Don't you think artillery is a bit too OP ?

[pastinho]

Normal battle difficulty :/

[servent9]

-_- artillery is meant to superb. why some people say Blah blah units too op master! things uhhhh

[JCB206]

Don't use arty in battle, only in sieges. Only used maybe 2-3 times during battles in this time period. JMO

[Ivan_Moscavich]

Don't use arty in battle, only in sieges. Only used maybe 2-3 times during battles in this time period. JMO

There may only be 2 or 3 well recorded references to artillery use in battle (though I believe I can think of five or more right off the top of my head, not just one or two), there seems to be some misconception in modern historical circles that, 'if it isn't explicitly stated that this happened in this way at this time, it couldn't have happened."

That's just asinine. The mere fact it is mentioned in several sources means that commanders of that era were aware of the tactical use of artillery, and would, provided it gave them an advantage in battle and they could effectively do so, would have set them up.


Just like today, not every little thing is recorded. Some things are omitted, other things lost. This even more so from the past until now as records get lost or destroyed over the year.


So commanders very well could have frequently used small artillery in the field. Or perhaps it actually was a rare occurrence. We can not say for certaint however that it was only used a few times, that is just a ridiculous notion.

[KYREAPER]

No, artillary is not OP based on your battle. You used 5 artillary pieces against nothing but swordsmen/infantry. Theres no way footsoldiers would make it in one piece to the enemy line against 5 SETs of artillary...

The counter would be horses/archers/fast moving units. Your enemy had none of those.

[JCB206]

There may only be 2 or 3 well recorded references to artillery use in battle (though I believe I can think of five or more right off the top of my head, not just one or two), there seems to be some misconception in modern historical circles that, 'if it isn't explicitly stated that this happened in this way at this time, it couldn't have happened."

That's just asinine. The mere fact it is mentioned in several sources means that commanders of that era were aware of the tactical use of artillery, and would, provided it gave them an advantage in battle and they could effectively do so, would have set them up.


Just like today, not every little thing is recorded. Some things are omitted, other things lost. This even more so from the past until now as records get lost or destroyed over the year.


So commanders very well could have frequently used small artillery in the field. Or perhaps it actually was a rare occurrence. We can not say for certaint however that it was only used a few times, that is just a ridiculous notion.

Of course things could be omitted. Anything is possible.

You can list 5-6 times that large artillery was used in land battles? I always enjoy reading about those, please elaborate. Small artillery like scorpions were used occasionally, mostly by the Romans but I am sure by many others. I can only go by what the histories record, but would love to know more.

Your post seems hostile, maybe you didn't mean it that way. Sometimes I think history is a bit literal also but can also mean that if something that happened so few times in 200 or so battles in this time frame it would likely be mentioned. The Hellenics had the best siege weapons during most of this time period and if it was beneficial in a set piece battle, it would have been mentioned in the dozen or so large scale battles in the 4th and 3rd Century BC.

I like reading your posts so please don't take this negatively. I would love to read more of what you have found. Even if it's 5 or so, that's still only 2-3% of all the recorded battles (estimated 200) in this time period. Thanks for reading.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

Of course things could be omitted. Anything is possible.

You can list 5-6 times that large artillery was used in land battles? I always enjoy reading about those, please elaborate. Small artillery like scorpions were used occasionally, mostly by the Romans but I am sure by many others. I can only go by what the histories record, but would love to know more.

Your post seems hostile, maybe you didn't mean it that way. Sometimes I think history is a bit literal also but can also mean that if something that happened so few times in 200 or so battles in this time frame it would likely be mentioned. The Hellenics had the best siege weapons during most of this time period and if it was beneficial in a set piece battle, it would have been mentioned in the dozen or so large scale battles in the 4th and 3rd Century BC.

I like reading your posts so please don't take this negatively. I would love to read more of what you have found. Even if it's 5 or so, that's still only 2-3% of all the recorded battles (estimated 200) in this time period. Thanks for reading.

If my post sounded hostile, that wasn't the intent.

I was describing a phenomenon of historians that have started making books and papers in the last 20 years or so. They are taking a different approach to looking at historical sources, mainly, imposing a modern of logistics, military strategy, and culture to view things with.

In my opinion, that colours history wrong, and leads to very incorrect conclusions about what may have happened.

Rather than making up our own ideas and ignoring what has been written, we should be giving this ancient authors more credit.


