Who has a problem with the WWII style artillery shown in Battle of the Nile and Carthage Siege?

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Remember Mulder in X-files? "I want to believe", that's you ! What you saw is what you'll get, period.

... But... Wasn't Mulder... Right most of the time?

But I always look on the bright side. Mods can fix it, and hopefully it can be used to make cannons for an awesome Roman Steampunk mod. Win win.

[Markas]

Yeah how impressive would it have looked if the artillery had fired and not got within 100ft? Jesus Christ people.

Demo magic.

[Rhomphaiaphoros]

IMO having artillery be better than they were historically is preferable to having it be never worth bringing to a field battle.

While I understand those of you who have concerns about how the artillery was depicted in the video, I personally have to agree with this comment.

Had a tough time picking an option to vote, because in some ways, I could back them all up (they aren't mutually exclusive). But ultimately, I chose number 2 - I'll judge when I see them in action (controlled by me, in the finished game; marketing videos do not count).

[Sharpe]

Is it wrong to like it?

I mean it is a bit OTT but it certainly is impressive.

[Praevanid]

I think it needs to be toned down in both effect and accuracy, but I also know the artillery we've seen so far has been "pumped up" for demo presentations. Mostly, I'm just glad we'll be able to use siege engines destroy massive fortifications. It's a nice departure from the wall-climbing Spidermen of Sengoku-period Japan. While I don't completely dislike those Spidermen, there's something unnervingly satisfying about punishing a huge wall for 5 minutes and then watching it collapse in a huge cloud of dust and pulverized stone.

[SpecialPH]

Voted for "Wait for the game", because they already said they're still working on minimizing the impact and "flying" aspects of the shown artillery pieces ...

[jughurta]

Wouldn't this be the sequel to RTW? At least in the first game catapults were very inaccurate and not very useful vs. Troops, but with nice effect when actually hitting with oil pots. But most useful thowing rocks in sieges. Ballistas were too. Burning bolts very inaccurate but more hits with normal bolts. RTW ballista had low/med range too. U could get scorpion type with longer range ofc. Not a siege unit but nice support fire. RTW had decent balance, and i hope RTW2 also will !

[Muizer]

In this book I have about ancient Roman engineering, some figures are mentioned about range (from tests with reconstructed weapons). Apparently, these torsion weapons could hit moving targets at a range of 50 to 100 meters. That is, when aimed horizontally. Against targets at larger distances, they had to be aimed upwards at an angle, making them very much less effective against moving targets. For siege purposes, a range of up to 150m was still quite effective. Maximum range in testing was about 450m, but in that case the projectiles lost much of their momentum and ded a great deal less damage. No figures on calibres associated with these ranges, but it's gives you an idea.

[rohirrimelf]

I dont want to see the AI spam a couple of these as it makes no sence to build to many of these in a land battle. + When it hit the roman infantry on the e3 demo the effect was unrealistically huge. I rather see a morale hit then units flying into the air en masse.

[IlluminatiRex]

Not only was the range extreme and something technology was barely achieving in early 20th century but the accuracy!

http://www.civilwarartillery.com/tables.htm

1861-1865. Highest ranges are at about 1000-1600 meters depending on elevation and shot type. Some of the sea guns even getting 5000 meters. They weren't "barely achieving" that at the beginning of the 20th century, they had already surpassed that.

Anyway, on topic I think the Artillery isn't too bad, especially since I want it to have some sort of Battleifield use, and even then the GIANT ballista that was shown at the Nile battle was a "Great Ballista".

[Ichon]

Yeah how impressive would it have looked if the artillery had fired and not got within 100ft? Jesus Christ people.

Demo magic.

Did it look impressive or did it look stupid? CA seemed to think it would look cool which is what worries me.

