Age of Strategy Forums

Ballista shouldnt make area damage. Why it makes? It should make much damage to single unit from longer range. Damage should be 15-20 and range should be 7-8.

A ballista arrow it's pretty big, i assume, so an area damage should be caused by it's arrow to hit a target behind another.
In that case area damage should be in a straight line

No
Ballista arrows was made to break and splitter and
Splash around when they hit the ground -->
There has been iron parts and sharp wood particels
Flying around and making "area damage".

Patroid

Ok but ballistas range should be 7-8 and accuracy should be very high. Ballista had longer range and better accuracy than bows.

ok for longer range, but i'm not pretty sure about accuracy...

patroid wrote:No
Ballista arrows was made to break and splitter and
Splash around when they hit the ground -->
There has been iron parts and sharp wood particels
Flying around and making "area damage".

Patroid

I'm fairly well versed in medieval siege technology, weaponry and techniques and I've never heard, seen or read anywhere about "splash" damage from a ballista bolt...

I think that ballista shouldn't make are damage. Just very high damage to a single enemy unit

Why does ballista make area damage. Shouldnt it do a very high damage on 1 unit?

it already does high damage to one unit with out the area damage upgrade.

In midevial times, catapults shot everything from large boulders, to plague infested cows, to a bunch of small rocks. All three of which would inflict damage to multiple people than just to 1 person.

Wasn't there already a topic for this?

Yes, I believe there is.

Darkknight wrote:I think that ballista shouldn't make are damage. Just very high damage to a single enemy unit

I agree...even oversized units (catapults, elephants, etc...) would take a significant amount of damage from a 2 1/2 meter-long, 20-Kg sharpened wooden stake impacting them at around 150 Km/Hr...but it still wouldn't "splash"...

splash damage is "workaround" to the missing logic to handle damage "in the line of fire".
so when it is ready it should do damage to the targeted unit, and the unit behind that unit, and maybe a little to the unit behind the previous two.

Oh okay. That will be cool when it's ready.

Ballista should be very different. Ballistas had high accuracy, high power and high range. Why it has area damage, bad accuracy and same range with bows.

I think stats should be changed

Cost 6
Power 20 (no area damage)
Range 7
Good accuracy

If the area damage thing is removed then there is no need to increase its turn cost

WHAT?! Noooo!!! If we remove area damage, then I can no longer do my super OP strategy of making ballista fortified walls around my capital that can massacre hordes of attacking infantry in a single turn!

Me too. I mostly prefer ballista to catapuls for defence from a never ending army. recently i won 40 gems thanks to them even after my oponent had 8 Tcs and me only 3

Ballista should have area damage, but only in the line of target should be affected. You will hit one unit but also damages two other units behind the target. Its like a spear (coz its larger than arrows) which will pierce in the formation of infantries.

Imagine a swordsman and a pikeman behind it against a ballista.

In scale of reality, there are 50 swordsmen and 50 pikemen which in medieval classic wave formation. On the far area, the group of 20 ballistas are bout to fire at them. Of course a ballista bolt can't kill 50 swordsmen, but maybe 2-4 of them. 20 ballistas X 2 units can kill =40 (minimal damage to be caused by probability). 40 swordsmen could be killed but there are probability that the pikemen suffered casualties, maybe 20 swordsmen and 20 pikemen, or 30 swordsmen and 10 pikemen and goes on...

The reason lies beyond the projectile/bolt/arrow of the ballista. The ballista is an accurate construct of medieval engineers, but the projectile have variations. From spears to large log-like wooden stakes, they differ in accuracy. If a rigid metal spear is fired from a ballista, it would yield the best accracy but only 1-2 unit will be killed at great distances. If a large wooden stake is fired, it wouldn't be accurate and distant but it could demolish a battering ram or a wagon.

Since having these variations would be hard on programin the ballista, the characteristics are averaged. And there we have it, our infantry-N-cavalry-mopping-derp-BALListah!