

i said earlier in this thread, and still think, that i would rather have a unit of archers than any artillery unit in a non-seige battle

The main thing artillery has over archers is range, and obviously individual killing power. So, ballistas and repeating ballistas - though somewhat useful, are outclassed by scorpions and archers when it comes to battlefield usefulness. Ballistas have a saving grace in that they can be useful in sieges, but elsewise, not so useful.

Hmm...

Ballista
Pros : Easy to aquire. Flat trajectory.
Cons: Mediocre range.
Repeating Ballista
Pros : High rate of fire. Flat trajectory.
Cons: Mediocre range. Cannot target structures. Top level range required.
Scorpion
Pros : High range. Flat trajectory.
Cons: Cannot target structures.
Onager
Pros : Good range. Splash damage.
Cons: Wildly inaccurate when targeting troops (ie flaming ammo).
Heavy Onager
Pros : High range. Splash damage. High damage to structures.
Cons: Inaccurate targeting troops (flaming ammo). Top level range required.

There, I've probably missed a thing or two, or just got things plain wrong, but hey.

I find that having a flat trajectory is useful as if the direction is pretty much correct, then the missile's bound to hit someone, whereas arcing fire may over or undershoot (this is why slingers can be so effective).

I'm not so sure that the repeating ballista is that useless - after all, it is solely an anti-troop unit, so it must be of some use, but I've always found the extra range of scorpions more useful - despite the slower rate of fire. With the shorter range of repeating ballistas, archers are more useful. At least scorpions fill a niche.

Onagers, and their bigger brothers, heavy onagers, are very good when dealing with large massed armies - where the splash damage is bound to cause tremendous casualties, but with slightly smaller armies, they can be of a little less use, as they're not so likely to hit anything. They are however excellent in sieges, where the arcing fire can get over low wooden walls, or indeed, smash stone walls down.

If I were to rank them, for use in both sieges and field battles;
1st : Heavy Onagers
=2nd: Onagers & Scorpions
4th : Ballistas
5th : Repeating Ballistas

In case of purely field battles, I'd swap repeating ballistas and normal ballistas in the ranking.
In case of purely siege battles, I'd push scorpions down just below ballistas (it's no good being able to kill the enemy, if the walls are left standing).

I rather think I've said too much, but I do like my siege weapons...

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Originally Posted by Emit_Flesti

Onagers are great for offensive battles. I am under the impression that if you aim them to the enemy flanks, they tend to mass in the centre. THEN you aim at the centre, thus buying time for that cavalry to flank and you main line to approach with those deadly archers. Anyone else tried this?

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intersting, must look into this further.

I have found Onagers to be highly effective in attacks. They are also effective in defense, but not nearly as effective as attacks. Usually, the enemy rushes in when I am defending, which doesn't leave as much time to hit them with the onagers.

But I will say without a doubt, they are one of the most useful units I use.

Also, it is not a 5% chance that you will kill the enemy general. If you have 2 or 3 Onagers and you target the enemy general unit, you have a VERY good chance of killing him. Hell, you have a very good chance of killing off his entire unit! I have not encountered many problems with the Onagers taking up 2 or 3 unit cards. Sure, I have lost once or twice while using onagers, but generally it is against armies where each unit has much more experience than mine. And I believe they were battles where I was defending, which makes the Onagers less useful (though by no means a complete liability).

I used to use flaming pots when attacking troops, but I have switched back to solid shot. I did this because the shot hops once or twice after it hits and the pots just hit one spot.

I guess I could set up some custom battles and try over and over and over just to see which is more effective against troops, but I am too busy with my Brutii campaign (hard/hard).

:charge:

My battles rely on either speed, or staying power, or a combination of both. Onagers fail to fulfill either criterion since they are bloody slow and will crash out the instant they come under counterbattery fire, and are wildly inaccurate. So I don't ever factor them in, except when assaulting. As it is I conquer most of the world before I even build a single catapult range, so onagers to me are dispensable.

