Obager/Balista miss the target way too often!

[wookie13]

Hello! I have a question - custom battle - I have 2 balistas, in battle 1 vs 1 they can kill about 40-60 enemies. Thats low. Why? Cause they barely reach their target. They miss all the time. I think spreed ratio or whatever it is, is too high. Machines should hurt enemy pretty much, even change the course of battle. Right now I prefer to have 2 units of legionaries than 2 balistas. I think you schould change it. I also notice, that I'm not the only one of this thinking: lately one member wrote, that he had balista on land and few on schips, and it couldnt destoy the gates. Parhabs because of not even hit them? Thats all folks! Thx!

[james26aus]

I believe the DeI team has differentiated between the different siege weapons by making the ballista better for siege battles (destroying buildings/walls) and the polybos better for inflicting damage against infantry. Previously the ballista suited every role which made the other machines redundant.

From my experiences with 1.00 so far, I have found the scorpion and polybos fantastic at killing infantry, often inflicting hundreds of enemy casualties. They don't do much against buildings at all, although the scorpion does have a flaming shot which could be useful against fortified armies.

A ballista unit can comfortably take down a wall section (but probably run out of ammo shortly afterwards) and any defenders standing on top of it. It does take it a while though. It doesn't completely replace the tortoise ram or siege ladders which I think it a good thing.

I would recommend you try positioning your artillery differently, or selecting targets more carefully. Siege weapons will work better against slow, dense formations of infantry than fast moving cavalry.

[NYG 5]

Ballista work OK, you just have to concentrate your fire at the center of their mass, and ideally fire down their length as well. You learn something about CA's trajectories from all those hours playing Empire. If you aim the right way, 1 ballista can take down 2 or 3 wall sections. In a field battle, I had two ballista units inflict about 400 casualties because the AI bunched up in a melee with a not so friendly ally.

[geala]

What do you mean with ballistas? Heavy artillery like onagers or big torsion stone throwers were not made to be used and were not used in field battles. It is ridiculous enough that in the game you can move such heavy machines around the battlefield. In reality there was no magical power strong enough to do this. So the intention to make heavy artillery more or less useless on the field is a good one. You should also not be able to move heavy pieces in game.

If you found that small anti-person catapults are still lacking effectiveness, I'm with you. I did not use small catapults with 1.0 till now but I think they should be powerful tools on the battlefield because presumably they were so in reality. Otherwise the Roman efforts to make small catapults mobile by putting them on carts is not understandable. And for example at the battle at the Harzhorn 236 AD, seemingly during a bigger Roman expedition deep into the land of the Germanic tribes (that came as a surprise to the historians), a lot of small anti-personal torsion catapults were used by the Romans against the German attackers. Some were even transported up a rather steep wooded slope to shoot, an effort the Romans wouldn't have made if the artillery pieces wouldn't have been rather effective tools.

[FlashHeart07]

With the battle overhaul siege engines have been altered to be more suited for their individual tasks on a battlefield. Meaning ballistas will work best in sieges and scorpions work best against units.

[Don_Diego]

If possible, angle your ballistae so they are firing along the length of a wall when there is for example a kink in the city wall. Then even if it misses the wall section your aiming for it can still likely hit a part of the wall each side of it also.

Experimenting with them, some distances from the wall work better than others, I tried on top of a hill on one of the city maps and they just flew right over, i think low down and slightly closer to the walls works better...

[zombieflanders]

Heavy artillery are not meant to be used against troops, that's what the smaller artillery is for. Also, the gates' HP was given a boost to make it less appealing to torch the gates rather than use battering rams or turtles. As Don_Diego points out, aim them where they can cause damage to other wall sections if they miss the one they're aimed at.

[Alu10]

ballistas miss the walls as well, so.. you have to go to enemy archer range to be accurate enough to not miss every 2nd shot.

[NYG 5]

ballistas miss the walls as well, so.. you have to go to enemy archer range to be accurate enough to not miss every 2nd shot.

I don't think so. I park them just out of range of slingers and fire away, they work pretty well. Like mentioned above, it's best to place the ballista so they fire down the enemy's length. This way, when rounds overshoot their targets, they are likely to fall down along the enemy line. Even incendiary ammo.

