Best anti-personnel artillery is ?

[Forward Observer]

My vote for the most versatile and best all around man killing siege engine goes to the lowly ballista. In the first Medieval game the ballista was just not that useful, but as modeled in Medieval 2, with mobility and in the "flame on" mode, it is the equivalent of a medieval RPG and is the work horse of most of my western armies.

Besides being the cheapest and the earliest “big gun” one can acquire, it is also the most consistently accurate--making it not only useful in sieges but also in field battles.

In reality the ballista was more of a Roman period weapon and was hardly used in the middle ages in favor of the heavier stuff like the trebuchet, but what makes it so useful in this game is its consistent accuracy--better than even the gunpowder weapons.

In a siege the ballista can handle any wooden fort and take out the gates of any stone edifice. With enough of them one can actually take out a stone wall. It takes forever and is unrealistic of course, but I actually lost a city defense once to this fact. They also are better than standard archers at sniping troops through and behind the merlins on the walls

Even if I get a message that my spies have opened the gates, I blow them open anyway because many times there will be a unit parked right behind the portal and since the ballista is a flat trajectory weapon you can pick them off right through the portal. Even after I have blown down walls with my heavier stuff, the ballistae is perfect for sniping the units that will move in to block the gap.

Sure, the big boys can take out a large group with one hit, but they only hit bout 20% of the time. The ballista will generally score a hit at least 65% or more of the time, which turns it into a big bore sniper weapon. If one is shooting at troops with deep ranks the ballista can shish kabob quite a few with a single flaming bolt, and if you can manage to flank a unit so you can shoot down their ranks in perfect enfilade you can actually score up to 10 or 12 kia’s with a single two shot salvo. I think 17 dismounted knights was my best score with a single salvo. I have had single 2X ballistae units with 120 plus kill ratios after a battle. I have yet to score as many kills consistently with any other heavy gun.

I think I got about 7 guys in the shot below



In this picture, I only had one ballistae unit with just 8 men left. It had already decimated about 30 men of a feudal knight unit at anther gap when I noticed a 60man halbert unit at about a 60% angle to the wall at the front gate. All that is left is a greasy stain on the ground diagonal to the entrance. I still had enough ammo left to take out 20 to 25 more feudal knights standing next to them.


Here is a shot of a similar situation. I ended up taking out 75 spearmen and all of the generals guard including the general.


When defending, if the attacker has knocked a hole in my wall, most of the time they will not send troops in until they have knocked out any towers and maybe knock down another wall elsewhere. This can give me a chance to move ballista unit into the gap. On several occasions by doing this I was able to completely disable all of the attacker's siege equipment before they could do any real further damage.

In a besieged situation, and if I determine that the attackers are made up of small armies and do not have a their own engines, I sally on the first move. This does not allow them to build towers or rams. Since I play with the timer off, I have to make them rout or take a loss. If they do not have missile units, I simply roll my ballista out the front gates and start pouring it on.

Alternately, if they do have archers, but everybody is safe behind the walls, my absolute favorite tactic is to put together a small hit squad of a couple of ballistae units along with what ever I can spare for protection--maybe a couple of heavy infantry, as many archer units, and some mounted knights. I then take these out one of the side gates and make a wide circle around to come in on the flanks of the attackers.

I will repeat that this only works well if the attacking army is mostly foot troops. If they have a lot of archers (mounted or foot) they may break off to engage your flanking force when you get within their radar, but this can also be circumvented by keeping those enemy archers otherwise occupied by sending a cheap spear unit to stand out in front of the gates as a sacrifice.

The only big choice is whether to go after the enemy's left or right flank. I usually go for their right so I can take out as many troops as possible without harming the commander. From the left you may kill the general too early and they will simply run off

Of course the ballista has to be protected in the field, and as all siege engines they are highly susceptible to cavalry rushes, which makes them much less useful against the Eastern and Mongol type armies. Additionally their range is only slightly better than longbows, so one also has to be careful to try to keep them out of enemy missile range.

Since ballista has a low trajectory they have to be either adjacent to or in front of freindly troops, so one nifty method of protection for a defense is to park the ballista right behind a unit of archers who can plant stakes. After the battle starts, simply move the archers back and the ballista up.

So I humbly submit the ballista as the most versatile all around killing engine in the game and at only 370 florins per unit, the absolute best bang for your man bar-b-que buck.

Cheers