Puckle Problems

[Didz]

Just discovered another problem with puckle guns.

Not only is it impossible to order puckle gunners to return to their guns, but I've just tried using puckle guns in a breastwork fortification and they basically dissappear. The breastwork is created but its empty. I thought it might just be a graphic gliche but in fact none of the puckle guns fired during the battle, and I discovered that in some cases the puckle gunners were still standing on the battlefield in their original deployment location even though their guns had been removed from play by creating the breastwork.

So, puckle guns are pretty cool, but extremely fickle and fragile to use. Also, I have to say that from what I've seen so far cannister fire is more effective.

p.s. On a more positive note, I discovered quite by accident that contrary to what you would expect puckle guns are excellent at destroying buildings and fortifications. The puckle shells seem to mince solid stone beautifully and are far faster than solid shot at getting the job done.

[HKDDJulker]

I have deployed puckle guns behind breastwork, and in my experience, everything except the gun and gunners disappeared. I believe the guns fired.

[Didz]

You mean you were left with the gun and its gunners and a blank screen?

What did the gun fire at?

[Forward Observer]

I'm still trying to figure out what possessed the developers to include such an obscure weapon in the first place. I knew I had come across pictures of this odd weapon in one of my firearms books on the Colt revolver. It was included just because some historians thought Samuel Colt may have been partially inspired by it when he developed his first practical design of a handgun using a revolving cylinder.

However, a quick search on the net revealed that the Puckle was never successful, never produced in any numbers, and other than a couple purchased--it was never really used by the British Army--much less the army of any other nation.

The application for patent for the gun was made in 1718 by the British attorney who invented it and his patent application claimed it was primarily intended for close shipboard defense--not land use. The patent picture and the few existing models in museums are not mounted on movable carriages, but on simple tri-pods. Oddly the patent also showed two bore configurations---one normally round and the other square to fire square bullets. The square bullet model was supposedly for using against non-Christians.

All in all---the fact that it was never really used by any army and that it is only available toward the end of the technology tree, which would be chronologically incorrect given the patent date, the Puckle gun is simply a fantasy weapon.

Here is the brief Wikipedia article on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Puckle

The brief article even mentions that the gun is included in the EmpireTW game, but the funniest quote from the article is:

The "Puckle Gun" failed to attract investors and never achieved mass production or sales to the British armed forces. One newspaper of the period observed, following the business venture's failure, that it has "only wounded those who hold shares therein."

Cheers

[FactionHeir]

I don't agree with them being damaging to structures. I had 6 puckle guns in front of the enemy settlement's gate and shot at that gate for a good 45 minutes before it finally came down.

[antisocialmunky]

I hit a wall with 6, died in 3 volleys. You just have to find a sufficiently big target. I don't think the gate coutns hits unless tis on the gate itself.