Siege Weapons

[Varius Makanii]

So, this has been bothering me. What is the purpose, outside of sieges, of artillery?
First off, I don't care where, Scorpions, Ballistas, and Repeating Ballistas are completely useless. I don't think there's a time when you couldn't replace them with any other unit, save Peasants, and not get more out of them.
Now, Onagers and Heavy Onagers. They're lifesavers in a siege, I love them. Take out those pesky towers, gatehouse, and if you're lucky you can kill a few wall defenders too. Out of a siege, however, they seem to be less than useless. They have absolutely horrible accuracy, in that for 10 volleys fired I kill maybe 2 enemy soldiers. Except, of course, when I get tired of waiting and have my men charge, in which case without fail a ball of fire drops dead in the middle of my unit, killing over half of it.
So, am I missing something? Is there a good way to use Onagers? Also, if you show me a use for Scorpions, Ballistas or Repeaters you get a cookie pizza.

[hogofwar]

i always use onagers against enemy units until they run out of ammo, usually they kill 20% of the enemy army, but scorpions and repeaters, never used them, ballistas maybe early in the game.

[Spart]

Ballistas and scorpions can be used against elephants and chariots, they don't like those arrows.. Otherwise they seem to be mostly useless. Oh, and city gates too.(ballistas) Onagers are sometimes pretty handy in field battles, depends on how many enemies there are. Let's imagine you're attacking an army of 2000 elite troops. Just put there 3 or 4 groups of onagers and start throwing flaming ammo, no matter how elite enemy soldiers are, they will take lots of damage. You might kill 20-30% of the army without melee contact.. AI is just so stupid.. And if there are elephants, one or two flaming rounds should rout them. Try also hitting enemy general, not very hard with many onagers.
I mostly use them in field battles when I'm moving them somewhere with my army.
That's all that leaps to my mind now, but I'm sure you'll find them some use by trying.

[roman_crusader]

I agree with the above posts.

Whenever I know I am about to fight a battle with either an army with elephants or chariots, I always ensure I have some onagers around. You train up your onagers, get them experience, and soon, after 4 or 5 battles, you have onagers with 4 or 5 experience. Unleash them on the chariots or elephants, and within 2 or 3 shots, they hit the elephants. Way before they reach your line. Then they run amok. Back, through their own lines. Before you enemy reaches you, they've lost their most potent weapon, their orderly formation, and 15% of their army. Quite neat.

[spirit_of_rob]

i never use siege weapons they slow my armies down to much.

[Emcman333]

In a field battle, I use 2 maybe 3 onagers. No Ballistas or anything else.

[Inhuman One]

I managed to kill 40 precent of an army when I attacked a city with two onangers and three archer units. The onangers killed the enemy general even and did great damage when they got a hit in those streets were lots of enemy units are standing very close together. The archers drove them away from the wooden wall and the onangers got a longer range and caused a lot of chaos.

outside of sieges they will definatly be usefull when attacking but less when defending. you will force the enemy to come closer when you shoot at them with onangers.

[Snipafist]

I modded my game a bit to include 3 ballistae/scorpions per unit base, and I actually made the repeater ballistae act like faster-shooting ballistae. Even with more of them, it's still not a very competitive choice. They're just not accurate enough and they don't fire fast enough, not to mention they slow you down.

[moonlapse]

used correctly,onagers can come in very handy
you can use them to force your enemy to engage in melee.in your terms.
defenders,when faced with onager fire,will need to abandon their defendeable terrain or take heavy casuilites.
attackers,when faced with onager fire, wont be able to use their missile troops to full extend,will rush to engage in meele,wich will tire their troops and disorganize their attack.

i use them to get the upper hand in battles,by making enemies to fight where i want them to fight,wich is a huge advantage.
it takes a lot of patience and practice to use them effecttivly thoguh.

cheers.

[billydilly]

Onagers are excellent when defending bridges, just bombard the bridge as they try to cross. The AI always sends all its troops across at the same time, so they are nicely packed together. You can easily kill half an army before they all manage to cross. Remember to use fire!

[Supremo Desslock]

I agree, i find onagers useful if i need to fight a "full stack" army. If yyou want to still have a decent mobility on the campaign map, use a ship to move your troops. If you're inland, it's another problem....