use of onagers and other heavy artillery

[Viking]

In single player, frankly you can use whatever units you want and you'll probably win.

That`s true, so when I use onagers, I use them `cause their fun.
But if I meet units that can run amok, then they thend to be useful.
Also as Aesculapius mentioned above, their extremely useful to kill generals with.

Today I used a unit of onagers to pepper my enemies while they were walking through my gates, and with one single shot, I killed more then 30 men!

[Marquis of Roland]

scorpions vs. repeating ballistas: which one is better?

[NihilisticCow]

scorpions vs. repeating ballistas: which one is better?

Depends on what's happening. Versus troops, if the enemy is advancing towards you, scorpions as they have a longer range so will cause more casualties. Repeating ballistas do have a faster fire rate than scorps, so I suppose a camped enemy would suffer quicker once in range, but I always find enemies never stay camped for long under these circumstances, so scorpions are better (the rate of fire is not that much less).

One thing though is that Scorpions do not damage fortifications or other siege weapons, whereas ballistas do, so it depends on what you want to use them for.

[SpencerH]

Properly used arty (mostly onagers in my case) are winners in open battle.

[Marquis of Roland]

Well, I'm probably going to use onagers exclusively for assault walls so I guess scorpions would be the better anti-personnel artillery?

I don't think onagers even using flaming ammo are "wildly inaccurate". Even with flaming ammo, they shoot far more accurate than MTW, I think. Thats what I'm basing it on, and in MTW if you had enough archers with 2-4 units of catapults/cannons, there is no way the enemy is going to drive you off a defensive position.

Another thing: I've found that artillery units gain valor VERY FAST. They gain about average 1-2 chevrons a battle in my game, so now even with flaming ammo they're dropping those flaming boulders right into the middle of the enemy formation. Add this to a wall of armored elephants charging and none will be left alive.

[Lord Hammerschmidt]

I find Onagers to be particularly good against chariots, which seem to have oversized (even bigger than the already large chariot) hitboxes. You can land a firepot in the right spot and take out six chariots, easy. Particularly useful against the Egyptians.
And sometimes I like to burn a city to the ground, just for kicks.

[lars573]

Me I'm very anal about my armies I could never waste a slot to more than one or two arty pieces that takes away space from more effective combat troops. The only factions that ever will train special roster siege armies for are Parthia and the Romans. And even then those armies only have 2 onager units. In a field battle they can be usefull if you set them to fire at will and hope they score a hit in the middle of a cohort.

[NihilisticCow]

Onagers with fire are pretty wildly inaccurate (certainly compared to them without fire). If your enemy marches toward you, you will (unless you're very lucky) simply not do enough damage to their forces to justify the cost of the onagers. Onagers do come into their own however with a camped enemy, even if they have onagers. As you can move your onagers up to attack them, so they will then target yours with theirs. But the difference will be, when you miss their onagers you will be hitting their troops.

If you outnumber the enemy onagers, then they will be forced to attack you (or take large casualties), but if you are outnumbered you should attack (where you will outnumber them with your normal forces - the more enemy onagers, the greater your advantage).

One thing though, I would never set onagers to fire at will - you will probably take far too many friendly casualties when you are closer together, besides it is always best to target the densest parts of the enemy formation.