[DLL] (8-NS) Rome Ballista rework

[Yngwie]

Problem: In-game Ballista use arrows (or bolts), not bricks. It's definitely an antipersonnel weapon, not an ordinary siege (Though it's still a mechanism). So, it should be weaker than ordinary Catapult in terms of sieges and in the same time it shouldn't reduce the siege power of Roman Empire. The best way out of this situation is to change basic class of Ballista and allow it to share battlefield with Catapults and Trebushets.

Spoiler Current Ballista :

UM - Ballista (Catapult Replacement):
available at Mathematics
100 Production Cost
8 CS, 14 RCS
"Legatus Legionis" (+1 Movement Point if GG is within 2 tiles)
2 Movement
no "Siege Inaccuracy"
no "Limited Visibility"
"Moves at Half-Speed in Enemy Territory"

Ballista (Composite Bowman replacement)
available at Engineering
120 Production Cost (+10 from CB)
9CS , 18 RCS (from 12CS,14RCS)
2 Movement
No Defensive terrain Bonuses
Cover I
"Legatus Legionis" (-15% CS to enemies within 2 tiles. +1 Movement Point if GG is within 2 tiles)
"Moves at Half-Speed in Enemy Territory"

Rationale: Roman army was not a part of bow’s Culture. There were almost no archers among them. The addition of "-15% CS to enemies" bonus will make Roman Legions even more powerful.

 

[hokath]

I take your point about not having a bowman, but then this unit is still very much a catapult with cover and half movement. It may amount to a nerf?

 

[Yngwie]

I take your point about not having a bowman, but then this unit is still very much a catapult with cover and half movement. It may amount to a nerf?

It is considered as a tribute to mechanic nature of a Unit. Without these two traits it feels a bit incomplete and wrong

 

[ma_kuh]

Just pretend that Siege II Ballista are loaded with anti-wall munitions and Field II Ballista are loaded up with bolts. The animation is just fluff, I don't think we should force game mechanics to follow graphics choices.

This feels like a step closer to Age of Empires-style unit groups where every civ has a subset of the whole unit roster based on historical accuracy. In those games it's important for individual units to be distinct, in Civ I'm perfectly happy to abstract that level of specialization with the promotion system.

 

[pineappledan]

"Legatus Legionis" (-15% CS to enemies within 2 tiles. +1 Movement Point if GG is within 2 tiles)

An early and supercharged version of covering fire, in addition to the conditional movement.

Delete this.

In-game Ballista use arrows (or bolts), not bricks. It's definitely an antipersonnel weapon, not an ordinary siege (Though it's still a mechanism).

If the fact the ballista model fires bolts is such a problem (it's not) then we can change the projectile animation to rocks with a simple database update.

 

[Yngwie]

An early and supercharged version of covering fire, in addition to the conditional movement.

Delete this.

If the fact the ballista model fires bolts is such a problem (it's not) then we can change the projectile animation to rocks with a simple database update.

Ballista is a weapon with high accuracy which should control the battlefield and keep enemies scared, that's why this part of covering fire was proposed. It could be reduced to 10% but I don't see any reason to remove this trait. It could make the Unit more special.

Talking about changing bolts to rocks... If it will be implemented as a Catapult replacement than this animation should be changed

 

[pineappledan]

I suppose my issue is this:

The original proposal is a unique catapult with most of the power and flexibility of a composite bowman.
Your proposal is a unique composite bowman with many of the drawbacks of a catapult, except it also comes, later costs more, and doesn't have the most important benefit of a catapult: The large bonus vs cities.

I don't know why anyone would choose to integrate the latter over the former.
This proposal makes Rome more unwieldly than a base civ kit.

 

[Yngwie]

Your proposal is pragmatic, this one is a bit irregular; but there is still no reason to argue.

 

[ma_kuh]

Maybe the Romans didn't have comp bows because they were busy beelining Iron Working and Masonry instead of Mathematics.

 

[azum4roll]

Any UU with downsides but loses nothing on upgrade is just going to be yet another "full power on upgrade" unit like Hwach'a.

I agree with the change to replace Composite Bowman though. That should solve the problem where they need to spend production on two unique units at the same time. But it doesn't need to behave like a siege unit too.

And it's a shame to remove the only unique Catapult. Is there any other civ that could have one?

 

[usadefcon1]

Any UU with downsides but loses nothing on upgrade is just going to be yet another "full power on upgrade" unit like Hwach'a.

I agree with the change to replace Composite Bowman though. That should solve the problem where they need to spend production on two unique units at the same time. But it doesn't need to behave like a siege unit too.

And it's a shame to remove the only unique Catapult. Is there any other civ that could have one?

You could potentially have the siege tower replace the catapult If you gave it a plague mechanic towards cities, and eventually obsolete it. That's the only thing I can think of.

 

[pineappledan]

Or give the Huns back their battering Ram as a unique catapult with a melee attack instead of the Tarkhan.

 

[Stalker0]

if you include the -15% aura, this thing basically has a +47% RCS bonus over a regular cbow (which is already a strong unit for its arrival time). That is crazy strong!