Is it me or the artillery is a little useless?

[||Lz3||]

just guessing... heheh its just that artillery cost A LOT!! the stone proyector can go from 15'000 to 30'000

I find more useful (and cheaper) to train archers or slingers...

(I dont remember very well how much does the arrow throwers cost but I'm sure its more expensive than 2 or even 3 units of archers )
what do you think?

[Fondor_Yards]

Well it's a lot easier to train sonny jim how to shoot a bow then bobby to be able to maintain and use an advanced siege weapon.

I've never found the arrow throwers to be useful, slingers and archers are better. As for stone throwers, they can be useful if your doing a lot of sieges with only a few field battles, but since they send your movement range into the crapper, I don't use them.

[Sir Edward]

Well it's a lot easier to train sonny jim how to shoot a bow then bobby to be able to maintain and use an advanced siege weapon.

I've never found the arrow throwers to be useful, slingers and archers are better. As for stone throwers, they can be useful if your doing a lot of sieges with only a few field battles, but since they send your movement range into the crapper, I don't use them.

Seconded, in fact out side of regions that have many cities close together (read here greece, asia minor, sicily, and similiar places) I find it just isn't economical to lug these puppies around (especially in the east). I never use them in open combat only in siege situation, and there they do pay off.

[||Lz3||]

the most expensive artillery cost 30'000 the same as elephants whit a big scale armor...


and they rarely achieve more than 10 kills



arrow throwers aren't that useless against infantry , they normally do well... but they are rather expensive...

[Medical Toaster]

I tried to use artillery one time in my last campaign. By the time I lugged the stupid thing from Rome to the front in Asia Minor my new governors were already working on the condominium building improvement for +10 happiness. I was thinking of hacking my files for this campaign to change their movement rate but I am unclear where in the files the movement rates are set. If anyone knows I would appreciate it.

[Olaf The Great]

I recently starting using them in my Baktrian campaign, arrow projectors are COMPLETELY useless! They are expensive, slow, only a few unarmored men and on normal size they only have 2 Ballistas(1 if ONE guy dies.)

However, Stone projectors are STON-AGE while they are slow and have less balistas, they can destroy a gate or a wall in one hit, and if they get a lucky shot, can destroy 1/3rd of a unit(I actually once hit a general unit and killed the general, which turned out to be the last family member of the enemy.(Bye Bye Pahlava!)

One thing to remember for both of these machines is that you can't have -anything- in their way, as the stones explode and kill your guys(and sometimes the crew) and the bolts just go through your -entire- battle line.


I originally recruited them for one purpose, to empty my 40000+treasury, because having everyone in your family wildly extravagant is annoying.

Now, this is what my army looks like
5 cavalry 1 general, 2 cataphracts, 2 Baktrioi Hippeis(the half cataphractoi)
5 line infantry 3 Kleurochoi and 2 Pantodapoi.
5 Missles 2 Persian Archer-Spearmen 2 Slingers
5 "Special" units 2 Indo-Hellenic elites(one Baktrian and one Indo-Greek) 1 Cataphract Elephant
then 1 Stone thrower and 1 Arrow thrower(I will find a use, eventually)

Oh and a shout-out to Elephants, kicking ass and chewing Seleucids, too bad they're out of Seleucids.

[bovi]

I was going to experiment with the balancing of adding more artillery pieces to the units back in october, but didn't get the time back then and it was forgotten. They are indeed pretty much useless, but we didn't want to make changes that weren't tested either.

If you're interested in testing it out yourself, here's the suggestions that were thrown out but not implemented (keep in mind that the reduced upkeep also implies reduced recruitment cost; recruitment = 4 * upkeep):

I agree artillery is too expensive in general. The diminishing number of pieces means reduced effectiveness, so I propose these changes, how about it?

3-span arrow projectors have eight projectors per unit, with attack of 13 and upkeep of 1900 1400.
3-cubit arrow projectors have four five projectors per unit, with attack of 21 and upkeep of 2500 1700.
30-mina stone projectors have two three projectors per unit, with the upkeep of 3200 2000.
1-talent stone projectors have one two projector per unit, with the upkeep of 4500 2500.

This might sound unreasonable but, why not go overboard like this and ask the beta testers if they are too strong and cheap now?

• 3-span arrow projectors have eight ten projectors per unit, with attack of 13 20, ammo of 350 500 and upkeep of 1900 1500.
• 3-cubit arrow projectors have four eight projectors per unit, with attack of 21 25, ammo of 280 400 and upkeep of 2500 2000.
• 30-mina stone projectors have two six projectors per unit, with attack of 40, ammo of 200 300 and upkeep of 3200 2500.
• 1-talent stone projectors have one four projector per unit, with attack of 60, ammo of 160 250 and upkeep of 4500 3000.

Perhaps someone can apply these and post the files here, so people can test it and find a better balance?