Iceni Artillery

[Itharus]

Just found out that you can actually get access to various pieces of artillery the absolute fastest with the Iceni versus any other faction in the game (including all latin/eastern/greek). So lame.

[SirJonC]

didnt you know boudica invaded rome :P lol soz had to say that (god ryse had the worst ending ever ><)

[Spooky804]

Originally posted by SirJonC:

didnt you know boudica invaded rome :P lol soz had to say that (god ryse had the worst ending ever ><)

she had ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of elephants too lol

[Itharus]

That was in like 60AD. The game starts somewhere around 300BC. The Romans are still relative nublets at this time, and Alexander died, what, ~70 years ago? The barbarians at this point still live in crappy villages (literally and figuratively) and lack the engineering skills for this. Googled that game... made me sad. Read the real history :)

[SirJonC]

haha lol indeed she must of met met up with hannibal (yes i know they werent around at the same time) lol

[SirJonC]

yeah i know wish there was some sort of system that when you killed some roman seige engines a faction pop up apears that says would you like to study and build your own onagars or something that takes like 4-5 turns or something to learn

[Rabidnid]

Originally posted by SirJonC:

yeah i know wish there was some sort of system that when you killed some roman seige engines a faction pop up apears that says would you like to study and build your own onagars or something that takes like 4-5 turns or something to learn

Yeah, this is the sort of thing that would have been cool in this game. There really is no need for all of the factions to be so balanced in what they have acess to.

[Varmint]

Originally posted by Rabidnid:

Originally posted by SirJonC:

yeah i know wish there was some sort of system that when you killed some roman seige engines a faction pop up apears that says would you like to study and build your own onagars or something that takes like 4-5 turns or something to learn

Yeah, this is the sort of thing that would have been cool in this game. There really is no need for all of the factions to be so balanced in what they have acess to.

Just another idea already developed in Med Kingdoms Americas
which someone thought would unstreamline the game, I guess?
The Apache had this very ability,
and used it to acquire Horses for Cavalry and Firearm Skirmishers.

[Ammianus Marcellinus]

yes, that's quite stupid. I'm always pretty much amazed when the celtic factions raise a large artillery park after ten odd turns. The Romans and Hellenistic factions should have access to good artillery that fast!

[Aluminum Elite Master]

I was just playing Icene moments ago, and I had ballistas insanely early (like, after 8 turns I had 6 of them, because the Ironsmith or whatever it is called is unlocked by the very first military tech and allows ballistas).

And the northern celts that I invaded across the Channel sometimes had 3 or 4 ballistas in each 20-stack.

Iceni are/were the least balanced side in the game. Chariots thankfully are not what they once were, but the Iceni get Chosen Swords (basically legionaries) early enough, along with ballistas and a good starting area. And if being imbalanced wasn't enough, the Iceni still have weird bugs: the penalty to them is that they get only 50% of the usual captives, yet they seemingly get 0% captives. And further, as my recent thread says, Unfettered Warriors army tradition doesn't boost their light infantry units whatsoever.

[Itharus]

That's what happened with me, too. I had multiple scorpions just a few turns in (6 or so, as you said). A couple of turns later, I had to attack that town in the south west of england and they had 2 army stacks with 12 ballista amongst them. There was no taking that tiny little minor settlement. Howitzers in most ww2 games are less accurate than those damned ballista.

I think the area damage of these weapons needs to be nerfed a bit... I mean, I understand that a ballista round can roll through ranks of people, but it's a fairly small ball, it should annihilate about a soldiers width through the ranks - not 3 soldiers width worth of ranks. The exploding shots need to be altered as well, instead of being an explosion they should be an incendiary effect - still aoe, but it should just burn the troops to death not cause a massive explosion that displaces the entire unit. The fire could even persist as though it were one of those firepit defenses. As an aside, I've found that in the last patch normal ballista rounds are actually better at decimating massed troops than the exploding ones.

Regarding 0 captives, I've noticed this in the last patch too. Chariots are still good, but only if you flank with them - a head on charge with an iceni chariot seems to be suicidal now unless you're hitting skirmishers.

Having to encounter siege engines as barbarian tribes before having the ability to make them would be pretty cool, but I'd also settle for it being a tier 2 or tier 3 siege technology. I think part of the problem is that the buildings barbarians use to get their basic troops also come along with various artillery pieces. They need a separate building - which would hurt a little because barbarian settlements already get crowded with buildings - but, good! Then there might be a reason to actually use ladders/rams/towers.