Artillery accuracy

[crzyrndm]

So it has been noted a few times that artillery is maybe a little too accurate, allowing it to fulfill anti-troop roles in open field battles a little too effectively. Now I agree with that statement wholeheartedly, having had repeated battles where artillery outperformed every other unit in my army, getting the greatest number of kills by factors of 2 or more.

My question is this: How accurate do you think each of the artillery units should be?

The artillery units ingame are as follows (images in spoilers if you need to refresh your memory):
Ballista - can move

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Onager - can move

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Scorpion - can move

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Heavy Onager - can move

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Fixed Scorpion - fixed location

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Polybolos - fixed location

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Giant Ballista - fixed location

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Be as specific as you like. If you think barbarian artillery should be significantly less accurate the eastern artillery then say so. Don't be limiting opinions to accuracy either, I want to use the feedback generated by this as a baseline for an overhaul to how artillery works ingame, and that isn't limited to just accuracy.

[nomercysniper]

I think a couple of general rules should suffice.

1. Fixed is more accurate than movable. This compensates for the lack of movement... and the ability simply move out of range.
2. The bigger the engine, the less accurate... From highest to lowest accuracy - Scorpion, (Polybolos), Onager, Heavy, Giant.

With regards to culture I think Greek and Latin (not sure about eastern) should have a small (5-10%?) accuracy bonus over barbarian artillery. To even it out, the Workshop building (Artillery chain) should also offer a small accuracy increase at higher levels.

[JaM]

there should be NO Barbarian artillery to begin with...

[sabaku_no_gaara]

It's ok, in sieges, when the enemy is stationary and all huddled together, artillery is a huge advantage as you can really soften them up before unleashing your berserker's on them, but in the field they consistently pick the wrong targets, or over shoot.

I'm an artillery lover in single player, and I bring as much as 6 Ballistae with me , recently replaced them with the giant ballista version, despite the extra range and dammage, the immobillity is something that will make me go back to the regular ballistae for my 2 conquest armies.

[BSGfan]

the ballista and onagers are SIEGE weapons and shouldn't even be on the battlefield
onagers are designed to take down walss and other fortification so accuracy isn't important for them walls tend to be pretty big
while ballistas are more accurate they are also siege weapons and nothing else

the only artillery piece that could appear on the battlefield is the scorpion small enough to be carried on some mules and only needing a relative small crew
we know the scorpion was pretty accurate and deadly
we also know the romans had a smaller version of the ballista that was intended to clear enemy fortifications of its occupants and used large lead or stone balls as ammo but this thing was larger than the scorpion and less mobile
than the scorpion but pretty accurate aswell

and for the barbarians no battle field artillery and only late in their research tree and only then during sieges

i would pay for a mod that would remove all ballistas and onagers from the battlefield and only makes them available during sieges as a option you can build

[prithupaul]

Agree that explosive artillery should not be there in the field battles. Its overkill since because of the unit based structure of TW armies, the men can not move away or take cover from the path of the artillery as they will do in a real battle. They will just stand there and get slaughtered.

Artillery is one of the worst exploits in the single player game. I have stopped recruiting artillery. Before my next campaign I will completely mod out artillery except the very top tier ones. Its very easy to do, just make them non-recruitable. And there are some simple mods on steam that let you remove artillery from Barbarians (search for Savage Barbarians in steam workshop).

[sabaku_no_gaara]

But without artillery, the slinger spam of the AI will devastate you before you can get your soldiers in close, and before anyone sais: cavalry hur dur, the AI tends to protect it's slingers with it's spearmen (at least in my game)

I remember a game in one of my first playthroughs where I had a wonderfully balanced army with no artillery, and faced an army that was 70% slingers and my army got massacred, half the men where dead before reaching the slingers and when making contact just wavered. (Hearing: the men are wavering, the men are wavering, the men are wavering, the men are wavering etc... still haunts my dreams) So I learned my lesson and counter the slinger spam with artillery spam.


On a side note, that guy shouting: the men are wavering is super annoying

[crzyrndm]

1. Fixed is more accurate than movable. This compensates for the lack of movement... and the ability simply move out of range.
2. The bigger the engine, the less accurate... From highest to lowest accuracy - Scorpion, (Polybolos), Onager, Heavy, Giant.

Sounds sensible (sensible enough I was already pretty much following them ). The question is more how accurate is accurate? Some initial tests had Giant Ballista unable to damage a section of wall, let alone a unit, which was "maybe" a little far

there should be NO Barbarian artillery to begin with...

My opinion is that there should be no artillery for barbarians unless they meet certain conditions (eg. defeating several armies carrying artillery, capturing a settlement that can produce artillery, etc.). Humans are very good at adapting and learning given something to examine/copy. Also, that was a side note...

but in the field they consistently pick the wrong targets, or over shoot.