[KAM 2150]

Siege engines are used to what their name suggests. For sieges.<br><br>Field artillery like Polybolos and Scorpions are made for combat.<br><br>As for accuracy, I was able at max range with single Ballista and single Onager squad to take down 3 wall sections, 1 tower and badly (70-90%) damage 2 other wall sections. If you want to ruin walls easily, bring at least 2 or 3 siege engines. What is the point of walls if they will go down from single battlista squad?

[Krixux]

hm
I would suggest 1 siege unit per Empire level or even per 2 levels and limit 1 per Army.
iirc all major siege were successful due to defender's attrition, towers.tunnels and/or head on infantry charge...

[Butan]

Ballista/Onager spread has been custom tailored by KAM so that they cant reliably hit units and gates (anyway gates have been made extremely resilient to nerf down torches). But they are correct against towers and masses of units, and good against section of walls (the damage will spread on more than 1 wall section).

In previous versions, Ballista/Onager had different damage, less ammunition, and a tighter spread: it made them extremely strong against almost everything that wasnt quick enough to silence the siege engines, and had not enough hitpoints to sustain the bombardment: a.k.a. soldiers with ~50 health were massively getting crushed from anti-building weapons, that was not right. KAM rightly chose to increase ammunition and change damage, but nerf accuracy: that way even against buildings you will need time to take them down, and against moving armies it is sensibly less useful, making them naturally used only in sieges, without making them completely useless in land battles.

All this is on purpose, so dont wait for a "fix"
And know that there has been even talks of removing first person shooter ability, which increase the lethality of siege engines above what is intended.

[Matmannen]

I don't think there is any issues with Balistae, it's just a question of using them right...

[Gryphon Templar]

I don't think there is any issues with Balistae, it's just a question of using them right...

Strange understanding of "Close Victory"

[peoplescavalry]

I don't think there is any issues with Balistae, it's just a question of using them right...

Wow! Your general kills more than a thousand and a inf unit wipes out nearly the same. How is this possible? I have played nearly 1600 hours of this somewhat flawed game but never, ever got anywhere near that kill rate. I must be really rubbish ��

[Matmannen]

Wow! Your general kills more than a thousand and a inf unit wipes out nearly the same. How is this possible? I have played nearly 1600 hours of this somewhat flawed game but never, ever got anywhere near that kill rate. I must be really rubbish ��

This is how the battle went, and it should be easy to replicate. This type of battle was a village siege.
1. Use you plbes to lure the enemy into a, for them, easily excesible tight straight corridor, the longer the better.
2. Use your garrison troops to plug the corridor at the end of it, these are ti die, but to tire the enemy in the process. Don't forget to keep some garrison units in reserve, both as additional units to engage into he plug once the other die off, and to plug other areas if the enemy decide to engage through other openings.
3. Once all of the enemy is engaged start flanking with some troops, try to go around the tight corridor and engage from the back. I used all my javlin troops that wern't part of the garrison, and two of my heaviest soldiers. (Make sure that the enemy cavalry is dead by this time, or send spearmen with your flankers if not)
4. Start peltig the enemy from the back, mae sure to get their ranged troops first. Make sure that they are not cought in melee.
5. Once the ranged troops ave used all their ammo it's time for your infantry to shine. Hopefully the enemy is either very tired, or exhausted be this point. Use the infantry to either continuesly trow javlins onto the enemy, or rotate charge them over and over. When you feel the enemy are starting to break use cavalry, this must be at the very end though as cavalry are now "glaspistols".
6. As soon as the enemy starts routing tell all your infantry and cavalry to engage the huge routing mass of soldiers, but from all side tragging them in the small corridor...

Remember that the plug must be continuesly filled with new troops if others die, also don't be afriad of letting some of your solders rest alittle, especially your flanking troops, thekey is to keep the enemy contunielsy engaged and tired wile you always trow fresh troops at them...

[wookie13]

Is it possible in Pack File Menager to change mobility of onagers/balistas/scorpios as it is with roman polybos? Polybos can't move, I want the same for all artilert, but I cant find right place in PFM. Help?

[Mark of Calth]

I think if any friendly units are ever wavering or flee at any point, the battle can't be better than close. Certainlyseems that way from my experiences.

[suras333]

I have a general question (maybe stupid) about destroing buildings in a siege or town: aside towers and walls, what is the point to destroy a building/house etc?

Thanks!