While this is a great discussion about the finner points of siege weapons, you guys are just insulting each other now. This game/mod has thousands of different strategies that all can be successful if used correctly. So arguing and saying that each other have some sort of logic deficit and are grasping at veins of logic, is just borderline rude. At the beginning, you guys were using statistics and theory to back up your ideas, now your just trying to make the other ideas look bad, and sadly, failing. After reading all of that discussion, I still am confused as to the strengths and weaknesses of both strategies. Since it turned into mostly incomprehensable arguing over mute points.
What I think would be interesting is how both methods would be countered by an AI opponent. Obviously the AI isnt going to think on its feet like a human would, so it would be curious to see how the two methods would fare against what an AI normally does, and WHICH AI's it works better on. For example, I would definately rather have cannons along if I am going against a barbarian AI of some kind. They tend to use lower quality of troops and hordes of them. A few cannons will take out the whole stack very efficiently, while you may need a few more turns of a few more mages to equal the same effect.