Field Artillery Weak

[tiberiansun371alexw]

As the Western Roman Empire, I feel the Cheiroballistra is simply lacking. I'd rather take an extra equites dalmantae and spear unit (which is adding more to what I already have) rather than the Cheiroballistra (which gives additional tactical options).

Here are my problems with it.

They are really slow, so using them on the flanks requires my own cavalry to protect them instead of using my cavalry to silence annoying missile units.

The Cheiroballistra is hopelessly inaccruate when firing into a melee, even when the field artillery is on the side (instead of behind my guys which would jsut be dumb) of the melee.

Due to a slow firing rate, I can't use it to reliably disrupt units just before the melee starts.

During siege defense or offense, the walls lessen the vulenrabiltiy problem... but then I might as well use onager.

Despite the weakenesses, the Cheiroballistra offers huge armour piercing damage. If I had a 15 stack, 1 Cheiroballistra would give me extra options worth more than adding one extra of a unit I already have. Unfortuantly, it's too damn expensive. If it was 313 isntead of 375, I might consider it, but every little penny matters for the WRE when its an expnese turn after turn.

If the crew had shields (which would wreck havoc on the animations), I could be a little more aggressive with these guys (they would still die in a melee, but hat's only fair).

If the unit was able to demolish ships, it would be a niche role in many citie,s eqspecially Aquiella which tends to be pounded. Sadly, they suck against ships.

Does field artillery have a role either in the field or siege defense? I'm mainly a Rome and Shogun 2 player so maybe I'm using these wrong.

[Hat8]

These only have value against Roman players that camp.

[Mile pro Libertate]

I captured one in my Danes campaign and used it in a couple of battles.

I actually thought it was pretty effective. In one battle it got well over 200 kills, despite that the unit was understrength when I incorporated it into my army (3 machines and half the full crew numbers).

If it had been full strength it reasonably could've killed 300+ men.

I was shooting into chokepoints, which seemed to help a lot.

[tiberiansun371alexw]

Originally posted by Mile pro Libertate:

I captured one in my Danes campaign and used it in a couple of battles.

I actually thought it was pretty effective. In one battle it got well over 200 kills, despite that the unit was understrength when I incorporated it into my army (3 machines and half the full crew numbers).

If it had been full strength it reasonably could've killed 300+ men.

I was shooting into chokepoints, which seemed to help a lot.

Ok, on city defense, how do I shoot into chokepoints... witohut friendly fire? (since my troops usually block the choke points)

You seemed to find the magic formula

[Elmo the Ostrogoth]

If your playing as the danes (or Barbarians) , your settlements tend to have big, sloping hills. Put your cherioballistas at the top of the hill, and your holding force of soldiers at the bottom. This way the cherioballistas can fire over the heads of your troops into the enemy bolb causing minimal freindly fire.

If you are playing as a roman, try to place a holding force in one intersection, and have a cherioballsita faceing down that street from the side so it gets flanking shots on the enemy blob. I would advise keeping a unit or two to guard it, but this generally works pretty well.

Roman settlements also sometimes have a hill in them as well, the buildings may block your firing arcs but use them the same way you would in a barbarian settlement.

The main problem with cherioballistas in my opinion is the flat firing arc. If you find a way around that you're good.

[tiberiansun371alexw]

Originally posted by Elmo the Ostrogoth:

The main problem with cherioballistas in my opinion is the flat firing arc. If you find a way around that you're good.

That's why I worte them off as "useful, but not worth the cost"

Originally posted by Elmo the Ostrogoth:

If you are playing as a roman, try to place a holding force in one intersection, and have a cherioballsita faceing down that street from the side so it gets flanking shots on the enemy blob. I would advise keeping a unit or two to guard it, but this generally works pretty well.

Roman settlements also sometimes have a hill in them as well, the buildings may block your firing arcs but use them the same way you would in a barbarian settlement.

Thanks, I'll try this out.

[Elmo the Ostrogoth]

"That's why I worte them off as "useful, but not worth the cost"

+1

[tiberiansun371alexw]

Originally posted by Elmo the Ostrogoth:

"That's why I worte them off as "useful, but not worth the cost"

+1

Want to be friends and exchange total war stories?

[Elmo the Ostrogoth]

Sure

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by Elmo the Ostrogoth:

If your playing as the danes (or Barbarians) , your settlements tend to have big, sloping hills. Put your cherioballistas at the top of the hill, and your holding force of soldiers at the bottom. This way the cherioballistas can fire over the heads of your troops into the enemy bolb causing minimal freindly fire.

