Slingers are not machine guns, they could use a look at.

[Janster]

They routinely kill about 2-500 men PER unit in my games now, I can use them en masse to level enemy armies, regardless of armor status, shields whatever....

I've just witnessed in a game I play with a friend his 12 slinger units take out about 5000 men defending army.
They got so much ammo, they hurt so bad, and just nothing will really stop them...

I don't know how warfare was in these times, but I don't remember slingers being some kind of secret weapon, it devalues this mod a lot in my eyes.

[KAM 2150]

Do you run any other mods along? Because this does not sound like current DeI at all.

[Encablossa]

Hmm. I'll be lucky if I get around 50 with each of my slingers. Usuallt I focus fire on the lowest armor units until they rout so they don't rack up many kills.

Maybe you're using a unit mod or something? The stats in DeI are lower than the base game from what I remember so comparable units from other mods would be overpowered.

[Augustusng]

In my experience, Balearic and Rhodian Slingers are very powerful against large concentrations of enemies, since they have some AP damage and the number of enemies means that they don't miss many shots. More basic slingers definitely are weaker though.

[Maetharin]

Slingers are rather complicated to realistically portray aren´t they?
I mean against shields they´re completely useless, but against armor, well it depends...

If you got hit on the head, helmet or not, you´re pretty much out of the game, cerebral concussion /helmet, broken skull /without helmet.

On other parts of the body it depended on wether one carried armour at all,
and if so, how well was it padded and which ammunition was used, lead or just stones.

A direct hit on any body part? Pulverised bones.
A hit on armor? A concussion at least.

[zombieflanders]

Levy slingers? No way, not unless they're at gold chevrons and shields. I could see it with elite slingers, especially against cav, but otherwise this sounds off. I'm with the others here, there has to be some mod conflict.

[Ygraine]

I got 800+ kills on one of my iberian funditores against iberian militia (only shooting in the back)

[Ivan_Moscavich]

In my experience, Balearic and Rhodian Slingers are very powerful against large concentrations of enemies, since they have some AP damage and the number of enemies means that they don't miss many shots. More basic slingers definitely are weaker though.

Same experience here. Balearic and Rhodian slingers are great, especially early game if you can snag a few merc ones with the more low armoured units. They routinely get 500 kills for me until Marian reforms and equivalent turn 100ish barbarian reforms where enemy units start gaining much more armor and they start getting less and less kills.

Other slingers are only good firing for prolonged periods of time at the rear of low armour units or enemy ranged units.

[Janster]

Do you run any other mods along? Because this does not sound like current DeI at all.

Me and a friend play a campaign, his Chartagian basic slingers and my Roman basic slingers are absolutely killing everyone, we play on Very hard, but that should not affect our own units. If you compare this to say any type of Velites, they are just frigging useless, same basic combat ability, but lacking the 43-53 ammo count that the slingers have.

I saw my friend massacre his way through 5-6000 k defenders, he had an army of 12 slingers and some foot, when he was done with them, there was a few unhurt units, the rest was shot to absolutely pieces, didn't matter if they had shields, no shields, or whatever, and he was just shooting his way in, on FRONT of units aswell.

I think its the crazy ammo limit that is causing this more than anything, we use only Dividi, no other mods, I have tested a few battles, results same no matter what, this is particularly effective against a defending army in a smaller city, but they rack up solid in any battle.

It also means, most war machinery is just useless, no ammo, and what..rack up 30-50 kills...

[Ivan_Moscavich]

In my first Roman Legion I always pick up two merc rhodian slingers and two merc Cretan archers as fast as possible, in the early battles, all ranged units tend to get 400-500 kills a piece, where as melee units struggle to get 200 (except dogs, who end up with 800-1000 on average).

This slowly changes as better units become available through reforms, ranged units start getting less kills and melee units start getting more.

Other ranged units certainly are not useless, though veleties will struggle to get the kill count that slingers and archers can rack up. Deployed correctly, ballistae can still get 350-400 kills.

[thomas_r]

I think the major problem of skirmishers are their accuracy.
They have less range than everyone, but I found that they miss their shoot pretty often. They are already limited in ammo and if they miss their shoot too its a problem.

@Ivan_moscavich, how could you manage to get 350/400 kills with your balista ?

The max I get is 200 (and with silver chevron baslista). I never use them now because of that, I think I was too used to rome 2 vanilla balista

[Ivan_Moscavich]

I think the major problem of skirmishers are their accuracy.
They have less range than everyone, but I found that they miss their shoot pretty often. They are already limited in ammo and if they miss their shoot too its a problem.

@Ivan_moscavich, how could you manage to get 350/400 kills with your balista ?

The max I get is 200 (and with silver chevron baslista). I never use them now because of that, I think I was too used to rome 2 vanilla balista

Fort battles and small village sieges. When the ai tends to have half a dozen units in one spot, even a single hit can kill 30 guys. That adds up over the course of a 10 minute battle.

[thomas_r]

ah yeah I see what you mean, then you're lucky, my ballista are really inacurate.
Thats why now I use scorpion and polybolos <3

To everyone, try the polybolos once and you will love it