Majority of criticism was about the impact kills but more important to me was the range and accuracy because that was even worse looking. If CA had a better track record with artillery it would be less suspect but in RTW and MTW2 once you got artillery a couple XP they become extremely deadly since the XP increase greatly affected the accuracy of weapons were close is good enough. Even without XP on certain maps having 3-4 onagers could kill/route entire army in a couple hits. The funny thing is that so far the gunpowder era TW games (until FotS) have artillery being weaker than the non-gunpowder era artillery! Primarily due to rate of fire and accuracy but also that every single thing shoots exploding shells which burst into flames.

Realistically there is a hard thing with artillery due to scale in current TW. In a Roman legion of 5,000 there might have been a couple dozen artillery pieces which killed maybe a few hundred enemy but the effect on morale and triggering an attack before working up into a heightened state of morale was more important than number of kills. On the scale of TW that would be a single artillery engine which kills a few dozens. Some people think that makes it not worth bringing to a battle but since it out ranges any other weapons it is still worth it. Not many armies nor players/AI will stand in a defensive position under unlimited bombardment even if each hit is only killing a handful of men or less. So bringing artillery which is less than deadly has other effects.

Of course there is the recruitment and upkeep cost which CA always puts rather high which seems to require making mass kills to justify that cost. The more important cost is in unit slots use where bringing artillery means foregoing something else.

The other issue is rate of fire- that huge artillery that takes hours to setup and once setup only looses a shot every 30-60 minutes is sped up as everything else is in TW is common sense. However if 30 minutes is compressed into 10 seconds then arrows should be coming out like machine gun bullets BUT they don't. That rate of fire makes any artillery with a hint of accuracy overpowered unless it only kills a couple on each hit (CA says not very many but look at the bottom of the hill in Battle of the Nile... large clusters of dead Romans, maybe equally arrows but you can see ring of dead around area hit by artillery).

Accuracy- should artillery be able to simply be clicked on a moving target and have relatively good chance of a hit? For scorpions yes, for large siege artillery- NO. If such large weapons are deployed in battlefields only when defensive fortifications are built then they could be targeted at the ground where the fortifications channel the enemy. Basically setup a kill zone but enemy might not cooperate that is a risk of using unit slot on artillery. Otherwise it is too easy to target and forget which does reduce micro but destroys atmosphere and feeling of an ancient battle.

If artillery were accurate at targeting ground but took some time to reposition to targeting a different spot they could still be useful in some battles and very useful in sieges. Instead it seems we are likely to get this weird type of accuracy which can hit moving clusters of units from 1 mile out to within 200 meters but often misses a non moving wall. That use of artillery misses the point for siege artillery and turns it into something it isn't while minimizing the role of other anti-personnel artillery with only slightly arched horizontal aim which requires more careful positioning but is more fun to use and fight against in a battle.

Range is partly a problem of the sped up speed of TW battles. Since units are covering 100 meters in few seconds the range of most missile units is somewhat extended with javelins traveling 40-60 meters and apparently artillery going over a mile. Arrows however have stayed around 150-200 meters for some reason...

http://www.civilwarartillery.com/tables.htm

1861-1865. Highest ranges are at about 1000-1600 meters depending on elevation and shot type. Some of the sea guns even getting 5000 meters. They weren't "barely achieving" that at the beginning of the 20th century, they had already surpassed that.

Anyway, on topic I think the Artillery isn't too bad, especially since I want it to have some sort of Battleifield use, and even then the GIANT ballista that was shown at the Nile battle was a "Great Ballista".

There is a difference between effective range and maximum range. Musket balls could if fired at an angle fly over a mile but effective range was usually 200 meters or less until rifles. Some artillery in Civil War on stationary targets in sieges could fire over a mile but hitting anything at that range in a field battle was very difficult especially if that target were moving and most of the time 1000+ meter range was important NOT for hitting infantry but for counter-battery fire which is precisely what I am talking about in the poll. Bringing a siege artillery piece to a battle field for use against moving infantry as shown in preview and has worked in past TW games leads to poor gameplay results. Bringing a siege artillery piece that hits stationary walls/gaps in walls in a siege, enemy scorpions or similar targets or vs non moving enemy archers makes sense.

http://www.civilwarartillery.com/boo...y.htm#P4Ranges

[Markas]

Did it look impressive or did it look stupid? CA seemed to think it would look cool which is what worries me.

