Heavy artillery

[tyronec]

How many ancient battles were there where heavy artillery played an important role ?
I only know of one battle, and that was in the Medieval period and it was against a static defender rather than a mobile force.

In the 20 odd Ancients games I have played since the last patch perhaps half have been influenced by artillery and one was won by it. This can take various forms:
A lucky cavalry disrupt on it's own.
A more common elephant disrupt on it's own.
A combined arms disrupt against infantry.
Inhibiting cavalry/elephants from moving sideways behind the front line because they will be exposed to a flanking hit.
The game being slowed down while one side manoeuvers their artillery forwards at one square a turn.

Personally I would like to see heavy artillery taken out of the selection options for open battles OR the competition organisers bringing in a house rule to ban them. Otherwise I expect we will continue to see players, including me, continuing to select armies that have this highly effective weapon and making good use of it.

[Athos1660]

Indeed, artillery is fun...

while you can always create battles where they are not allowed as a rule, if you don't want them.
Add it in comments when creating a MP battle.

[wzfcns]

I basically carry light artillery. They are very efficient against heavy cavalry.

On the other hand, the mobility of heavy artillery is very deadly. Since it cannot move after a shot, it often has to move much closer than the light artillery to shoot. Moreover, its power is actually limited, that is, it only kills a few more people than the light artillery.

From a practical point of view, at least in Chinese history, heavy artillery was almost only used to attack and defend cities, not in field .