Slitherine

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.

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.

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 .