To the casual observer at E3? cool. To the cynical fan that posts on site based on the TW games? probably stupid. It's the casual observers that will make up most of the buyers and who's attention has to be grabbed. We've seen demo magic before I recall when the videos of E:TW naval battles came up there were threads and posts about how frequently ships exploded after being hit, even though in the actual game it happened rarely. Also in Med 2 we had knights charging through enemy units and we had the claims it was OP. They didn't in the actual game it was for demo purposes (annoyingly, heavy cavalry couldn't even charge at all!). It was purely the prelude to the sustained marketing campaign to grab people's attention the same way trailers take scenes out of context to show how great the movie is, even if it sucks.

Majority of criticism was about the impact kills but more important to me was the range and accuracy because that was even worse looking. If CA had a better track record with artillery it would be less suspect but in RTW and MTW2 once you got artillery a couple XP they become extremely deadly since the XP increase greatly affected the range. Even without XP on certain maps having 3-4 onagers could kill/route entire army in a couple hits. The funny thing is that so far the gunpowder era TW games (until FotS) have artillery being weaker than the non-gunpowder era artillery! Primarily due to rate of fire and accuracy but also that every single thing shoots exploding shells which burst into flames.

In RTW and MTW2 sure, they were mostly used for sieges to bust down walls and had to have additional usage to make them worth the while. This was not the case in ETW/NTW given their common usage and availability from the get-go, unlike in RTW/M:TW2 where you had to get advanced buildings. I'm not particularly concerned by this, it's been a while since we had a non-gunpowder TW and as I recall Arty in S2 were pretty restricted to sieges (I don't have FotS but that's a later period).

everything else you said

Okay, those are fair points but it is reliant on how accurate the representation of arty is in the demo. I personally don't think it is, if only for the imbalance it would cause.

[TheSwordofRome]

Haven't they said that the stats were tweaked to make it so that the demo would not take too long? They probably upped the accuracy and damage on the artillery so you don't have to gaze at them missing for 10 minutes. Also they have said they are still debugging the game, so it should. E better in the final game. (Though personally I don't see anything wrong with it, much easier to spot when zoomed out. And it looks great! )

[Dan113112]

In this book I have about ancient Roman engineering, some figures are mentioned about range (from tests with reconstructed weapons). Apparently, these torsion weapons could hit moving targets at a range of 50 to 100 meters. That is, when aimed horizontally. Against targets at larger distances, they had to be aimed upwards at an angle, making them very much less effective against moving targets. For siege purposes, a range of up to 150m was still quite effective. Maximum range in testing was about 450m, but in that case the projectiles lost much of their momentum and ded a great deal less damage. No figures on calibres associated with these ranges, but it's gives you an idea.

Good points. I saw a test done with a regular ballista and they can shoot quite far. The ballista shown in the E3 video is a rather large ballista.

People speak of how these weapons are inaccurate but could it be that the artillery had just been scripted to hit the legionaries? Maybe the artillery just got a lucky hit on that unit. There's also the possibility that the ballista's looked to be aimed upward. Increasing their range. They were also on top of a hill.

Anyway, I'll wait until I see them in-game in September to judge.

[melnikovav]

They are trying to impress the dumb people with their "Big Birtha" howitzer catapults firing in an over-dramatic fashion. I doubt they ll listen to us though, sadly. At least the walls are lower now. In rome 1 fully upgraded city walls were the height of Everest. You could hardly keep track of your troops in front and behind them.

[Markas]

Anyway, I'll wait until I see them in-game in September to judge.

I don't think we'll even have to wait that long. In every TW game there has been numerous pre-release gameplay footage. E3 just happens to be a big one where extra drama is needed.