Darnit I hate when things move too fast.
We should've developed catapults.
Bigger payload, longer range, tremendous fear factor (The entire remainder of my platoon died in ONE SHOT?).
Then a revision on ammo, if necessary, to make a bigger firestorm shell. Then we'd be set. Now what can we do with this revision to get back on the offensive?
Is there no way for us to bring down the costs of the new ballistae? We desperately need to keep them flooded with artillery. We can't outrange them, we NEED to take them out.
For magic....would the trader be content with our flame shells? I can't help but think that his countrymen would be greatly pleased with a small store of incredibly deadly projectiles. If not, well, best we can probably do is the teletalk wands. A nation with no magical enemies, a trader who can't see the magic, won't really understand what to do with antimagic. Demonstrate to him the ability of a man to communicate through relay to the far side of an army, and then sell him enough wands to make it happen. Then, we use that credit ASAP to make our enchanted ballistae more powerful.
Now then: Perhaps we can revise FIRESTORM to carry enchantment? If we could get the ammunition to carry either a Lucky Strike or wind-based shatter, we'll be set to kill a lot of stuff this year.
I'm going to leave a few ideas, along with my personal favorite down below.
Lucky Strike on Firestorm Shells: (0)
Explosion of the Winds on Firestorm Shells: (1) Madman198237
Enchanted Ballistae---rename to Storm of Allah (Maybe?), revise for additionally powerful enchantments to accuracy: (0)
Firestorm shell revision: (1) Taricus