If you are playing as a roman, try to place a holding force in one intersection, and have a cherioballsita faceing down that street from the side so it gets flanking shots on the enemy blob. I would advise keeping a unit or two to guard it, but this generally works pretty well.

Roman settlements also sometimes have a hill in them as well, the buildings may block your firing arcs but use them the same way you would in a barbarian settlement.

The main problem with cherioballistas in my opinion is the flat firing arc. If you find a way around that you're good.

Yeah the barbarian settlements help in this regard vs. having the "civilised" town layouts :)

In my particular case, I wasn't defending but assaulting the town. It was Lugdunum with its Roman civitas layout iirc, owned by Septimania.

There were a couple of breaches in the town wall from sapping. I sent out slingers and javelins to draw the Gaulish troops to the breeches, then I shot into those breeches with the ballista, from the edge of their arrow tower range.

The "barrage" ability seemed to help the ballista a lot too, by increasing firing rate.

I used the captuted ballista in a field battle too, to kill the enemy general and it worked great.

I put some Nordic Levy behind the ballista: this left them with a clear field of fire and enemy infantry stayed away because they were distracted by my Thrall javelins; when equites got too close I simply told the ballista crew to drop the ballista and shelter behind the Nordic spears. When the main melee was in full swing (in the center of the line) and the equites routed, I had the ballista crew take the machines again, cart them forward of the line, then shoot into the flank of the mass of Septimanian infantry, aiming for the general.

Unfortunately, I lost them in a subsequent battle, but only because their stack had no movement points left and "died" when the stack it was reinforcing lost. :(

I agree that in general, their 335, or whatever it is, upkeep is kinda hard to justify.

With a good economy mid campaign it wouldn't seem to be that bad.

[Elmo the Ostrogoth]

Yeah, in campaign by the time I can get Cherioballistras money is usually not a problem, and I bring them for fun. Ive mostly used cherioballistas when defending towns, but I think their pretty similar to use in offense as in defense.

[tiberiansun371alexw]

It's not that I don't get use of out them, I just don't feel like I'm using them optimally. And the way I'm using them certainly doesn't justify the cost. I might as well add an extra equites dalmantae and celtic spaer mecrinary or an extra equites dalmantae and Comitatensis Spears, which is more expensive than field artillery, but that means I use 2 units instead of 1.

[Elmo the Ostrogoth]

Yeah, in a lot of cases they are hard to justify, but here's an idea for field battles: Put them on the flank facing across your main line and guard them w/ your cav. If you win the cav engagement or at least hold them off for long enough you can casue massive damage to the enemy frontline/blob. They are mostly just a fun unit that gives some uniqueness to the romans, and they are hard to use right. In early game if you are pressed for cash I would take a mercenary cav unit over them any day.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by Elmo the Ostrogoth:

Yeah, in a lot of cases they are hard to justify, but here's an idea for field battles: Put them on the flank facing across your main line and guard them w/ your cav. If you win the cav engagement or at least hold them off for long enough you can casue massive damage to the enemy frontline/blob. They are mostly just a fun unit that gives some uniqueness to the romans, and they are hard to use right. In early game if you are pressed for cash I would take a mercenary cav unit over them any day.

Yeah the massive damage definitely can happen shooting into the mass that usually forms in the middle.

The ballista bolts go through multiple men, after all.

Onagers can do this as well, but:

- They're even more expensive to maintain
- Less mobile
- Don't work well for reinforcing armies.
- Can cause much more friendly casualties from the "blast" effect
- Can't shoot into targets that are too close

So I guess the ballistae fill a niche in between full blown artillery like onagers, and missile infantry.

I don't play as Romans though, so I'm not sure how hard/expensive they are to get trained. The infrastructure might not be worth it?

But as barbarians, if I capture some it's cool.

[Elmo the Ostrogoth]

The same building that gives you cherioballsitras also gives you large onagers, and the building below them gives you regular onagers. Frankly I find large onagers to deal more damage, but cherioballsitras are more fun/ unique to use.

With Large onagers and cherioballistras, neither are really nessecary in an army so its more a matter of personal preference.

They are massively cheaper than the Large onagers, but more expensive than the regular onagers, which I find kind of puzzling. They do fill that niche role you were talking about, but the price doesn't reflect that and I think they'll always be more of a fun than functional unit.

[tiberiansun371alexw]

Originally posted by Mile pro Libertate:

I don't play as Romans though, so I'm not sure how hard/expensive they are to get trained. The infrastructure might not be worth it?

But as barbarians, if I capture some it's cool.

Western Romans are considered one of the funnest challenges... or a nightmare.