🚀 go-pugleaf

>
>the catapault is also handy against the enemy catapaults that roll in.
>If you can get the shot off first, you have a good chance of taking
>the enemy catapault out before it does any damage to you.

A clarification is in order.  Unless the defense has many ( >= 3) catapults, 
the attacking (moving) catapult actually has the advantage that the shots
fired at it will miss, at least partially.  So if you ever want to take out
an enemy catapult with one of yours, be sure to KEEP YOUR CATAPULT MOVING
(preferably along a diagonal--makes it faster) until the other guy's catault
has fired and its fireball has landed.  Then fire.  Most likely, his 
stationary catapult will be toasted, while yours will live.

BTW, my favorite way to eliminate an attacking catapult is to send a single 
knight against it.  In fact, even an archer will do if you tell him to walk
right up to the catapult, as opposed to attacking from a distance.

>
>>I find them quite useless, because as they fire, the enemy units are moving 
>>away from where the fireballs land; as matter of fact, a bunch of archers

Here's a trick I saw on this newsgroup a while back: get an enemy knight to
follow one of yours very closely (2 or 3 units behind, depending on how fast
the nights are), and then tell your catapult to fire at YOUR knight.  If you
get the timing/distance right, the fireball will land right on top of the poor
idiot following your knight.  Just don't forget to tell the catapult to stop
after the job's done !

Another use for catapults (works only against the computer): accumulate a 
bunch of them (3 or 4), position them at different distances behind your front 
line of people, and have one of your knights walk up to an enemy building.  
Then tell him to run back and hide behind your other people.  What that will 
do is to cause all of computer's people to attack you at once.  Just be 
prepared, and your catapults will take care of most of the attackers.  Once 
that's over, the computer's town will be empty, so you can march right in.