In vanilla, against a single unit, a unit of ballista will kill 70+% of them as they cross the area between the two deployment zones. With an army around to take some of the misses, the number of kills can get a little extreme if the player picks out juicy targets (http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/...45BF5F3AC66EB/)

the ballista and onagers are SIEGE weapons and shouldn't even be on the battlefield

While I somewhat agree with this, I don't think I can actually implement it. The next best thing for me is to make them as close to useless in the field as I can without making them useless in a siege as well (there is no such thing as an accuracy bonus vs. walls...).

On a side note, that guy shouting: the men are wavering is super annoying

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=190966863

[prithupaul]

But without artillery, the slinger spam of the AI will devastate you before you can get your soldiers in close, and before anyone sais: cavalry hur dur, the AI tends to protect it's slingers with it's spearmen (at least in my game)

I remember a game in one of my first playthroughs where I had a wonderfully balanced army with no artillery, and faced an army that was 70% slingers and my army got massacred, half the men where dead before reaching the slingers and when making contact just wavered. (Hearing: the men are wavering, the men are wavering, the men are wavering, the men are wavering etc... still haunts my dreams) So I learned my lesson and counter the slinger spam with artillery spam.

On a side note, that guy shouting: the men are wavering is super annoying

I know how your feel , I used to do the same. But if you take artillery to a fight, the enemy will invariably charge you. The melee units will overtake their slingers and run at your infantry line. At that point the battle becomes very messy, and it will take a long time for your artillery to finish off slingers because of their loose, thin and wide formation. And worst of all youll always be forced to fight a defensive battle, because the AI will always attack you if you take artillery. It gets boring. All those artillery battles play out the same way. Offensive battles are a different kind of fun.

Instead try using multiple units of cavalry. Maneuver! Lure away the spear-men with a cheap cavalry unit and hit the slingers with the better ones. They die in seconds. Its much more fun, and tactical. Youll feel like a general after executing it properly.

Not to mention you should take your own slingers and skirmishers. Battles at that time often had skirmishing phases before the actual melee. You should do the same. It will whittle down their skirmishers before the glorious "Othismos" begins.

[JaM]

My opinion is that there should be no artillery for barbarians unless they meet certain conditions (eg. defeating several armies carrying artillery, capturing a settlement that can produce artillery, etc.). Humans are very good at adapting and learning given something to examine/copy. Also, that was a side note...

yes, humans are good at adapting, yet, it never happened in our history for several hundreds of years for barbarians to be able to field any sort of mechanical artillery.. and while it might look quite primitive to us, basic knowledge how to build them or operate them, required relatively quite advanced knowledge of mathematic, kinetic and statics.. and its not surprising at all all three were first worked by Greek mathematicians. I have studied kinetics, dynamics and statics back when I was at university, and must say, i really doubt even today's "ordinary" men would understand some principles.. i really cant even imagine that somebody who has no basic knowledge of these things would be able to effectively build, use or repair them in the field, let alone transport them and assemble them where they are needed.. and even if you capture some men who know how to use it, you would not capture enough of them to get parity in numbers with Greek or Roman armies..

sometimes if thing never happened in real life, it just means there were quite good reasons why it didnt happened..

[Dunadd]

Only the small bolt throwers (scorpion, polybolos) should be accurate against troops. The rest should only be accurate enough to hit buildings or walls unless it's a big concentration of close formation troops.

Only field battle i can think of that bolt throwers were used in was Alexander's battle against the Scythians where he used them against horse archers - and the only field battle i can think of that stone throwers were used was one in which the Phocians used torsion stone throwers (like the ones called 'ballista' and 'giant ballista' above against Phillip II's Macedonian army in Greece - and they were only effective because they were set up to target Phillip's phalanx as it came through a narrow pass.

Artillery just weren't used in most field battles - they were too slow to deploy, too slow to turn or move, too inaccurate and usually required skilled crews who generas couldn't afford to lose.

[Butan]

The accuracy of anything other than Javelins is completely off the board in this game.

The area of accuracy of siege engines, arrows and stones should be expanded by at least 2 times their actual size.


Siege engines would regularly miss a 10m high wall on medieval 2 : you had to be persistent and focused in the bombarding to be sure you would have one part of the wall fall off before running out of ammo. It was fine this way.

Ranged units would regularly have 50% of their ammo being spent uselessly around the target at the farthest range : you had to attack from a short to average distance to be sure to hit your game, else you would do well to choose targets who are in the middle of the enemy formation, so that stray arrows would still hit something. It was fine this way.



The super-accuracy of siege engines (like many said) makes them way too good in open field battles, they should only be useful against immobile targets and should only hit right once in a while, not permanently hitting right or just 10m too far. At the moment its completely impossible for siege engines to miss the targets completely by 50 to 200m on a flat ground with no angle. While when you manually control them you often have a much higher chance to completely miss since the FPS mode is completely ed up (compared to shogun 2).
This should be exactly the opposite : the "AI" controlled missile system should be less accurate but shoots faster and doesnt need micro-management, the "human" controlled FPS camera mode should be more accurate but requires micro-management (and slower reload time ffs lol, I can spam shoot one ballista every 3 seconds).


