Ever since Scorpions gained the benefit from Ballistics, there’s been plenty of divided opinion on them. Some think they’re too strong, others think it was necessary to make them viable, and so forth. While I do think the target-tracking effect was needed, IMO the way they tied it to Ballistics may not have been the most ideal way to go about it.
So I was thinking: What if the target-tracking effect for Scorpions was a separate technology from Ballistics?
There’d be a few reasons to do this:
- It would allow the devs to tweak individual civilizations on whether or not they have the effect. For example, if you have a civ that already has other strong counters to cav archers and/or infantry, they could make it so that civ’s Scorpions don’t track targets.
- It would change the opportunity costs involved with getting Scorpion target-tracking. For example, if the tech was available at the Siege Workshop, you wouldn’t need to build a University and could go double SW in early Castle Age (I’m sure a lot of people would see this as a major buff), but having it at the SW means researching it would cut into your production of Scorpions.
- It would give the Romans some benefit back if they got this target-tracking tech for free.
- If absolutely necessary, the devs could restrict this target-tracking effect to being an Imperial Age tech. (I personally would not do this, but the option would at least be there.)
Separating the target-tracking effect for Scorpions from Ballistics could be of benefit, but what do you think on the subject?