Is Artillery usefull against Mountain Citadels?

[thefarsidenoob]

It is worth bringing along catapults and the like when one goes to war against factions with mountain Citadels, such as the Dwarves and the Orcs of the Misty Mountains? Or is better to bring along more and heavy-hitting units and stick to battering rams?

[Joseignacio]

I almost never use artillery for anything, unless I cannot buy any other unit. They make you slow and I prefer to siege, or assault with overwhelming force, auto-resolving.

Only the Balrogs, if I cannot auto resolve...

[Ngugi]

Unless you play a submod, very few settlements are different from the normal settlements, meaning they're as useful as, well, usual hehe.
A drawback could be that slow movement in mountains will be even slower if you bring artilley

[Jmonstra]

Arty is pretty important to fighting through choke points and the Dwarves are especially vulnerable to it because of their low mobility. It's definitely a must have IMO.

[Vifarc]

Arty is pretty important to fighting through choke points and the Dwarves are especially vulnerable to it because of their low mobility.

Yes, even they won't live long. Because dwarves can better counter-arty with their own,
and even the dwarves are slow and they'll have some KIA, nothing can forbid them from reaching your arty (but in reverse they usually do can forbid you, or you need strong heavy cavalry).

[Jmonstra]

What? No they can't. As far as I'm aware vanilla Dwarven artillery preforms no better than any other race's arty. If you're referring to counter arty once enemy forces have penetrated the interior of a city, then you the player have plenty of positioning options available to you allowing you to avoid kill zones. In fact, many of your best options in terms of approaching a siege come from having an artillery piece or two present at the battle.

[LuckyPistol]

Ballistae depend on the scenario. For instance, Rohan can find use for ballistae on the plains against Isengard's heavily armored units (Rohan has few AP units) and the Dwarves can compensate for having little cavalry and ranged options.

Catapults/Trebuchet are wonderful on the field (though less accurate) and great to bring along on a siege if you don't want to wait the turns building ladders, rams, etc and they can take out enemy towers. Troll Catapults are even better if you're Mordor

However, for custom settlements in the mountains (most custom settlements actually), I've found them useless. It's best to either starve them out/sally forth or build a heavy infantry stack to plow your way through.

[Påsan]

I dont think there's any situations in Med 2 engine where a catapult is not useful. Maybe in a multiplayer land battle rush game. But vs the AI?

Its all about positioning. Blob the AI then fire. The AI is hiding in the town square? Roll the catapult in and fire.

Hell in foeld battle there mere presence of a catapult forces the AI to come to you instead pf having to attack. The TATW artillery is not as powerfull as the SS mangonels of doom or god forbid the tactical nukes in CoW but they are far from useless.

The speed disadvantage is lessened by not having to build siege equipment as well.