They are pretty accurate if they have a little experience, especially considering that they are generally being aimed at a large mass of troops. Trained in a province with +3 or more experience bonus, they are quite the handy tool indeed.

I have had one Onager in a single unit destroyed by enemy Onagers. I quickly destroyed the enemy Onagers before they were able to destroy another of mine. :)

3 Onager units with 3 Archer Auxilia can rout an enemy army before they even have a chance to reach your lines. Don't forget to bring along some cavalry to mop up the whole mess at the end. ~D

seige weapon for me work best in field since I will be using it to splash all those guys out while they still marching to my army.

I don’t routinely keep artillery with my armies as it slows them down too much. IMO this strategic limitation far outweighs any engine’s tactical usefulness in the open field. In my campaigns the train is attached temporarily for siege work and otherwise stays in a city or a fort. Several such depots will be established throughout the empire.

I believe that Roman ballistas should move strategically like infantry and not like onagers. The legions had the wherewithal to get around quickly despite their organic light artillery.

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Originally Posted by Nelson

I believe that Roman ballistas should move strategically like infantry and not like onagers. The legions had the wherewithal to get around quickly despite their organic light artillery.

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I agree, does anyone know the file where I can change the movement points?

I also agree with you on the fact that their low movement points outweighs their tactical abilities. I only use them in a few circumstances. A) defending bridges. B) when I am attacking a city that has a large army close by. By having onagers with me, i can bypass the senate army and take Rome when there are very few troops there (then there is just that large army of rebels that you have to worry about)

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Originally Posted by Nelson

I believe that Roman ballistas should move strategically like infantry and not like onagers. The legions had the wherewithal to get around quickly despite their organic light artillery.

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Spot on! What really bugs me is that loading a couple of scorpions onto a ship slows it down, but a herd of :furious3: elephants doesn't! I asked one of the mods if there was a way of negating this penalty, but he reckons it's hardcoded.

Ya! The hardcoded unit stereotypes (inf/cav/siege) are too...stereotypical. Some siege weapons can move around just as well as infantry can.

Y'know, the Napoleonix (that was a typo that I will not erase. As you can see Bartix is getting to me) era saw horse-drawn artillery... if only we could have horse-drawn ballistae... that would truly be a mobile force!

The simple fact is, and I'm glad that most people agree with me, siege weapons are fun! Normal battles pre-siege weapons are pretty easy and lets face it, you really don't need those extra 2 units that you can give to onagers, cause your going to beat the enemy in battle anyway. If you can get your best armies to rampage non-stop through enemy territory (ie., march up to a city, breach walls, take it), no complaints here. Especially for those boring battles with only wooden walls, battering rams are annoying, is it just me or does anyone else find those battles more annoying than fun? Stone wall battles are sooooo much better!

And if nothing else, as other people have said, do it in honour of the Romans, the forerunners in siege engineering! And because its fun, which is the reason why we're playing the game in the first place!

forerunners?

They just took greek technology and perfected it.

The fore runners were the assyrians, they were the first be be able to take walled cities by force

i can only assume that a couple onagers can cause some serious damage - when you're defending one end of a bridge and the enemy potentially have hundreds of men crammed on the bridge. sitting targets

I like Onagers, each of my armies has at least two of them and I like to shoot them dry before closing in. Against highly mobile units like cavalry or chariots they aren´t that effective, that´s true, but they can reduce tightly packed infantry formations quite nicely. More often than not they won my day.
They´re especially nice if a lot of enemy units sit in a fort, all cramped up in the (relatively) tiny space. In that situation, they often leave next to no work for the infantry.

I just watched a prog called "Ancient Discoveries" on UKTV History, and it was amazing. I knew the Greeks had wheeled flamethrowers for use in sieges, but it's possible that they also had hand-held versions that worked like a flit gun - perfect for city assaults.

