That's very much a matter of opinion. I kept it without because that's what miss chance always used to do. If you like it more with some actual penalty, then please feel free to make it whatever you prefer in your mod.

Okay. When I'm ready to publish some small mods of mine I'll add those two tiny compatibility patches and ToW additions. The later will be non compatible only with mods that change the description of those buildings while using the Ballista mod.

On a side note, I also had the idea to accompany the "Missed by a boulder!" effect by a real penalty such as one round of a bit of morale loss or slightly hindered status (-25%MP). What do you think? It would be too much for someone who is missed by a fair margin, but for someone who is grazed?

Patch should be trivial for anyone, just a single Link Data between the unit and Shadow Elves race. As for TOW, I don't like doing that because it might make this mod incompatible with others that do, and those others probably have more important changes.

Hi, would you add some ToW integration (SIEGE_WORLSHOP/MASTERS_GUILD@DESCRIPTION) and compatibility patch for Shadow Realm (Shadow Elves faction) if I provide the files (or precise locations of changes/additions)?

Not by me, but would be easy to make for everyone. Only the link records are required.

Hey, any plans for a submod that adds it to Eomolch's Archon and Tiefling races?

I wanted it to resemble the old catapult. It has 100% chance to hit obstacles, and high chance to hit high defense targets. This keeps it's role similar to what it was in AoW 1. Meanwhile, the Balista is better against units.

Just tried this mod for the first time and I really like it! I always loved the ballista in AoW1, especially the orcish one that shot black bolts : ) Thanks for making this mod! I just had one question, why did you change the catapult to miss so often? Was this for AoW1 mod or something? And does the "that was close" debuff do anything? I mainly ask because this makes summoning the catapult with the dread spell kinda useless.

In general, I think it's the other way around - for example, a horned god is easier to hit than your average halfling. Machines also all got decent defense. Generally, higher tier units have both higher defense and are bigger. Giants are also an example. However, I couldn't select on size and therefore had to pick something else - and it was defense that made the choice. I might instead have gone for a flat % chance, but sadly we can't build that into the game.

I wasn't clear, I meant that a "9% - That what's close! 1 turn" case (that I'd interpreted as a chance "to hit") illustrated what you explain indeed: that the percentile is the chance to miss, as you say, and a further reading of the logs shows that the more defense, the lower this percentile, hence the greater chance to actually hit. Just as you said. (well, a 9% attack might have missed as well, but it was marginal, like... 9 out of 100)

Not to be pernicketty, but sometimes though, a high defense stat stands for a greater agility or combat expertise, not a greater armor or size (see assassin in my example). Poor nimble assassins. Perhaps they (and like units) could benefit from a new ability or one of their abilities might be checked in order to specifically lower their chance to be hit?

Reloading the game won't reset the seed - so a 9% random that hits will always hit if the same actions are taken. And no problem

I eventually came to that interpretation when I looked at the battle log, and stumble on a 9% "to hit" that never missed, but it's quite... puzzling, even more since once the target is hit for real, damage calculation seems normal (usually, the more chance to resist, the less damage is taken in case of resistance). Thank you for your patience.

Yes, the "miss" effect completely prevents all damage. That's intended. However, I switched around the fields for "hit" and "miss", so that hit chance was higher for higher defense units (which are generally bigger. Also more chance in guard mode = standing still). This is because I wanted the catapult to be an inaccurate weapon vs units, while increasing it's effect against structures. However, I wanted it less inaccurate against larger units.

Note that "That was close!" does exactly nothing - it's because I am forced to do something when the resistance check "succeeds".

Catapult vs Tigran/Orcish Scoundrel:
55% - That was close! 1 turn, or 23-35 physical when resisted

Catapult vs Elven Assassin:
25% - That was close! 1 turn, or 9-14 physical when resisted

Catapult vs Tigran Assassin (flanked):
40% - That was close! 1 turn, or 22-34 physical when resisted

I can't really say what's wrong here (the display or the behaviour), but something surely is not WAD.

Perhaps I don't have up-to-date files after all. :)

6) When a hit misses (is resisted?), the target suffers a fake effect: That was closed! (in red) for 1 turn, not stackable, with a description saying that it just witnessed a large boulder landing nearby. That's why I wondered if a real effect couldn't be added, like a sideration (or a crippling effect).

5) How would you compare the display of usual abilities that can be resisted and the catapult attack?

