Onager battles

[Cornelius the Noble]

Has anyone ever lined up on Grassy flatland and play a battle exclusively with onagers? One of the few types of battles with equal terms in which I lose half or more of my men. Can be quite entertaining.

[Seasoned Alcoholic]

I've used Grassy Flatland a fair bit for testing out siege weapons against other units. This usually involves testing out different types of siege weapons and their abilities against different types of troops, over a variety of distances.

Its good to know that all siege weapons are inccurate at long range. If they hit every target at every possible range, then they'd be unrealistic.

The problem though is flaming onager projectiles. They devastate everything (including heavily armoured elephant types). Even though they're inaccurate, they can tear holes in your army in a matter of moments.

[Cornelius the Noble]

The problem though is flaming onager projectiles. They devastate everything (including heavily armoured elephant types). Even though they're inaccurate, they can tear holes in your army in a matter of moments.

Aren't they meant to do that? But It isn't as much of a problem if you're facing one or two units of them. But I've observed that it can be a problem with much more than that. Assaulting massed onagers depends on speed and mobility. Or in an all onager battle whoever fires first usually has the best chance of winning. Its just hilarious to see the slaughter. When firing against massed Elephants, I've see a well placed shot take out three. But it seems that usually only one is taken out, and if the Elephants can close, then its over.

[Seasoned Alcoholic]

Aren't they meant to do that? But It isn't as much of a problem if you're facing one or two units of them. But I've observed that it can be a problem with much more than that. Assaulting massed onagers depends on speed and mobility. Or in an all onager battle whoever fires first usually has the best chance of winning. Its just hilarious to see the slaughter. When firing against massed Elephants, I've see a well placed shot take out three. But it seems that usually only one is taken out, and if the Elephants can close, then its over.

S'pose its the way the flaming onager projectiles have been coded. Through testing, I've noticed that a direct hit with a standard (non-flaming) onager projectile doesn't bring an elephant down. Multiple hits may still not bring them down, and you can extend this even further by adjusting the mount bonus.

Like you say, a random shot with a flaming onager can bring multiple elephants down, or take out a significant part of a unit (large unit scaling settings). I've seen roughly 1/4 or more of a tightly-packed unit (of 80 men) go up in smoke with a direct hit from a flaming projectile. They seem to be a bit overpowered in vanilla.

[Cornelius the Noble]

@ Seasoned Alcoholic

They do seem to be a little overpowered when on flaming missles in that respect. Losing a quarter of your men in a unit isn't too fun. I think it is balanced a litle by their horrible accuracy. But it sure is devastating when they do hit.

[LSJ]

I love onager battles. Its best at night using flaming projectiles.

Archer battles and peasant vs peasant battles are hilarious. Don't turn off skirmish mode! The people stand and fire at each other, dozens die every second, and when one archer group charges another, they run across the map. Eventually the losing army will reach the end of a map, but before they get there you get to see 20 minutes of exhausted people walking at 0.5mph. Great when you're half asleep and full of sugar.
When you use peasants the armies are equally matched, and it all goes down to a fight between 24 men in a pile of carcasses.

Onager+peasant vs onager+peasant battles are the best. You line up you men in front of the onagers, and try to destroy the enemy artillery while getting blown up.

[Shaun]

Hmmm, an Onager v Onager battle would be quite something.
To win, just use flaming missles to soften up thier crews, then charge in with your numerically superior crews.

[Sylver]

Hmmm, an Onager v Onager battle would be quite something.
To win, just use flaming missles to soften up thier crews, then charge in with your numerically superior crews.

Nah, that's bad. They can still fire even with less men, you would take alot of casualties on the march towards them.

My first and second volley is always stone. The stones are more accurate, and wreck a fair number of their onagers. I use fire at will. They then have less firepower. Then I use fire.

Usually, this results in a lot of disabled enemy ongars, resulting in their crews marching towards me and what little siege engines they have left doing very little damage. Some of my onagers use flaming ammo against the enemy crewmen who are marching, while the rest focus on the remaining enemy onagers.

While the enemy crew march towards you, they will be taking hits from your flaming ammo, lowering morale. When they finally reach you, they rout on contact due to your numerical superiority and their fear of the fire.

By this time, your onagers have softened up the remaining onagers, and the enemy General is dead. Your crews who have either no ammo or have their onagers destroyed now march against the very weak enemy positions. Victory.

[Holger Danske]

I've tried it once.. was damn hilarious to watch two artillery armies bombing each other back to the stoneage.. lol...
One good tactic: focus all of your firepower at one single target at a time, and go for their general first. then pick them off one by one. If the enemy charges you, just join the lame melee and laugh your arse off over something as meaningless as a Onager battle.

[Severous]

Hi

Does unit scale make much difference do you think ?

Last time I used Onagers was on normal setting in the Prologue campaign..around 6 months ago. There were two Onagers on the battlefield and a big Gaul army on a hill. Because it was a large target area missing the aimed for target often meant something else was hit.

Now if playing on 'huge' settings would it be even easier to hit something ? And do you get more onagers per unit card on large/huge settings?

In short do Onagers become more powerful the larger the unit scale you play at ?

[Shaun]

Repeating balistia battles anyone?

[Shaun]

Actually, Onagers are very innacurate. I tried this battle earlier on, and I could march (ok charge) many crews right up to the enemy positions.

[Captian Marcus Cornelius]

for some reason when the I try that against the ai ( I gave the legions ) the all went in to testudo and tried to hold out the barrage it quite funny to see 160 men killed all at once , btw I took a few screenshots I’ll try to find them ..

[Metellus]

My problem (I am new to the game) is that onagers can't be moved through gatehouses, unless I am missing something. Also, ballistas can't be placed on battlements, which limits their usefulness in defence. Sorry the off topic but does anyone know how to get around this?

[Soccer1993]

i did an onager vs. onager battle once, it was hilarious! boulders passing by eachother and whack! slamming into other onagers...

[The Lacedaemonian]

i have. 20 heavy onagers against 1 armoured elephant. quite amusing.

[StickShift]

perhaps a bit off topic, but what the hell...

well, while we're having fun with artillery here let me add my own little experience. we've all had fun with 20 onagers against 20 units of peasants on a bridge, right? well, imagine the fun you can have with those oh so evil carriage ballistae against peasants on a bridge. and you thought repeating ballistae were good at target saturation....

because Barbarian Invasion has its stupid swimming capability (and therefore an inability of a swimming unit to cross a bridge) i used runaway slave spearmen of the Huns as my cannon fodder. \/ the results \/



the bodies were so deep at the end of the bridge that you could barely see the wheels below the axles of chariots. on another note, i've never, EVER seen units get so much experience so fast before.