ballistas or cannons vs units?

[Quintus.JC]

The point of trebuchets is the cows. One or two cows directly in the path of the enemy army will do more damage to morale than a cannon or ballista will, and thanks to the huge are of effect the hideous accuracy doesn't matter. Any kills it manages to get with normal ammo once the cows are gone is a bonus.

I'd say that purely thanks to the stinky cows, the trebuchet is the only siege weapon that is worth the unit slot on the battlefield, outside of specialist roles such as skewering elephants (wherein the ballista is really just a poor substitute for javelins).

Plus, biodegradable ammunition. Can't get much more non-polluting than that.

I tried that before, and it worked! The enemy units defending the city were all green, my forces rushed in.... and turned green too. It didn't stop me from taking the city but does my troops have to wait a while for the cow effects to be gone, or is it something else I've done wrong.

[Marius Dynamite]

In my Byzantine campaign cannons have just become available, so I only have bombards. So far I have been using Ballistas in my armies, they can really devastate enemy units. I usually only use the fire bolts and aim at the most elite advancing unit.

Bombard are fairly useless on the battlefield and seem to be only useful against Walls because of their poor accuracy. That being said I remember from playing custom battles that more advanced field cannons like the serpentine are much more accurate and retain the range. I think I'll go play custom now and try it out.

EDIT: I tried a custom battle and realised to my dismay that the Byzantines don't get the modern field cannons! (Is this true for campaign also?) Anyway I tried 3 French Serpentine Vs a force of 10 feudal Knights on grassy plain VH difficulty. It managed 151 kills, has a very long range but it quite inaccurate at the long range. I then tried 3 Ballistas first with normal ammo, it managed less than 33 kills (when they went into melee they got a few more kill, I forgot to stop it). With flamming ammo the result was roughly the same.

I'll admit it was a quick 10 minutes test, nothing scientific but it seems the late field cannons are far more effective than the ballista, although the cannons are double the price aswell. Should point out also that the Serpentine is the predecessor to the Basilisk, which is even more effective although I didn't bother testing, I imagine it would be very rare in M2TW camapigns.

[PBI]

In my Byzantine campaign cannons have just become available, so I only have bombards. So far I have been using Ballistas in my armies, they can really devastate enemy units. I usually only use the fire bolts and aim at the most elite advancing unit.

Bombard are fairly useless on the battlefield and seem to be only useful against Walls because of their poor accuracy. That being said I remember from playing custom battles that more advanced field cannons like the serpentine are much more accurate and retain the range. I think I'll go play custom now and try it out.

EDIT: I tried a custom battle and realised to my dismay that the Byzantines don't get the modern field cannons! (Is this true for campaign also?) Anyway I tried 3 French Serpentine Vs a force of 10 feudal Knights on grassy plain VH difficulty. It managed 151 kills, has a very long range but it quite inaccurate at the long range. I then tried 3 Ballistas first with normal ammo, it managed less than 33 kills (when they went into melee they got a few more kill, I forgot to stop it). With flamming ammo the result was roughly the same.

I'll admit it was a quick 10 minutes test, nothing scientific but it seems the late field cannons are far more effective than the ballista, although the cannons are double the price aswell. Should point out also that the Serpentine is the predecessor to the Basilisk, which is even more effective although I didn't bother testing, I imagine it would be very rare in M2TW camapigns.

Yep, no late gunpowder for the Byzantines, it's to emphasise the trend of them starting strong but becoming progressively more outdated as the campaign progresses (although I found apart from gunpowder this wasn't really the case.)

Late cannons certainly are more effective than bombards in an open field battle, since they can pound the enemy from further and are more accurate; the ballistae I find often don't get off enough shots before being rushed. Bear in mind though that Serpentines are specialist anti-unit guns which are much more accurate than normal cannons; the true precursor of the Basilisk is the Culverin.

