Ballista not firing

[Reaver]

I have 2 armies taking a walled city, each army has 2 ballista units. The first army fires its ballista at the gate, the second set of ballistas will just walk up to the gate and be destroyed. Is there a way to fix this?

[Lord Castellan Majorian]

dont have them fire on the enemy inside the walls?

[Reaver]

Originally posted by Lord Castellan:

dont have them fire on the enemy inside the walls?

They will fire at will and they will fire at units, they will even fire on the walls without ever moving. Target the gate and they will move instead ( it even has the target gate/ wall symbol)

[Harper]

Reaver, A few questions & comments:
(1) Have you left the ballista on automatic fire?
(2) When they came on the battlefield, did you select them and place them in a location on battlefield or let them march to their default location?
(3) When you targetted gate and the ballista continued to move, this sounds like they were out of orientation or not lined up square to the gate, or possibly not in range. I usually set artillery at a 90 degree angle to the target and make sure that I am within their range.
(4) Also, usually I do not target gates when ammunition is in short supply at the start of the game. Destroying gates rather than breaching a wall takes more ammunition. As your general gains attributes and army gains traits, the ammunition is available in greater quantities. There are also mods out there that can give you more ammunition.

R, Harper

[Reaver]

Originally posted by Harper:

Reaver, A few questions & comments:
(1) Have you left the ballista on automatic fire?
(2) When they came on the battlefield, did you select them and place them in a location on battlefield or let them march to their default location?
(3) When you targetted gate and the ballista continued to move, this sounds like they were out of orientation or not lined up square to the gate, or possibly not in range. I usually set artillery at a 90 degree angle to the target and make sure that I am within their range.
(4) Also, usually I do not target gates when ammunition is in short supply at the start of the game. Destroying gates rather than breaching a wall takes more ammunition. As your general gains attributes and army gains traits, the ammunition is available in greater quantities. There are also mods out there that can give you more ammunition.

R, Harper

1 If you mean fire at will.....no, they will shoot units on the wall and the wall itself.
2 placed manually both the attacking army and the reinforcing army. The attacking army does
just fine, its the reinforcing army that has the problem.
3 the position was near dead on. The attacking army had more of an angle (about 45 off the
gate) and it did the job. The reinforcing army can shoot anything around the gate with no
problem, just not the gate.
4 The city is a barbarian city (about 190bc) which is a raised earth works with a outer wall where
the city is level with the top of the wall. While the wall can be destroyed, there will be no
breach as there is no terrain deformation in the
game. The ammo is fine as the attacking army destroys the gate and a defending ballista unit.


It just seems like the ballista thinks its out of range despite the fact that it can target the wall right next to the gate and units and wall on the other side of the gate with no problem. Next time I try the battle I will add a screen shot.