Apparently the largest standard missile fired by Roman ballistae weighed close to 60 pounds, but some custom-built models fired 180 pounders. These monsters stood around 40 feet high and made an onager look puny! ~:eek:

They also demonstrated the scorpion and the later cheiroballistra. The scorpion had a missile velocity of around 39 m/s, and the cheiroballistra could manage over 50 m/s. Interestingly, Roman lorica segmentata could deflect the bolts, although they were capable of pinning a mail-clad warrior to a tree.

Personally, I've increased the number of ballistae/scorpions per unit to three (I think RTR uses four) to give them more firepower on the battlefiled. I may push scorpions up to four, but that will mean increasing the unit cost.

I always make sure to have some Onagers in my army, because of the fun to watch burning soldiers fly and to kill the enemy general easy if I should feel for it.

I always have two artillery units with me just because it's a fun unit to use. I could win most battles with an 18 slot army, so I don't feel like I'm giving anything up.

WRT the slower movement speed on the strategy map... it gives me the flexibility to take a smaller town or fort on the same turn, instead of waiting to build seiege equipment. So it balances out. Mainly I just like blowing up stuff.

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Originally Posted by vastator

Personally, I've increased the number of ballistae/scorpions per unit to three (I think RTR uses four) to give them more firepower on the battlefiled. I may push scorpions up to four, but that will mean increasing the unit cost.

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And how do i do that? A doubling of firepower may convince me to give artillary a second chance

I've noticed that except for the AI's ridiculous tendency to sit there and take it when defending, siege weaponry is mostly superfluous on the field. They'll do damage, and they'll wear down morale, but they are not cost-effective as field weapons. One notable exception is the bridge battle, of course, and that using siege weapons during one is a simple pleasure. Still, those are few and far between.

One note on scorpions, though: they're actually useful in attacking stone-walled cities. They do a helpful job of removing defenders from the walls prior to using siege towers or moving in past archers.

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Originally Posted by Zenicetus

I always have two artillery units with me just because it's a fun unit to use. I could win most battles with an 18 slot army, so I don't feel like I'm giving anything up.

WRT the slower movement speed on the strategy map... it gives me the flexibility to take a smaller town or fort on the same turn, instead of waiting to build seiege equipment. So it balances out. Mainly I just like blowing up stuff.

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I couldn't have said it better myself. ~D

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Originally Posted by Mahrabals apprentice

I tried a brief experiment with seige weaponary, i tried them in a battle where i thought they would excel

I fought a defensive bridge custom battle against the geramns, and i gave them 50% points than i had (give them a little chance).

My army was 3 units of triarii, 1 first legionary cohort, 4 auxilia archers, 6 repeating ballistas, 4 onagers and 2 heavy onagers.

Long story short, the top killers where the archers

The artillery did kill a lot of germans, unfortunatley as the germans advanced i had some firendlty fire problems, and a charcoal general :no:

i said earlier in this thread, and still think, that i would rather have a unit of archers than any artillery unit in a non-seige battle

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That's the worst battle for repeating ballistas (or ballistas and scorpions for that matter). They can't differentiate targets on bridges because it is so crowded. Repeatign ballistas are good for killing two hit point units, or ultra high armour units, things which archers struggle with. Fire them into low-medium quality/cost units and they are never going to be cost effective. Fire them into high quality/high cost units and they will be worth it.

The art of using onagers ~D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Conqueror

The art of using onagers ~D

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Heh, whenever someone posts a screenshot with the RTW mouse pointer in it, I always think my wireless mouse is broken, because when I go to move the pointer it just sits there in the middle of the screen!!! ~D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mahrabals apprentice

And how do i do that? A doubling of firepower may convince me to give artillary a second chance

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First time i have ever quoted myself on here ~:)

I am now using the SPQR mod, where there are no repeating balistas and scorpions & balistae have 4 pieces per unit and they are definatly worth while. I recommend any1 using vanilla changes thebgame to give double the firepower per unit :rifle:

^

Anyone know what file it is in so I can change without getting a major mod?