Seige Weapons and Artillery

[caravel]

Precisely. Sprites can be made that can then be assigned the ballista projectile, as you say it's making the sprites.

[naut]

Ballistas are alright if you make them able to penetrate enemy soldiers, but it also then depends on the trajectory.

[Fagar]

Unfortunately short of modding them Ballistae are useless in MTW.
They had there place in traditional Roman seiges and did survive into the medieval period and I guess because of this aspect they should be represented in MTW but are basically redundant.
I never use them except if I have one in a starting unit and the province happens to be invaded.

Organ cannons and serpentines I will use occassionally and I build the odd mortar crew for the fear factor and the easy building requirements.
However if I am serious about artillery I get into demi-culvern crews.
Especially if I have just taken a province and know it will attempt to be retaken next turn I will bring them along.

[bamff]

....I build the odd mortar crew for the fear factor and the easy building requirements....

Hmmm - there is another one that I have never employed!

[Fagar]

They are worth a go Bamff even if it is just to say that you have employed them in a battle.
Downside is they take 3ys to build and are horribly innacurate.

They do however make a lot of noise, can be seen to make the enemy nervous and add atmosphere to a battle.

[Knight of the Rose]

I've only once used mortars in a siege battle and was very dissapointed when they couldn't hit the walls. The high arch and the inaccuracy proved it too much of a challange for them. I think it is an open question whether or not they are worth the efford in a field battle. Personally I don't use them.

/KotR

[caravel]

Mortars tend to explode also.

[Roark]

However if I am serious about artillery I get into demi-culvern crews.
Especially if I have just taken a province and know it will attempt to be retaken next turn I will bring them along.

You use demi-culverins against troops?

[Ironsword]

^^ I occasionally use culverins against troops. Whilst not the most accurate, the massive range means that they indiscriminantly bludgeon quite a few foes as they are manouvering in the distance.

When the enemy are beginning to close with my lines, I withdraw the crews and replace them with infantry or cavalry.

[Axalon]

Doing some siegeing are we, eh guys?

Well, to me there are only catapults and trebuchets (ballista’s, as already pointed out, are useless and thus invites you to regard them as redundant). Call me old fashioned but what else is there?!? All the gunpowder stuff is just a lot of smoke – it is not even there if you look close enough. He he, I wish anyway… Besides are we already at turn 1260?!? Who is the rascal that can’t leave the blasted end-turn button alone?!? And more importantly, why wasn’t I told about it?? More catapults less cannons, that’s the way to go!

Wha? Is it gunpowder-time already? Arggh! If you want cannons - play ETW! ....Just thinking out loud here.
No offence intended of course, all you miserable cannon-lovers….


- Cheers

------------
On slightly other and a bit overdue note: my congrats and best wishes to Bamff, stepping in now that Caravel got promoted. From the little I know of you I’m sure you’ll do great job just like your predecessor did. Speaking of which, were is that rascal? Off to distant Japan and STW it seems?!? Hiding under a foreign name I’m told – what will his troops at home think!?! Granted that I hear the wenches are fine, the rice-wine is tasty and that there are a lot of juice territory to conquer as well over there but even such excuses is stretching things I think. That is no place for a good lord and knight like him – so far away from home. He ought to know better…. - My congrats to you too my good neighbor even if you’re turned all green these days – don’t forget to tend to your old domains. The fair meadows and lush forests surrounding “castle pocket mod” should not be neglected even if the grandchancellor has honored you with additional duties. I’d guess that those seven maidens you sent Tosa from your last campaign really did the trick here!

As for the eternal camel lord Martok who leaves us all for sexier graphics over at the newly discovered ETW-land, to you I just offer a few humble “words of wisdom” for your new adventures over there. Firstly, don’t be fooled by the strange new weaponry found in ETW. Whatever it is, it is not as dependable as Spanish steel and a sturdy catapult! The whole gunpowder thingie is just a hoax – you’ll see…. Secondly, steer your white camel back home to the safety of MTW-land once in while. Your camel will be much happier that way (as the rest of us) because I keep hearing that they don’t have any decent camel-fodder over in ETW-territory….

