Remove Balista and sige weapon unit cap

[Eihger]

The balista was caped out at only 1 unit because of how powerful they were. They fired fast, they were accurate and did insane amounts of damage. DeI nerfed the out of them to near uselessness. They are no longer accurate by any means. They fire slowly and still do great damage, but are hardly applicable in any sense.

Using them on a battlefield is just atrocious as their cut off and fall off are abysmally set. They cannot hit a single unit and are almost useless even during a siege as they can no longer hit walls.

I wouldn't change a thing about them. Not one thing at all at the moment. What I would change is their unit cap. Right now they are so utterly useless because you can only take one. Being able to take multiple units of siege weapons would be perfect, because of their high cost and upkeep you'd only want them in a dedicated siege army. They wouldn't be effective for presicion targets, but useful against massed charges, walls and other structures, save for hard points like towers and gates.

MY SUGGESTION:
Either increase the unit size of the Balista's to 8 per unit and allow 2
Or increase the unit cap to 4.

This would allow for an effective sige army, but is ultimately a very expensive one that sacrifices unit count and flexibility for siege potential. Leaving the cap at only 1 is blindly innefective and frankly insulting.

[Cope]

If you have two generals, you can just recruit one ballista in each then transfer them into a single army. You can repeat this process so you can have an army of ballistae if you like.

Also a single ballista will be able to take out one segment of wall, although I accept that it is slow in firing. Its rate of fire could do with a minor buff as could it's range. Accuracy is good however. If it were up to me, I'd remove them from open battles all together and just have them as deployables in siege battles: then you could have ballistae in your siege armies without having to sacrifice troop numbers. But alas, I do not work for CA. You should also note that balancing is being worked on for v.1.0. which I assume will address this sort of issue.

All that being said, I'm not sure how it's possible that you could be insulted by a minor facet of the unit cap mechanism.

[Matmannen]

If you have two generals, you can just recruit one ballista in each then transfer them into a single army. You can repeat this process so you can have an army of ballistae if you like.

Also a single ballista will be able to take out one segment of wall, although I accept that it is slow in firing. Its rate of fire could do with a minor buff as could it's range. Accuracy is good however. If it were up to me, I'd remove them from open battles all together and just have them as deployables in siege battles: then you could have ballistae in your siege armies without having to sacrifice troop numbers. But alas, I do not work for CA. You should also note that balancing is being worked on for v.1.0. which I assume will address this sort of issue.

All that being said, I'm not sure how it's possible that you could be insulted by a minor facet of the unit cap mechanism.

I partly agree on this. I am ok with the current cap and fire rat for siege equiment though I think they should either have higher damage on buildings or more ammo, being able to destroy one segment of a wall isn't enaugh, not when there are OP ballista towers to destroy...

What I do think needs a chagne though is field equipment. With field equipment I mean siege engine like weapons that arn't meant for sieges. I am talkning about for example Scorpions, they fire to slow to be usable in field battles. I would be happy with Scorpions becoming the long range weapon of choice for field battles while the Ballistae becoming rather worthless in this repect... Just please give the scorpions a use, currently they have none...

[spirroouu]

I think this is all mostly false... The ballista are fine as they are and do not need any rebalancing/tweaks.
I found them to be extremely good and strong if you have the right techs and managing to support them, which is fairly easy to get to be honest.
Their ammo is more than sufficient as you can micromanage them and shoot at walls yourself, I can take out an average of 3 wall segments with one ballista. They take out around 500 units each in my battles on hard as Arche Bosphorus.

Ballistas are clearly a weapon of choice, but they are a weapon that should be used wisely and not as an easy way to faceclear a battlefield while sitting on a linnen pillow.

[Cwenraed]

I really like the cap, mostly because of the AI, i remember in vanilla that even early game barbarian armies often fielded 3 or more siege weapons, also myself i used several ballista in a special army formation i had which gave the enemy no chance whatsoever so it made me try new more fun things.

But to be honest i like battles without "artillery" or without the ability to attack or be attacked from a long distance without doing anything, so i may be a little biased, but i must admit i do not use them anymore mainly because other units, a group of cavalry for example to be more effective, i think the biggest problem lies with the 20 unit armies, although i have increased it to 40 in the past, you do find you have rediculously large battles and makes me aware i need to upgrade my computer sometime.

[Fozzie]

...i like battles without "artillery" or without the ability to attack or be attacked from a long distance without doing anything...

I'm the same way. I do like to implement archers, but I found I really enjoyed using ladders and towers when I was forced to stop relying on ballistae.

[FlashHeart07]

Or you could just download PFM and change the unit cap to your own liking problem solved and without a fuzz

[zonks40]

Or you could just download PFM and change the unit cap to your own liking problem solved and without a fuzz

Agreed
I learned my lesson some time back on wasting my time asking and arguing for changes, I put the time to better use and learned to change it myself.

[Alu10]

Ballista's can be useful but Scorpio's and Polybolos are utter crap. Wooden walls need to get destroyed much easier with the flaming shot of the scorpios. Buff them, give them higher upkeep, dont care about upkeep but this is a useless siege unit.