I tried that before, and it worked! The enemy units defending the city were all green, my forces rushed in.... and turned green too. It didn't stop me from taking the city but does my troops have to wait a while for the cow effects to be gone, or is it something else I've done wrong.

Cows aren't really best used for sieges since:
* The area of target land the enemy will actually have to cross is quite small and
* Sooner or later you will have to cross it too, and cow bits don't respect nationality.

They are essentially defensive field weapons, since the more the enemy moves around, the greater the chance of them marching over a splatted cow. They are essentially area denial weapons like stakes, only they work against infantry and the AI is much worse at avoiding them. Sieges are where your guns have their chance to shine.

[Kobal2fr]

I tried that before, and it worked! The enemy units defending the city were all green, my forces rushed in.... and turned green too. It didn't stop me from taking the city but does my troops have to wait a while for the cow effects to be gone, or is it something else I've done wrong.

Yup, as long as the cow is there and the green fumes are flowing, anybody and everybody downwind will be grossed out. I don't know the exact duration of the effect after leaving the AoE, but IIRC it's quite long, around 5 minutes or so.
That's PBI's point though, I think : the cows are usefull on an open battlefield, because you can drop them in the path of an advancing enemy. Keyword being advancing .

In a siege situation, I wouldn't say the cows are particularly worth it, for the reason you mentionned. Besides, it's much more fun/effective to concentrate fire to try and crumble a wall beneath its defenders, or just park them down a street and fire at the town square. One boulder is bound to be a lucky hit amidst the hail falling over every building in a 120° arc . Anyway, nobody ever said siege weapons were useless in sieges

For what it's worth, I have the same qualms about hornet throwers in the Americas campaign, I can't seem to use them in a way that would ensure the hornet would only affect the bad Spanish guys :/

[Quintus.JC]

Thanks for the reply guys, I'll see if I can make better uses of these rotten cow corpses in the future.

[Eikon the Magistrate]

The late gunpowder units (Serpentine,Basilisk,Culverin) have much more accuracy than the other cannon and are for this reason more effective in a field battle.

The Ballista is all around my favorite anti-inf weapon because of the almost 100% accuracy it offers
which is vital if you intend on using it for close support of your front line. During a bridge battle for example. It appears the AI treats it as a INF missle unit in that so long as it is firing bolts the AI reacts in a similar fashion to when you have archers deployed.

The cow-spitter aka Trebuchet is effective in the field and less so in cities due to the accuracy being deficient. You can escape the rotten cow morale loss if you micromanage alot.

A fine trick when defending against AI trebs is to allow the ammo to be spent and the cows to start flying, then reposition your force as much as possible behind said cows.(just beyond range of the stench tho) IF the AI is hasty and attacks once the last cow is gone (which is often) they will lose morale by charging thru their own cow field and into your unaffected front line.

[Quintus.JC]

Serpentine, Basilisk and Culvrine are all good, I don't normally choose between them, but I do prefer Serpentine because they're really accurate against enemy troops, and they seems to reload faster as well. But they seems to be very weak against walls. So I guess Basilisk and Culvrine comes on top because of their effectivness against walls.

[TheLastPrivate]

Another strength of serpentine/basilisk is their amazing anti-siege capabilities. After losing my 10 star general from a single lucky trebuchet shot, I always pack either of those.

[glyphz]

Cows aren't really best used for sieges since:
* The area of target land the enemy will actually have to cross is quite small and
* Sooner or later you will have to cross it too, and cow bits don't respect nationality.

They are essentially defensive field weapons, since the more the enemy moves around, the greater the chance of them marching over a splatted cow. They are essentially area denial weapons like stakes, only they work against infantry and the AI is much worse at avoiding them. Sieges are where your guns have their chance to shine.

