Is the ballista a siege weapon?

[homefry]

So the ballista fires wooden arrows.

Will it penetrate wooden walls? Stone walls?

[~Beren~]

Well, the ballista is mostly used for anti-infantry.

But for it's usage as a siege weapon, I'm guessing they attach ropes on the darts so when they fire it over the walls, soldiers have a chance to climb.


*Sigh* I need to do more research on this.

Aha! Some more info on how the Romans used ballistas,
"It throws a three pound rock and is used as a countersiege weapon to destroy enemy siege engines. The average ballista threw a thirty pound stone and was used as far back as the time of Alexander the Great. The largest Roman ballistae threw rocks weighing as much as one hundred and seventy-two pounds and were used primarily for smashing fortress walls."

[chicken of doom]

their useful for knocking down early wooden walls, i usually get a few of them in the beginning so i don't have to waste a turn sieging a place, i can just move right in.

[Dogman]

Some mods (like Stainless Steel) remove the option to use Ballista as siege engines, making you wait until you can build catapults before you can take a settlement in one turn. However in Vanilla M2:TW they can be used to destroy walls, but against any stone walls it only does 1% damage per hit.

[Ged]

In SS the AI tore down my stone wall in 2 places, my gatehouse and 2 towers, with 2 ballistas.

As a "siege" weapon (depicted in game) probably not, as Anti Infantry, yes.

[Saibot]

They're usefull when defending against big sieges in the early game. Just place one a bit away from the gate and once the enemy enters through the gate let it fire at will. It usually kills quite some soldiers. I've seen sieges where I killed 150 enemy soldiers with one ballista unit

[TWoxy]

I recruit them because I like the reloading and firing animation .

[Saibot]

Lol, you could also use them in sieges when you're trying to make the enemy sally by just waiting untill they have to fight in order to have a chance to keep their settlement. Just let them shoot at the enemy when they come rushing out and the accurate shots will do a lot of damage (usually). Or use them at bridge battles.

[Seoj]

I found that they are useful for shooting out gates to castles and cities if you want to assault right away.

[Roshak]

So the ballista fires wooden arrows.

Will it penetrate wooden walls? Stone walls?

Surprisingly yes and pretty effectively too. Hence why its important to build ballistas as quickly as possible so you can lay siege to castles and settlements fast.

[delra]

They shouldn't be able to penetrate walls. Real Combat mod got rid of this feature of theirs.

[jsgx3]

It's silly that they damage stone walls, but they do. The AI loves them as well early on and you can bet an army marching on your frontier with a few of those things is up to no good.