Fun fact, the alpha of AoK had “more realistic” mangonels. They would be produced in packed form
and you would have to unpack them in order to attack
They would even drop some ressources to scavenge upon being destroyed
Why they gave up on this? Not hard to see, just look at the trebuchet and bombard cannon’s stats
So when they gave up on AoE1’s design philosophy of unit lines obsoleted by others (ie like the bowman not being upgradable to composite bowman) they had to find a new use to the mangonel and we ended up with what we have today, which remains useful in imperial age.