Ballistas, Do you still use them?

[Sir_Hawkwood]

Afternoon all,
I'd like to get a feel from the members, whether or not you still find a use for old, "obsolete" ballista units?

I'm in turn 148 and have managed to train up a couple of ballista units to 3 silver chevrons, making them very accurate, long range killers.

Ofcourse, I'll always take a few culverins along too, but do you think that hanging on to these Roman relics is worth it?

Many thanks
SJH

[Vladimir]

If you have room left in your army than why not ? A pair of them might be good to defend your flanks.

[Skott]

I use them in the early game period. Then I move onto catapults and then cannon/guns when gunpowder phase begins. The game AI forces seems to favor ballistas throughout the entire game I have noticed.

[baron_Leo]

The game AI forces seems to favor ballistas throughout the entire game I have noticed.

Yeah, I think that is because he aint has no money for more expensive stuff...i've never seen them in an unmodded game coming with a grand bombard...

[Forward Observer]

I love the ballista and as modeled in this game it is my favorite big gun.

Check out my opinion and praise of the ballistae towards the end of this post.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=76167

P.S. I like the mortar second best and consider a lot of the bigger guns overpriced fluff except of course when I need a wall or a tower knocked down.

By the way, I was in the US Army artillery many years ago and my user name will tell what I did when they sent me on an all expenses paid vacation to Southeast Asia.

Cheers

[OMGLAZERS]

I can never think of a use for them. I mean, they don't kill many people, and cost a lot. I think they're only around because historically they did exist and also as a comma in the sentance before reaching catapult. I wish someone could give me a good reason to build one though. ;\

[OMGLAZERS]

I love the ballista and as modeled in this game it is my favorite big gun.

Check out my opinion and praise of the ballistae towards the end of this post.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=76167

P.S. I like the mortar second best and consider a lot of the bigger guns overpriced fluff except of course when I need a wall or a tower knocked down.

By the way, I was in the US Army artillery many years ago and my user name will tell what I did when they sent me on an all expenses paid vacation to Southeast Asia.

Cheers

Wow what a show.

I'm going to slap a few ballistae into my next stack and give it a try. Those are some great results.

[Snoil The Mighty]

I'm with forward observer on this I have to admit. By the time gunpowder is around I have 8-12 ballista units in the several silver to several gold chevron range, and these units, used properly, are murderous. They have drawbacks against certain army configs, all units do. But they have great versatility, are very inexpensive, and available so early on that I have only a few cannon-style guns for wall smashing duty towards the endgame.

As a Monty Python fan for years, I do make Trebs for cow-throwing though

[lobo76]

O M F G. atm i absolutely do not bother to build siege engines until gunpower period. Now, I am going to start training ballistaes! Did you get any gold chervon ballistaes? Did their accuracy increase beyond 65% as mentioned by you?

[Forward Observer]

O M G. atm i absolutely do not bother to build siege engines until gunpower period. Now, I am going to start training ballistaes! Did you get any gold chervon ballistaes? Did their accuracy increase beyond 65% as mentioned by you?

Actually, although I am sure there is a difference in the effectiveness of the higher ranked ballista, I have just never bothered to do any controlled comparisons. Most of the time I have gotten great results with a ballista unit right out of the box. My observations are general and ancedotal from playing through a short and two long English campaigns.

I guess I am going to have to set up some custom battles and record the results to put out some totally accurate numbers.

If I can stop playing long enough to find the time, I am thinking about writing up a siege engine and artillery guide anyway.

Cheers

[Forward Observer]

I will add that although I love playing with the various artillery engine in the game there are a few aspects of the way they are modeled that I wish could be changed.

1. The first is the lack of the ability of pre-loading your piece for the first shot.

Regardless of what you do, you have to select a target, or if you have the "fire at will" option on, a target has to come into range before your unit will go through the loading animations. In the field, with a fast approaching enemy this this can prevent one from getting off one or more critical extra shots before having to engage in hand to hand.

It's the same if your piece has just loaded and you select a new target, the unit will go through the loading animation all over again after they have re-layed the piece.

2. The second missing element is the abillity to target an area rather than a specific unit. Being able to target a specific avenue of approach would requre a lot less micro management during a hectic field battle.

3. The last really only applies to the ballista since it is the one weapon accurate enough for this to make a difference. When you target a unit, the weapon will generally aim for dead center of the unit and as you take out units they will close up ranks. In the examples I gave about shooting through gate portals or even through gaps in the wall, you have to have a clear shot at the center of the unit, or your bolts will hit the wall.

Most of the time you can move to the proper angle to get a center shot but not always. Here I would have liked to have seen the ability to either target an individual rank or as stated in item #2 the ability to target an area.

These are relatively minor complaints, and probably would have required just too much extra coding for the game. After all, I don't think they had Artillery TotalWar in mind when they designed the game.

Still, if as many hope and predict, the Napoleonic period is the next era they tackle, they are going to have to give a lot of thought and attention to such things.

Cheers

[baron_Leo]

I will add that although I love playing with the various artillery engine in the game there are a few aspects of the way they are modeled that I wish could be changed.

1. The first is the lack of the ability of pre-loading your piece for the first shot.

Regardless of what you do, you have to select a target, or if you have the "fire at will" option on, a target has to come into range before your unit will go through the loading animations. In the field, with a fast approaching enemy this this can prevent one from getting off one or more critical extra shots before having to engage in hand to hand.