So, all silly nonsense aside, congrats to the avid chronicler Bamff, also to ever working Caravel whom I believe will do an excellent job - even if Martok is a tough act to follow. Caravel, you sure earned this by hard work. And finally, a good luck to you Martok (and your camel) with your new duties in the far away and strange ETW-forum, and I’d like to throw in a general thank you for your service here at the Main hall as well. All congrats-threads were closed when I finally discovered all this stuff so I thought I’d slip it all in right here (after all, it just had go somewhere)…


On a general note: I know that this is supposed to be some kind of secret but is it true
that the title of “Lord Moderator of the Main Hall” grants +2 loyalty, +2 acumen...?

[caravel]

Doing some siegeing are we, eh guys?

Well, to me there are only catapults and trebuchets (ballista’s, as already pointed out, are useless and thus invites you to regard them as redundant). Call me old fashioned but what else is there?!? All the gunpowder stuff is just a lot of smoke – it is not even there if you look close enough. He he, I wish anyway… Besides are we already at turn 1260?!? Who is the rascal that can’t leave the blasted end-turn button alone?!? And more importantly, why wasn’t I told about it?? More catapults less cannons, that’s the way to go!

Wha? Is it gunpowder-time already? Arggh! If you want cannons - play ETW! ....Just thinking out loud here.
No offence intended of course, all you miserable cannon-lovers….

Well met Sir.

Indeed, unless you get close enough to actually smell what your enemy had for dinner this morning there is not much point is there?

On slightly other and a bit overdue note: my congrats and best wishes to Bamff, stepping in now that Caravel got promoted. From the little I know of you I’m sure you’ll do great job just like your predecessor did. Speaking of which, were is that rascal? Off to distant Japan and STW it seems?!? Hiding under a foreign name I’m told – what will his troops at home think!?! Granted that I hear the wenches are fine, the rice-wine is tasty and that there are a lot of juice territory to conquer as well over there but even such excuses is stretching things I think. That is no place for a good lord and knight like him – so far away from home. He ought to know better…. - My congrats to you too my good neighbor even if you’re turned all green these days – don’t forget to tend to your old domains. The fair meadows and lush forests surrounding “castle pocket mod” should not be neglected even if the grandchancellor has honored you with additional duties. I’d guess that those seven maidens you sent Tosa from your last campaign really did the trick here!

You should give the SW mod a try my friend, or even STW itself.

As for the eternal camel lord Martok who leaves us all for sexier graphics over at the newly discovered ETW-land, to you I just offer a few humble “words of wisdom” for your new adventures over there. Firstly, don’t be fooled by the strange new weaponry found in ETW. Whatever it is, it is not as dependable as Spanish steel and a sturdy catapult! The whole gunpowder thingie is just a hoax – you’ll see…. Secondly, steer your white camel back home to the safety of MTW-land once in while. Your camel will be much happier that way (as the rest of us) because I keep hearing that they don’t have any decent camel-fodder over in ETW-territory….

The Great Lord Martok is secretly getting very excited about ETW but doesn't want to tell us!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

J/k Martok is busy helping out in a very difficult part of the forums. He deserves much credit for this. Lord of Camels we salute you.

On a general note: I know that this is supposed to be some kind of secret but is it true
that the title of “Lord Moderator of the Main Hall” grants +2 loyalty, +2 acumen...?

You've forgotten the +4 dread and -8 piety.

[Fagar]

^^ I occasionally use culverins against troops. Whilst not the most accurate, the massive range means that they indiscriminantly bludgeon quite a few foes as they are manouvering in the distance.

When the enemy are beginning to close with my lines, I withdraw the crews and replace them with infantry or cavalry.

Yep exactly Ironsword.
They miss a lot but when a 30 odd pound ball of lead plows through the enemy lines from so far away the naked eye can barely see it is pretty cool.
I love seeing the shot go off and then the little green casualty bar on my battle map rushing forward.
Once I was lucky enough for a shot to plow into a heap of Turkish horse archers, taking out 10 of the 40 and they ran!! Sweet.

[Axalon]

Hey Caravel/Naga!

If the foe is getting that close to your siege engines, you just got to be doing something seriously wrong! Besides, don’t those boys – I mean the crews - always go on a “stratigical-lunch-break” when that happens?

I’m no connoisseur of cannons that’s for sure, thus I don’t even bother with ‘em. I’m too busy looking good with my catapults! So what that they are not as effective – who cares. They’re cool, that’s what counts! Personally I entertain silly notions of total gun-powder rejections in both MTW and STW. I want spears, swords and catapults! Steel not sulfur! It probably is not the best thing you can do battle, but it sure is cooler! As I said, if I want gun-powder - I’m sure ETW are more than happy to oblige in that area. The only exception I got going is naphtha throwers (and if I remember all things correctly that aint no gun-powder in those little jars either). Silly me, but there you have it….

