| “ | Long range warship with high damage splash attack, but minimum range. | ” |
| —In-game description | ||
The Catapult Ship is an Classical Age military ship in Chronicles available at the Shipyard. It can be upgraded to the Onager Ship in the Imperial Age.
Availability[]
 
|
|
|---|---|
•  Achaemenids•  Puru•  Thracians
|
•  Athenians•  Macedonians•  Spartans
|
Tactics[]
The Catapult Ship plays a similar role to the Mangonel on land. It deals splash damage allowing it to hit multiple targets at once, making it most effective against groups of ships in tight formation. Like the Mangonel, it deals friendly fire, so the player must keep that in mind when deploying them alongside Monoremes. As the Lembos has a very short range, it is also at risk of being inadvertently damaged during massed engagements. Compared to archers and most infantry, ships generally have higher hit points, so Catapult Ship attacks are less devastating and will not take out units in one hit they way the attacks of the Mangonel line have the potential to do against weaker targets. Unlike the Onager, the Onager Ship's attacks do not destroy trees.
The Onager Ship upgrade is fairly expansive, though less so than the Onager upgrade for the Mangonel line, costing 600 food, 500 gold. It provides similar benefits as the latter upgrade, with +15 attack, +5 anti-building attack, +16.6% firing rate, +1 range, +1 melee and pierce armor, +0.25 blast radius, +2 ship armor, and +10 hit points, making the Catapult Ship more devastating to large groups of enemy units. It is a worthwhile upgrade when multiple Catapult Ships are deployed, especially after the Monoreme and Lembos lines have also been upgraded to offset the increased risk of friendly fire.
Although superficially similar, it plays a very different role to the Dromon in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, as the latter has a smaller Area of Effect while being much more effective than the Catapult Ship against buildings.
Further statistics[]
| Strengths and weaknesses | |
|---|---|
| Strong vs. | Massed units at long range |
| Weak vs. | Units at close range |
| Technologies | |
|---|---|
| Attack |  Siege Engineers (+20% against buildings)
|
 Range
|
Siege Engineers (+1)
|
| Armor |  Hypozomata (0/+1)
|
| Conversion resistance |  Exorcism (+4 min, +4 max) Hemlock (die upon getting converted)
|
 Movement speed
|
 Drums (+15%)
|
| Resource cost |  Shipwright (-20% wood)
|
| Creation speed | Shipwright (+54%) Conscription (+33%)
|
| Upgrading | Conscription (+33% faster)
|
| Policies and doctrines | |
|---|---|
| Resource cost |  Naval Policy (-20% gold, Athenians only)
|
| Aura enhancements | |
|---|---|
 Regeneration
|
 Military Town Center (+20 HP/min, Achaemenids only) Fortified Outpost (+30 HP/min, requires  Ends of the World, Macedonians only)
|
| Attack |  Strategos (+1, Athenians only)
|
 Attack speed
|
 Leviathan (+17.65%) Polemarch (+17.65%, Spartans only) Defensive Town Center (+17.65%, Achaemenids only) Port (+17.65%, requires Delian League, Athenians only) Shipyard (+17.65%, requires Delian League, Athenians only)
|
| Movement speed
|
Military Town Center (+15%, Achaemenids only) Fortified Outpost (+20%, Macedonians and allies only) Polemarch (+15%, requires  Morai, Spartans only)
|
| Civilization bonuses | |
|---|---|
| Creation speed | Achaemenids (+15%)
|
| Upgrading | Achaemenids (+15% faster)
|
| Team bonuses | |
|---|---|
| Upgrading | Athenians (+50% faster) Portuguese (+25% faster)
|
Trivia[]
- The Catapult Ship line is armed with an onager. Its appearance in the Battle for Greece campaign is anachronistic, as the onager was invented around the 3rd century BC[1] and was mounted onto ships by the Romans at later periods.[2]
Gallery[]
References[]
See also[]
Catapult Trireme: A similarly named and modeled ship in Age of Empires