I agree. Rotting cows shine the most in defense battles, where the only time you need to move your units in the direction of the cows is chasing routers. More so, when they're gonna pass a bottleneck. In city defense, it would likely be before they enter your city or the streets, if you plan to defend the square.
Much better in bridges as you just need one cow to land on the bridge to get every enemy unit that crosses to be affected. This could be a lifesaver when your own troops are inferior to the enemy, where a quicker rout will lessen the casualties the superior (morale, stats) enemy troops will inflict on yours. A good example is against the Mongols (a. esp. to factions with no stakes/effective spears; b. stakes are still the best tactic), or the superior militias the Italians have/keep pumping. Rotting cows still affect elephants, despite their very high morale. Experience however, has proven that elephants (and perhaps "alive" general <-- one that somehow lived and ran away despite slamming into your bridgehead defense) are the only units that can still recover from this kind of route (not run amok), so a spare cav unit is needed to keep them from recovering.
Regarding the main thread, cannons should be better, as range means more shots in (despite accuracy), before enemy counterfire/charge takes place. The only scenario where both ballistae and cannons are winners, i think, is where the enemy is passive, and has no missiles, at least negligible cavalry.

[PBI]

That's PBI's point though, I think : the cows are usefull on an open battlefield, because you can drop them in the path of an advancing enemy. Keyword being advancing .

Exactly so, throughout this thread I have really only been talking about the use of siege units in the field, since I believe that's what the OP was asking about.

Use of siege weapons in siege battles is really very simple: Point cannons at walls, fire cannons, march units in over heaps of broken bodies of defenders.

Cows really are a field weapon though. A couple of siege units are nice to have in the field but the cows are real battle winners. Bear in mind, just getting a few units on the enemy flank covered in cow bits is enough to easily crush that flank and leave the rest of the army stranded.

[batemonkey]

This may be heresey but i have been using massed mortars.

Because they fire (way) over the heads of your men they can keep going even when the enemy is engaged with your troops and i always find cannons difficult to defend from attack.

still with four or five motar units providing death from above most units don't last that long.

They are also great for pummeling massed formations in a city or castle square

has anyone else tried this or is it just me?

[Quintus.JC]

This may be heresey but i have been using massed mortars.

Because they fire (way) over the heads of your men they can keep going even when the enemy is engaged with your troops and i always find cannons difficult to defend from attack.

still with four or five motar units providing death from above most units don't last that long.

They are also great for pummeling massed formations in a city or castle square

has anyone else tried this or is it just me?

I found Mortars to be really useful when defending cities, especially when the enemy are all engagd in one narrow street. but never really used on the battle field.

[Forward Observer]

The ballista is my all around favorite workhorse heavy weapon for most of a campaign. I alway have one or two with every army I build--even after the late gunpowder weapons are available.

No primitive siege equipment is that great for a mobile field battle--hence the name "siege", but the ballista is the cheapest and most accurate--plus in the "flame on" mode, it becomes a great sniping weapon--both against personnel and other types of artillery. In the right situation it cam take out any other piece of higher tech artillery simply because it is the more consistently accurate.

Obviously since the mobility fact is 50% or less of any other unit, any siege engine from the Ballista to the Serpentine is going to be less effective in a mobile field battle, but in those instances when you are attacking in the field and the enemy is stationary, I'll take a couple of ballistae units over just about anything else.

If one can manage a direct right angle flank shot against a stationary enemy unit, the ballista will
take them out in aboout a third the time of any other field piece simply because of its accuracy. I play without the timer, so I can take the time to set this up when the situation is right.

As for sieges the ballista is also almost indispensable. Early in the game when you are only up against wooden fortifications, the ballista is all one needs, but even later it makes a great sniping weapon to
take out all those defenders who stand in nice neat formations behind the gaps in walls that my larger engines have made. I have whittled down entire defending forces by as much as 50% before
before I ever committed in the first mêlée unit.

Check this thread out from well over a year ago and find my two rather wordy posts with screen shots to see what I mean--one is on the first page and one is on the second.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...light=ballista

Cheers

[TheLastPrivate]

I found Mortars to be really useful when defending cities, especially when the enemy are all engagd in one narrow street. but never really used on the battle field.

Best Siege tower killers hands down.