It's the same if your piece has just loaded and you select a new target, the unit will go through the loading animation all over again after they have re-layed the piece.

2. The second missing element is the abillity to target an area rather than a specific unit. Being able to target a specific avenue of approach would requre a lot less micro management during a hectic field battle.

3. The last really only applies to the ballista since it is the one weapon accurate enough for this to make a difference. When you target a unit, the weapon will generally aim for dead center of the unit and as you take out units they will close up ranks. In the examples I gave about shooting through gate portals or even through gaps in the wall, you have to have a clear shot at the center of the unit, or your bolts will hit the wall.

Most of the time you can move to the proper angle to get a center shot but not always. Here I would have liked to have seen the ability to either target an individual rank or as stated in item #2 the ability to target an area.

These are relatively minor complaints, and probably would have required just too much extra coding for the game. After all, I don't think they had Artillery TotalWar in mind when they designed the game.

Still, if as many hope and predict, the Napoleonic period is the next era they tackle, they are going to have to give a lot of thought and attention to such things.

Cheers

I agree with everything you say. It is annoying that the animation starts over every time you attack a new target. But to be honest artillery isn't that slow. And it is quite powerfull. I hate it when the enemy has a lots of it. How many Knight of Santiago died of them (the Knights of Santiago Fan Club still awaits members - Junior Vice President baron_Leó:-) If they make an expansion pack (I guess it will be age of exploration maybe with more of Asia and America) then cannons should be corrected the way Forward Observer is suggesting.

[sapi]

Yep, the arty needs to be improved for the (hopefully) inevitible napoleonic era game :P

[Nem Godslayer]

3. The last really only applies to the ballista since it is the one weapon accurate enough for this to make a difference. When you target a unit, the weapon will generally aim for dead center of the unit and as you take out units they will close up ranks. In the examples I gave about shooting through gate portals or even through gaps in the wall, you have to have a clear shot at the center of the unit, or your bolts will hit the wall.

Most of the time you can move to the proper angle to get a center shot but not always. Here I would have liked to have seen the ability to either target an individual rank or as stated in item #2 the ability to target an area.



Cheers

My experience with ballistas is they were the only siege equipment that actually targetted and hit the portion of the unit I was aiming at and not the center.

Also they are awesome for targetting the second row units because if they fall short, they kill off the first rows of units.

I have tested mutiple mods, so not sure if this is residue from someones changes or not...

Any others notice this?
Nem

[IrishArmenian]

Never, ever recruited them in M2TW. Never.

[General Zhukov]

Wooden artillery isn't worth it, IMO. Takes up valuable slots, is a millstone in open battle, and slows down armies on the campaign map. I used to use cannons for wall and tower destruction, but now even those are being relegated to my new dedicated siege stacks.

[PureFodder]

Rubbish against walls, slow your armies down, pretty slow fire rate, not overly devastating even when they do fire. I Prefer to stick in an extra unit of Cav/bows/infantry.

[Von Nanega]

As shown in the below link, Ballistas can be really usefull to push infantry away from wall and gate breaches.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=76167

Artillery is just a weapon that takes more than click CHARGE to use. Prelaying the field of fire and a plan is necessary.

[Zenicetus]

Regardless of what you do, you have to select a target, or if you have the "fire at will" option on, a target has to come into range before your unit will go through the loading animations. In the field, with a fast approaching enemy this this can prevent one from getting off one or more critical extra shots before having to engage in hand to hand.

I think this is a carry-over from RTW, since we have a mix of the older wooden tension/torsion machines and gunpowder cannons in the new game. Wooden artillery isn't something you'd move around the battlefield in a "cocked' position, and they probably couldn't be held in that state for very long, considering the relative frailty of those devices. A ballista or trebuchet must have been a scary thing to stand anywhere near, when it was pulled back and ready to fire. Maybe there just wasn't enough CPU cycles to spare for a separate fire-then-load cycle for the gunpowder units in the game, or for a separate load-and-hold command for the older stuff, before the enemy gets in range.

It does screw up the use of handheld weapons too... musketeers being forced to move-then-load because that's how archers have to work, etc. So yes, if CA does a Napoleonic version of TW (which I wouldn't personally enjoy, due to less melee combat) they're going to have to change the way this works.

On the "fire on area" command: I like it in principle, but it might mess with the game balance. It's one of those things that the player could use far more effectively than the AI, since the player can easily recognize choke points, anticipate where a predictable AI is going to send its units, etc. It's about all the AI can do to recognize which unit should be targeted with artillery, and use a direct "hit that unit" command. So while I like the idea, I don't think the AI could handle it... at least in the current version, since it can't handle so many other things. It might end up just making the tactical battles easier than they already are. It would be great for multiplayer though, and maybe that's enough reason to put it on a request list.

[Snoil The Mighty]

O M F G. atm i absolutely do not bother to build siege engines until gunpower period. Now, I am going to start training ballistaes! Did you get any gold chervon ballistaes? Did their accuracy increase beyond 65% as mentioned by you?

What i have to say on this is anecdotal, not play-tested in custom, but I have noticed two things, the higher the chevrons, the more of them survive. This seems to keep rate of fire higher for longer period of time. And initial accuracy seems a tad better (first two shots), though again this is anecdotal and maybe I am just lining them up better or as the game goes on and I face larger armies they do better in "target-rich" environments.