You should give the SW mod a try my friend, or even STW itself.

Like, Axakazi the stern warlord? Maybe I will just do that some day....

I actually started my TW-career with STW so that little beauty is no stranger to me – rather an old and beloved friend she is. I still regard her to be the sexiest member and certainly the most fun to play with in the entire TW-family (unaltered original versions). MTW is an ok and nice game in its original form but in that state it can’t really compete at all with STW. It sprawls too much and lacks the tightness of STW. It also got to many “new” things and changes that I don’t really like much. No throne room, no 4-turns/per year (o boy, do I miss those), no colorful event announcer, no cool videos and on and on. Along with that, there are “new” stuff such as the horrible V&Vs system that really drags MTW down (the actual implementation of a partly ok idea ended up being just awful). Shogun don’t have any of that – which is a major, major plus. On top of that there is stuff like the portraits for instance, which I don’t care that much for either (eventually the stock-portraits annoyed me enough to replace them all with my own stuff – catholic factions only thou – all that work is just murder. I sure could have spent all that time better in retrospect. Silly me). The reasons as for why I even bother with MTW is because you can change/mod it (and it is fairly friendly to that, VI especially) and the potential framework of the game can be bigger and more complex – if needed. If needed. Besides, I also like the setting of knights and princesses and such stuff more than I do samurais (which are cool also!). And, it still is the best medieval battlefield simulator released to date – and that is a major factor for me.

All this of course is just my personal opinions and nothing else, I’m sure that there are plenty of people that have a very different take on all this. And, in no way is this an attempt to tell people what to think, like or do.

As for SW then…. I have actually considered to play SW for years now (at least back to beta 5 or there about). Even downloaded it twice but I never seem to get around to play it. As for now, I’m too busy with finishing up the latest edition of my own project. Maybe I’ll take vacation from MTW after that and finally give SW a go – time will tell eventually I’d guess. As far as I can tell from the files and stuff I have checked out - the craftsmanship of SW is first class so that is a nice and inviting trait for me. Definitely a selling point for SW and that is the very thing that made me interested in it in the first place. As for reservations about SW, I can only think of one that has any bearing for me personally; it is based on MTW. Believe it or not!

Meaning you’re stuck with 1 turn/year instead of the “real” years of STW - 4 turns a year. Along with no throne room and a few other things like that - essentially you’re stuck with all the hard-coded stuff and limitations and traits that comes with MTW. In battles this should not matter much and possibly SW has the potential to be even better than STW due to a potentially better tactical-AI behavior found in MTW. The valor system could very well also be in favor of MTW. I can’t remember how it is for the moment but in shogun it is just a body count, right? Anyway, the combat-system of shogun is there so I assume (right? Wrong?) that the SW-people just moved that over to MTW. It works very well with the circumstances it has to operate on in STW so it should work very well for SW also. With a limited troop-roster and all that. Thus, all problems that I see in the standard MTW combat-system should be avoided successfully I’d guess. Anyway, all this is just opinions of mine nothing else.

Perhaps I will one day manage to take that final step and get to do some serious SW-time (I do wonder how it will be with all those extra factions it got? Will it actually end up being better that way?). As I said, I have considered it from time to time. At any rate, it sure has been a while since I played with STW – perhaps I should do something about that….

“The Great Lord Martok is secretly getting very excited about ETW but doesn't want to tell us!”

Didn’t I see his camel strolling about just few minutes ago? Happy as can be with belly full genuine tasty MTW camel-fodder. If we hurry, we might catch him and Martok can’t be far away (he never is with that camel of his). Then we got him corned and he’ll sing the full opera for us regarding ETW – all we have to do is just to threaten to slap his camel (we wont of course, but Martok don’t know that) and he’ll see things our way I’m sure.… Nonsens aside, yeah he will be pretty busy these days with ETW, trying to bring some order in all this ETW-hysteria that is around these days - probably not an easy job at all.

You've forgotten the +4 dread and -8 piety.”

I knew it! That means that you have an ever standing invitation to dine royally in the holy dungeons of the Vatican, right? And that the holy inquisition has given up on you after 437 attempts to straighten you out. And that you now have the power of silencing men of the cloth by sheer dread-factor. Oh boy, that just got to be grand!

- Cheers