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[Aeon Blue]

If they need civilians to operate them and civilians flee battle, then I don't see how they are usable?

[Lagslayer]

Blind civilians and fortifications help.

[GC1CEO]

lol on blind civilians.

The first thing is to remember they are useless outside of the direction they are facing so they need a narrow target range (a hallway for example) and like real life they are most useful in a battery, or group. Assume each weapon will cover one row.

Even if your operators are terrible, having 3-5 instead of 1 increases your odds of hitting something. Likewise just like in real life keep them really far back.

Catapults have 100 range, Ballistas have 250 range. Put at least 50 tiles between them and where you hope to fire on, operators will start to flee at 20 tiles so that gives you 30 tiles of operation.

It took me trying that to get any positive effect outta my catapults, if they hit they can do some impressive damage. I took off a prefectly healthy's goblin head with one lucky shot.

I am hoping they introduce smaller siege engines like scorpions at some point ,things that can be repositioned in battle.

[agatharchides]

They can be made to kill things, but they aren't very efficient or reliable. 

[Aeon Blue]

Exceptional explanation, GC1CEO. Thanks.

[billybobfred]

Catapults can be used to move stone long distances with less work than hauling.

So I've been told, anyway. I haven't had a fort wide enough that it would have been useful.

[D.L.]

Catapults can be used to move stone long distances with less work than hauling.

Yeah, that's pretty much all I use them for - shooting stones across the map so when I build my road to the edge of the map, my masons aren't wasting time hauling rock. Once I get enough stone out there, I designate the road and any walls or ramps, the masons run out and build them, and then run right back inside.

[Vigilant]

It depends. Siege weapons are one of the harder and more training intensive things to setup, but the results when executed correctly are significant. A balista shot that hits is likely to cause deadly damage to one or more small targets, or critical damage to a megabeast. Batista's are one of your better shots at doing critical damage to a Colossus i'd think. Get a good operator, long hallway, and give it a shot. /pun

[wuphonsreach]

Catapults can be used to move stone long distances with less work than hauling.

Yeah, that's pretty much all I use them for - shooting stones across the map so when I build my road to the edge of the map, my masons aren't wasting time hauling rock. Once I get enough stone out there, I designate the road and any walls or ramps, the masons run out and build them, and then run right back inside.

+1 dwarfy

I'd have never thought of that.

[Alastar]

Weapon traps are quick, easy, scalable and ridiculously valuable (a reason to build some probably unneeded failsafes in the fortress itself).
Engineering-based traps are powerful and flexible... depending on time, effort and space you can build self-maintaining traps that kill/capture trap-immune flying firebreathing syndrome-causing building destroyers.
An old-fashioned military is flexible... you can use it to save dwarves caught somewhere they shouldn't be, and as a fallback if you overlooked a small flaw in your supposedly armed and fully operational death trap.

Other than moving stone with catapults (also more cool than practical most of the time), I don't see siege engines doing anything better than the alternatives.