Hero's Stunning Touch vs Draconian Assassin:
70% - Stunned 2 turns, or -16 MP when resisted

Civic Guard's Net Touch vs Goblin Scoundrel (8 DEF vs 11 Resist check):
65% - Ensnared 2 turns, or -14 MP when resisted

Civic Guard's Net Touch vs Draconian Assassin (11 DEF vs 11 Resist check):
50% - Ensnared 2 turns, or -16 MP when resisted

3) They're a different unit now, along with a paralel to AoW1
4) I'd say the trebuchet is weaker as catapult, due to miss chance
5) Nope, that's WAD. The more defense you have, the *lower* the miss chance
6) The misses have no effect at all, therefore it doesn't say anything
7) Ballista has same MP as the old trebuchet. If you're using Dreadnought though, they have an ability increasing it by 8, which is really fast.
8) Cause I hate reloads

8/ If a nerf is ever wanted, why not adding a reload ability to both machines (or at least to the catapult). Just compare an irl single ballista (or a battery?) and a squad of crossbowmen, and a catapult vs a cannon to assess their "DPS". I mean that in game, should the ballista be the equivalent to the crossbowman, and the catapult be the equivalent to the rock giant or the cannon? Should they be better in term of damage? Should they be worst in term of rate of fire? Now I understand that a lighter catapult has a greater rate of fire than the slow, trebuchet...

7/ Now that we have two new, potent machines that are available to all (not only to Dreadnoughts), I feel like siege machines are quite fast now. They shouldn't move at the same pace as a regular infantry, even wearing all the impedimenta. I don't know how to really handle this, and nerfing all machines shouldn't be a good idea, but lessening the move points of those two specific machines, or giving them a new, dedicated ability like "Siege Weapon/Cumbersome" / a -25% MP penalty (a rough value before any thoroughful study) could settle the point. Specific Dreadnought machines would not be nerfed because considered as field machines.

6/ "That was close!" is simply genius, and I wonder if this status effect couldn't be extended to adjacent units (both allied and ennemies), only automatically this time and perhaps with a smaller magnitude, like other explosive effects already existing in game. Well, the idea is only worth in case the catapult needs an even greater buff. However, its description text could add that affected units are hindered or so (nothing is said about the effect of such a grazing hit). Quite logically tough, a hit unit should suffer from the same effect, and I don't recall that it does.
As ideas come the more I write, I wonder if the effect shouldn't be instead a spirit-based effect, akin or equal to Broken Spirit (thus damaging moral rather than movement, and being resisted by Strong Will units), while the Hindered effect would only apply to the hit target (hit target could suffer from both effect).

5/ Perhaps, ther's a little display bug, or at least an unclear display, during tactical combat and the catapult aiming. Previsionnal on hover tooltip says something like: "55% - That what close! 1turn, else (takes that damage)". From my limited experience with the other abilties that can be resisted, that should mean that the catapult has 55% chances to miss the target. Yet, I'm not sure wether it's not 55% to hit the target... I need to compare between two really different targets (a scoundrel getting a higher chance than an assassin, I only infered that the displayed percentage is the chance to hit the target.)

3/ I don't understand the renaming of trebuchets into catapults. They still are graphically trebuchets, and Medieval trebuchets were way more lethal than Roman catapults (and your new version is even more powerful than vanilla version). In my translation, I took the liberty of reverting the name back to Trebuchet.

4/ Understandably, the vanilla trebuchet's description text was discarded and a new description text was written for the catapult. Given the new interresting mechanics added to catapults, I only merged both text to suit the catapult/improved trebuchet (basically appending vanilla text with the funny step aside relation by Lady Loki).

Hello, just trying this mod, I get some first feelings about it.

Whatever, I have the idea that I'm not disabling this mod now that I've tried it.

1/ I'm under the impression that sieges could now be a more serious matter than before, requiring more units and more spells on the attacker side, as it should be expected from irl facts. Perhaps the dev. originally wanted a more nervous game and the easy countering of attacking heroes/dragons by a stack of ballistae, back to AoW2, was discarded. On the other hand, I never use battlefield damaging spells when assaulting an AI city: I just rush to the gates and saillant walls while casting buffs and debuffs. This could change with this mod. Perhaps now, I could need to send forth an avant-garde to cast an earthshake so that next attack wave won't be pinned down at the walls.

2/ As I just began using the mod, I'm not sure the AI will correctly take into consideration the new value of both ballistae and catapults.

This is a must-have mod especially for those who want some more Age of Wonders 2 in their Age of Wonders 3.

Yeah, delay is something I could fix. Actually, it's been a looong while since I've made this mod. I'll see what I can do about an update.

It's true that there's no animation tho. there's nor really an animation like it to copy, so I hoped the bolt flying out would be good enough.

I really like the idea, but the ballista feels to limited in it's uses, compared to its price. The animation looks a bit weird on my computer - when firing it just stands still for a couple of seconds and then a tiny bolt shoots out, which looks a little silly.

I was thinking about it - but the reason I changed the Trebuchet was to make them less redundant. Cause if you leave the trebuchet, he can do everything the Ballista can, and also wreck walls at a 50 gold premium.

Would love to see this as a unit-only mod without changes to the trebuchet. :) Do you plan to release a "lite" mod that only adds the Ballista unit?

It'll be some time for me...skyrim is somewhere about 70 on my installation. Know the idea though :). This one should be pretty much unbreakable by incompatibility though. Worst case, trebuchets can get reversed back to original.

I'll fix the typo next update. Thank you for reporting.

By the way, I see a typo on the unit description. The plural of ballista should be "ballistae," not "ballistea."

This looks really nice. The problem is that I will soon have as many mods as I have for Skyrim! ;)