Archers/Slingers have deadly accuracy even at their max range. You can check by focusing a broken enemy formation of 1 guy on 160 with ranged units: they will all pinpoint to the EXACT LOCATION OF THE 1 GUY. Thats totally wrong, they should not aim individually for targets, but mass-shoot in a certain area that would simulate the exact spacing of each bowmen firing at the same time, with some added randomness! Shooting one lone guy with hundreds of ranged should result in 99% of miss, like before. I really dont understand why they changed the missile accuracy system.


Some screens of guided missile accuracy gone wrong (even if it does look cool and epic as hell):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Found no screens with arrows but its the same principle

[Strengelicher]

My question is this: How accurate do you think each of the artillery units should be?

They should all be fairly accurate - I would think that even the larger artillery weapons were quite accurate at the time. The reasons why they were not widely used in field battles should be found elsewhere. For example, I would think that large artillery weapons required a lot of time for aiming at a target and adjusting to it - too long to be any good in a field battle where the enemy is usually mobile. In game terms, this could be reflected my making it impossible for large artillery to even aim at movable targets, they should be able to aim at an area. Additionally, the first shot after aiming at a new target should be very likely to be off, and then the unit should shuffle a little bit (readjusting) and be more accurate for the second shot, and even more accurate for the third and so on. This way, large artillery weapons would be of very limited use in a field battle. However, there would be instances where they can be useful (defending a bottleneck in the landscape like a narrow valley/firing at an enemy army which tries to defend a position without moving). However, I do not know if this can be done given the game engine.

The smaller artillery should be more flexible - maybe being able to aim at moving targets (such as units) and be quite accurate already on the first shot.

[Dunadd]

After seeing that second screenshot i'm even more glad i don't have the blood and gore DLC

[fws2468]

I think the current accuracy of onagers and ballistas is fine because all artillery are still limited by line of sight and reload time. I do wish scorpions would cause more damage against moving massed enemies as a single shot can penetrate multiple targets. But I stopped using scorpions anyway as they chew up ammo very fast.

But if you take artillery to a fight, the enemy will invariably charge you.

In open ground yes, but not siege battles. The AI units just stand in the town waiting to get slaughtered. As mentioned, artillery are still limited by line of sight and reload time, not to mention being flanked by enemy reinforcements from the rear. So you still need to be tactical with artillery.

[the lightning legion]

I hated how unaccurate artillery was in medieval 2 but this in rome 2 its on the other end of the spectrum its 2 accurate against moving armies I could live with its sniping stationary ones

[JaM]

They should just make all artillery to be indirect, instead of direct aiming, so you would be able to hit certain area, but unable to adjust for moving targets.. only smaller weapons should be able to be aimed at moving targets..


Maybe it could be possible to do it somehow via abilities.. remove projectile from artillery and only give it ability that activates certain projectile, which would have area effect indirect firing...

[fws2468]

I don't get it why some think artillery needs to be nerfed or something. Doesn't the AI also get artillery? It works both ways.

[crzyrndm]

yes, humans are good at adapting, yet, it never happened in our history for several hundreds of years for barbarians to be able to field any sort of mechanical artillery.. and while it might look quite primitive to us, basic knowledge how to build them or operate them, required relatively quite advanced knowledge of mathematic, kinetic and statics.. and its not surprising at all all three were first worked by Greek mathematicians. I have studied kinetics, dynamics and statics back when I was at university, and must say, i really doubt even today's "ordinary" men would understand some principles.. i really cant even imagine that somebody who has no basic knowledge of these things would be able to effectively build, use or repair them in the field, let alone transport them and assemble them where they are needed.. and even if you capture some men who know how to use it, you would not capture enough of them to get parity in numbers with Greek or Roman armies..

sometimes if thing never happened in real life, it just means there were quite good reasons why it didnt happened..

I'm in no way saying it should be easy or commonplace. I just don't like placing hard limits on something for the single reason it never happened historically, in a game where Barbarian tribes can expand to take over the world.

The examples I gave before, give them a very low chance based outcome (eg. capture artillery in battle, 1% chance for tech unlock) and while you aren't placing hard limits, it would take a little luck to happen within a decent timeframe. Even if you did manage to unlock them, I would still model a development process with initial artillery units having relatively short range and terrible accuracy and *slowly* improving from there.

I don't get it why some think artillery needs to be nerfed or something. Doesn't the AI also get artillery? It works both ways.

Nothing to do with balance vs. AI, everything to do with how it looks.

[JaM]

crzyrndm: you know, that even if you disable artillery for barbarians, they can still "capture" it in battle and they will get free unit after battle? CA implemented this, yet still they considered barbarians that they need to be able build artillery straight on.. you know, as it is right now, you can get them immediately once you research early siege tech.. you dont need to conquer the world to get them...