Artillery, anyone use them?

[Camcolit]

Playing a game as the Greeks, tried out the torsion catapult. It can now keep up with the infantry which is great compared to EB1. Doesn't seem worth it really though still. It's very inaccurate, to the point where even if you target concentrations it's still likely to miss, and has a slow rof (which makes sense, but just from the point of view whether in-game they are useful). Range is good but not so good that you can put them safely way behind the lines. Slingers tend to target them, and the range gets close if you're attacking a hill. KH can only recruit them in two cities so forget about retraining or reinforcing. Getting an enemy to abandon a high point seems to be one of the intuitive uses for them, but if you can't do it safely that's gone. As for assaulting cities, I guess it's mildly useful to save you a turn assaulting a poorly-defended city. If it's heavily defended, you'll be building siege equipment anyway or more likely just maintaining the siege.

Anyone use them often and have some favorite tactics?

[Rosbjerg]

I've only ever used artillery in sieges, exactly because they are so inaccurate.

Although, I've used them occasionally on the defense, but I have the same experience as you - they're not really that good as anti-infantry.

[Camcolit]

Yeah, I think I'd just prefer another unit of infantry or whatever. I haven't tried the bolt shooters yet.

[Lusitanio]

Some time ago, I would say that I never use artillery in the game, they are usually very costly and aren't worth a unit slot.

However, I did recently a Seleucid campaign and due to the recent increasement on towers lethality by the EBII team I found them quite useful. Sadly, I only first experienced that increased lethality when my army assaulted Alexandria (I had no artillery) and had a lot more casualties due to the towers shooting than what was usual. So at least, in the next version, you will find artillery quite useful if you want to assault city size settlements or bigger.

[Sar1n]

Oxybeles and Lithobolos can be very powerful in concert with phalanx line, easily scoring 200-300 kills in large battles (full stack vs. full stack or more) and scaring off the enemy with fire projectiles. It needs some experience though to safely "lob" the oxybeles rounds along the line (I made some screenshots showing that a long time ago, should be somewhere on this forums) and where's the Lithobolos' "sweet zone" between the dead zone too close and zone too far where it might miss and hit own line instead.

[Mouzafphaerre]

I regularly employ the Scorpio (sieges) and ballista (anti-personnel, still best employed in sieges) in my post-Marian armies.

[Cryoshakespeare]

The Oxybeles can be used for some crazy cheesing in siege battles if that's your thing, just send them around the side of the settlement so their line of fire goes straight along where they keep their troops bunched up at the main gate, and do single strikes. One hit will take out numerous troops, they'll briefly go into loose formation so just stop the fire, and then they'll regroup shortly after. Rinse and repeat. Since they'll kill anything in one hit, if you target the enemy elites it tends to swing the battle so much more heavily in your favor.

Very cheesy though, so.. I guess use at your discretion

[Roma_Victrix]

Yeah, I would only use the stone-throwing torsion catapult Lithobolos in a siege against fortifications. They're rather useless in a field battle. The bolt-throwing Oxybeles is a much better option in this regard. However, even then it's still slow and cumbersome, and way more fit for a siege where you can comfortably target troops along the walls as Cryoshakespeare explains above. To be honest, the combination of bringing both a Lithobolos and Oxybeles to the same siege battle is devastating. Not only can you knock down a section of the walls and maybe a tower or two with the Lithobolos, you can also then target any troops trying to defend that section of the walls with the Oxybeles, including troops attempting to plug the gap that you just created!

[Humbug_Total]

I tried the bolt throwers a few times and suprisingly I found them to be too accurate. They repeteadly strike the same spot. The problem with that is if all four shoot in quick succession, only the first bolt will kill any enemies while the three other bolts will only strike the corpses. A slightly worse dispersion would make them more useful for me in that role.

I found actually some use for the stone throwers in an assault against walled cities. You can usually take out the gate house to prevent the boiling oil and you can shoot a breach in the wall. A broken wall makes it much easier to assault than with ladders or only through the gate. If inaccuracy is a concern to you, just move them closer to the walls. A few casualties on the crew doesn´t really inhibit their performance.

[Rad]

I sometimes use artillery to lure the AI.