To the post. Point out where I said "large" artillery in my post. Because I said nothing about "large" artillery. I said artillery, by itself, without modifiers. That would include belly bows (which were treated more as siege equipment than a personal weapon), scorpions, catapults, ballistae, and everything like that.


Off the top of my head there is; Battle of Crescent Hills in 354, the sacking of the temple of Delphi in 356, Methone in 355, Pelion in 335, Alexandria in 329, Gaza in 332, Caesar records use of field artillery in his battles with the Gauls, and of course scorpions were attached to each century of a legion in late republican and imperial times.

That's just what I can remember off the top of my head, and mostly because of some of the recent books I've picked up (all on either Phillip II/Alexander the Great or Republican/Imperial Rome).

[Kolaris8472]

That's not much different than using high-tier archers in my experience, and siege weapons need dedicated building chains, slow down your armies, and have higher upkeep than more versatile ranged units.

And yes, you can always house-rule them yourself. It's not like the AI will be using them against you.

[The Guy With No Imagination]

How can this be taken seriously? No offense, but a custom battle where you have 5 units of Litho's in a mostly flat field engaging an army composed entirely of slow-moving heavy infantry. Of course(!) you're going to get a bunch of kills that way, it's gamey as hell. In a campaign, not only would maintaining those many units cost a fortune, but would require research, time, and a boatload of money. If you're going to play a gamey custom battle, you're going to get gamey results mate.

I've only ever had 2 litho's in an army of mine, and a hill in the middle of the battlefield meant that they were largely ineffective. That army was wiped out sadly, but the point remains

That's not much different than using high-tier archers in my experience, and siege weapons need dedicated building chains, slow down your armies, and have higher upkeep than more versatile ranged units.

And yes, you can always house-rule them yourself. It's not like the AI will be using them against you.

^ This guy gets it

[Dresden]

How can this be taken seriously? No offense, but a custom battle where you have 5 units of Litho's in a mostly flat field engaging an army composed entirely of slow-moving heavy infantry. Of course(!) you're going to get a bunch of kills that way, it's gamey as hell. In a campaign, not only would maintaining those many units cost a fortune, but would require research, time, and a boatload of money. If you're going to play a gamey custom battle, you're going to get gamey results mate.

I've only ever had 2 litho's in an army of mine, and a hill in the middle of the battlefield meant that they were largely ineffective. That army was wiped out sadly, but the point remains

This is the reason I didn't respond to this actually earlier, but since its still around as a thread I guess I will throw my 2 cents in. Your explanation is the exact reason I didn't take this seriously at all. Its a custom battle specifically designed to force this result.

[gornoviceanu]

From what I know artillery like Scorpions was not that uncommon, especially for Rome. Also, like others have said: not everything gets mentioned every time in history. I never spammed 6, but when I had my 2 Scorpion units with me they were not all that amazing at kills, the most important thing they did was make the enemy rush at me and meet me on my ground. Maybe there should be a unit limit on artillery like there is on some units, especially for the big Stone Throwers.

Regarding this OP stuff, and not just on artillery: this is WAR. If some faction has a historical, ridiculous powerful unit then I want to see that unit represented correctly. I don't want "legendary" units like Immortals and I certainly don't want Legionnaires to be another sword unit. That goes for artillery too, if it had the range of archers then why would it be called artillery in the first place?

[Katsumoto]

Artillery seems to be a bit useless against buildings but a bit too useful against infantry. Can't seem to breach walls with them but they definitely rack up the kills in field battles and as mentioned force the AI to attack your position regardless of whether they're defending.

Also I doubt artillery was frequently used in field battles. Artillery wasn't easy to transport or set up and surely if they were actually an effective presence on the field the ancient historians would have mentioned them?

[pastinho]

Artillery seems to be a bit useless against buildings but a bit too useful against infantry. Can't seem to breach walls with them but they definitely rack up the kills in field battles and as mentioned force the AI to attack your position regardless of whether they're defending.

That's the exactly what I mean. AI fixed to attack your position whatever was happening is extremly big advantage (without regard time and damege of artillery fire resulting huge loss of mans). We can deploy our army in the corner of map, artillery and 2x peltastais on both wings behind of phalangists - we are completly protected against flanking (whereas AI forced attack our position). Above resulting 1 vs 1 battles on H/N campagin where you win smashing enemy full stack army without lose even 20 mans average. This is absolutly impossible using even higest tier of the moset exp archers instead...

