Ballista overpowered?

[Sulla's Dog]

I just defended a siege from the atimid caliphate (sp?) and their army had 3 units of ballistas in tow. With those ballistas they blew 3 holes in my stone wall and destroyed 4 towers. On top of that, after I successfully fought off the troops (barely) the only remaining enemy was these ballistas that still somehow had ammo...and their crews combined with flaming shot ended up defeating me.

Is this as powerful as ballistas were intended to be? Their salvos took down the wall rather fast...

[Philippon]

I've noticed that your opposing factions never seem to run out of ammo. I've gone for cities with three ballista units and quite frankly, I've not been able to inflict half as much damage on a stone wall with them.

Consequently I don't think it's the ballista's being overpowered, rather it's the fact that if you stand there and wait for them to run out of ammo, you'll run out of army first.

When up against a force that has greater missle weaponry at their disposal, you need to take those missle units out as quickly as possible. Calvary is best for this, but a solid line of infantry advancing directly for them is also possible since the computer frequently does not balance out it's forces intellegently. I just met a French army that was composed of 1 general's bodyguard, 3 units of Sergent Spear, 1 Volgue, and 6 catapult units.

I met them with 1 General's Bodyguard, one mail calvary, 6 dismounted mailed knights, 2 almughavirs, and 2 milita crossbow units.

I lost 200 men in the initial advance. But after that, it was all over for the Frogs.

They died real fast.

[Rusty Hammer]

As England taking out the Scots they also fielded a ridiculous amount of ballistas, that also never seemed to run out of ammo, or miss for that matter. I felt like cruise missles were heading right for my troops. Also on large unit settings it can take quite a bit of commando general attacking to take those things out. Any way to nerf them a bit?

[tornnight]

Done. They had 50 shots per ballista. I reduced it to 20.

[Oldgamer]

One thing that can be done is to increase the production and upkeep costs for ballistas. I don't see how a power that is "bankrupt" could produce such weapons in large numbers.

[dfeal]

Siege units... pah! When did you ever read about a battle being won by siege units during this period? The CPU seems to think they are effective mobile artillery units commanded by Napoleon himself.

Doesn’t matter which mod I am currently using I always make changes to all the siege units. Make them very expensive to recruit and maintain. I also always lower all their knife values to 1, and charge to 0. I never again want to see a unit of my heavy cavalry being held or driven off by a siege unit fighting hand to hand only with their knifes. When 60 heavy cavalry charge into the back of 30 men just standing, with their knifes in their hands, the battle should be over in a matter of seconds and I’ll be surprised if even one horsemen is hurt.

When you add 1000 to 2000 to the recruitment cost of all siege units, and 1000 or more to the wage, you’ll soon see very few siege units indeed.

[Creslin]

Using ballista as anti troop weapons prolly isn't that inaccurate, in reality i dont think they were that effective against stone walls and if anything their dmg to buildings needs to be lowered.

I've always wished they would have added the catapults and trebs to the siege build menus rather than have the armies drag them around with them everywhere.

[dfeal]

"I've always wished they would have added the catapults and trebs to the siege build menus...<snip>"

Now that is a good idea. And much more how they were probably used.

[tornnight]

The very first level of walls goes down rather easily. Second level is hardcoded to be the same as stone wall gates so, I don't want to make it easy. Just limitations of the engine.

I'll see what I can do about ballistas and walls.

[Jeremy971]

and for the door ? It's too easy to break it...

For example, you have a large wall stone, with ballista towers but your door is broken in 30 seconds. And the doors are not like RTW, we cant burn enemy.

Walls are broken too fast also...

[Xeno_cws]

Oil is back in with the expansion coming in August.

I like how it takes a long time to bust through makes sieging all that more difficult.

[Hanny]

Anyone lese think a cap on ballista numbers would be a good thing?.

[Xeno_cws]

Rich I think what people are getting at is that stone walls are being knocked down in a matter of moments by ballista making Battering rams, ladders, and towers useless.

No one wants a battle that takes a week, but no one wants a battle that takes 5 minutes. Thus balancing comes into play.

[richieelias]

Strange.. in my game it takes almost all the ammo of two units of ballista to knock down one section of (fortified wooden) wall... Doesnt seem so overpowered to me.

However, my main point was: there is no reason ballistae shouldnt be able to knock down stone walls, and ballistae making a mess of tightly packed formations of infantry is in fact realistic.

[hellispont]

Strange.. in my game it takes almost all the ammo of two units of ballista to knock down one section of (fortified wooden) wall... Doesnt seem so overpowered to me.

However, my main point was: there is no reason ballistae shouldnt be able to knock down stone walls, and ballistae making a mess of tightly packed formations of infantry is in fact realistic.

This is accurate, and I see ballistas in the game now as accurate with the exception of them doing such dmg against stone walls.

And for those of you who are taking a beating from computer seiging you with ballistas because they are killing your troops, well you need to learn that you dont leave your troops within firing range to get picked off.