Early Siegecraft (Civ3)/Civilopedia

With the advent of complex fortifications, methods were required to breach them. The earliest fortification, made of wood, yielded
to axe and battering ram, but as stone began to be commonly used in fortifications, especially in
castle building, stronger instruments were needed. The Greeks were the first to develop
catapults in 399 BC, but the Romans took this early design and perfected it by 350 BC. The Romans also developed the
ballista, basically a giant crossbow that could hurl stones or bolts. These torsion-powered siege engines allowed the
Romans to add direct assault against city walls and buildings and defenders inside the towns to the main weapon of a
siege: starvation. Sometimes dead or infected livestock or bodies were hurled
into cities to help spread disease and plague. This practice helped bring the Black Death to
Europe. A khan of the Golden Horde named Yanibeg besieged a Genoese trading colony named Kaffa, now
called Theodosia, on the Black Sea in 1345 AD. As part of his strategy, he catapulted bodies of plague victims into Kaffa.
The Genoese disposed of these bodies as fast as they could, but the plague caught, and then spread across the Genoese
trading network.