By the way - great job with DeI 1.2. Now it is the best TW ever so far easily, even as beta


@edit
Does anybody know how much (in %) artillery affect campaign move range of army ? Lithobolos, onager, scorpion - all have the same affecting factor ?

[Dardo21]

I always use artillery in my armies, when I can get them, but i never rush to build it.
Off-topic: Katsumoto, you sent me a pm a few weeks ago, but I'm not sure you ever read my response :p

[KAM 2150]

Wall and tower HP was lowered in this patch or for upcoming patch. If you make artillery less accurate against infantry, it gets even less accurate against buildings to often comical effects. Currently 1 ballista unit should be able to take down 1 section of walls. I also don't want to have artillery that is able to demolish entire town with 2-3 squads of it as it would take a loooot of time to even punch a single hole in the wall.

Although I am a weird type, I never assault cities, I only lay siege to them.

[Fellowsship]

Honestly I just get frustrated with the Artillery in its current state because it so damn inaccurate. I wouldn't mind less killing power if more shots connected. I'm annoying to see 6 ballista aim at a tower and all miss 3 volleys in a row....

[RollingWave]

Artillery seems to be a bit useless against buildings but a bit too useful against infantry. Can't seem to breach walls with them but they definitely rack up the kills in field battles and as mentioned force the AI to attack your position regardless of whether they're defending.

That's my take as well, as of right now Litho's power against buildings seems about right to mayyyybe a bit too weak (but I haven't tried the latest patch yet.) but it is way too useful on the field in general.

It does have a downside, mostly in that if you get ambushed it's among the most useless unit you could have on hand. but that's a relatively minor weakness compare to the advantages.

It's not just comparing with archers, it's also that on average they get considerably more kills than the Scorpions as well, which is suppose to be more of an anti personnel weapon. although scorpion does have some minor advantages in being less prone to friendly fire and moves around more easily, it doesn't really justify the difference and the fact that it's an high tier weapon.

Is it possible to lower the Litho's weapon per unit to 2 instead of 4 on normal setting? I haven't modded R2TW but from my experience modding M2TW that should be possible . you then double the damage it does against building, that way you basically halved it's anti personnel potential (in practice it's probably less than half) but didn't really change the anti building. another potential is to really REALLY slow down it's turn rate, but the AI wouldn't be able to exploit that well enough.

[KYREAPER]

If you want Ballistas to be good against Walls and LESS effective vs soldiers, all you have to do is the following:
1. Reduce rate of fire for Ballistas (problem solved) - walls dont move, soldiers do, less ROF means soldiers dont get killed as much, but walls still go down the same, just require more time.

OR

1. increase ballista damage by 3x
2. THEN reduce AMMO of ballista
3. GREATLY increase accuracy.
(What happens? Well, your ballista does 3x damage, but it wont roast infantry.. bcuz the ball has to actually HIT the solider to cause damage... so if the ballista only shoots 5 times, well thats only 5 rows of soldiers it hits, and the increased damage does nothing bcuz it was a 1 hit kill anyways).
What ALSO happens is now since the ammo is reduced, they cant shoot as much at infantry, so infantry survive more.
THEN you maintain the effectiveness of the ballista vs Walls because it does 3x damage with less ammo, leading to dealing the same total damage as before. And since its more accurate, ur not wasting shots.
(if you leave accuracy the same but raise damage and lower ammo, then you just miss and never get the wall down. So if u do this, the accuracy MUST go up to ensure that one ballista can take down one wall accurately).

Either solution gives the same result, just depends on how you wanna do it.

Or you can leave it alone. I currently have no issue with ballistas. I like smashing troops with them the way they are. I also dont make ballistas for the purpose of killing troops; i use them soley for walls. But on occassion i have had to use them vs troops and it is fun smashing them.

[Aristeides]

Another, related issue. Currently naval arty has practically unlimited ammo, they can keep on bombing over an hour. It's not really fun when you lose a battle because of the time limit, as just happened. Carthago Navy had taken a city from me, and counterattacking the next turn, my full stack was beaten back by a single ship with catapult that kept on fighting after all else had been killed or routed. And that's not the only time, another time, attacking a walled city, my 4 land lithoboloi disabled only one enemy tower, frustrated from that I got bit gunhappy and continued bombarding walls and towers with naval arty with so much enthousiasm that I forgot to invade the town with troops before it was too late for the one hour time limit...

[The Guy With No Imagination]

Aim the artillery yourselves, generally works pretty well for me.