Arty

[discovery1]

Question:How does one use artillery in defensive battles? Whenever I try to use it, the shots always harmlessly bounce over the advancing enemy lines. Any help would be appreciated.

[Ranges]

Look for a place where there are two units behind eachother.
Then aim for the first unit (nearest to you) and shoot.

If your shot bounces over, oh well, you'll just hit the poor buggers behind it..

That said, artillery is quite useless in battles, at least, until the serpentine and the organ gun show up :)

PS: ballista's manage to get a few kills as well ;)

[Nowake]

Massive artillery on a hill. On 3v3, it's a battle winner. But I persoanlly don't use it, not my style.

[PseRamesses]

As Ranges pointed out artillery in battles are pretty useless and you do better with archers. In sieges though they do make a difference from castles and upwards. Below that you can easily break down a gate or wall with a couple of archer-shots. I always bring atleast 6 units of them into a siege.
For artillery in battles, just wait for the organ-gun, it´s great

[makkyo]

in sieges: life-saver
in open battle: useless (untill organ and serpine gun in which I snipe the enemy general and kill him right when he comes into range)

[katank]

you people forgot about the catapult. In early, it's one of the great antipersonnel weapons.

they are only keep level, are small, have greatest range of all siege for the period and have low angle of fire with bouncing shot which can nail tons of enemy units.

defending bridges with 6+ cats is fun. Also, if attacking, placing a forward catapult can force the AI away from the bridgehead and make it easier to cross.

Once at a few valour, they can rack up some nice kill rates too. One cat of mine killed 157 during a single battles defending Kiev agains the Horde.

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (katank @ Mar. 23 2004,19:04)]defending bridges with 6+ cats is fun. Also, if attacking, placing a forward catapult can force the AI away from the bridgehead and make it easier to cross.
"Katank, katank, katank" sounded the big boulders while they tumbled through enemy lines crushing anything in its path. "Muahaha", laughed the merciless warlord Katank I.

Thanks for the tip. Hadn´t thought of using them in a one- bridge-battle.

[VividYoshee]

I once had a battle with about 10 catapults (one of my large attack armies got attacked) and since I had a nice plataeu I put them all in.

I rained down so many rocks on the French horde that it was a wonder to behold, however I eventually had a problem when they approached the artillery and my three archers and two infantry got overwhelmed.

I do like to start a defense with a massive artillery barrage (mass fire into the center of their mass), but now to avoid getting overwhelmed I fire until the enemy starts making a serious approach and then retreat. To do this you need a sort of advance defensive position. Retreat your arty crew when the enemy gets into archer range (most arty start having range issues then anyway). Have some disposable infantry that can hold a line for a while (usually this sort of thing was in early so I used cheap spears) and retreat your archers as soon as the arty crews are on their way.

Have the crews go all the way off the map and bring in your reinforcements (typically ordered to have strong infantry and or calvary in first depending on the position). Have the archers retreat to a rear line position (typically on another hill). Have the incoming infantry position themselves in front of them. Retreat your disposable infantry if possible, though they likely will be swarmed at this point.

If you get the timing right, your reinforcements will arrive at your second line at the same time the enemy is finally through with the diversion and reformed (though this may not work at higher difficulties). It is hard to do, but if you like lots of epic artillery barrages, but still want to bring in a real army for the bulk of the fighting, it is kinda fun.

[makkyo]

try doing a custom battle w/ nothing but serpine guns/ organ guns along with handguners against an absolutely HUGE army of heavy infantry and watch tecnology do its work. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[discovery1]

Thanks all. Leaned some useful stuff. Nvr thought about using atry in an offensive bridge battle.

[Seven.the.Hun]

ya, siege stuff works with the right lanscape in those onebridge maps...even older siege stuff, but in this case i never use more than 2, as archers are better

[Fortebraccio]

MedMod 3.14, Rome, AD 1418. A permanent welcome party in honor of the ever-reemerging Pope:

A 6 star, very lazy, perverted, merciless, butcher, field defense specialist Patriarch of Rome: ("Zzzzzzzz...uh? Who dares to disturb our sacred nap? What? The Pope? I am the Pope...yaaaaawn...you are so lovely, dressed as Cupid, Anselmino...this time I'm not going to have you thrown into Castel Sant'Angelo's dungeons...but don't try the patience of His Holiness again. Next time I will personally carve your pretty blue eyes with my favourite set of pincers... Uh uh, nevermind. Go now, and don't come back without the head of that self proclaimed eresiarch")

10 V3 W4 A4 Condottieri
6 V3 Serpentine Crews
6 V3 W4 A4 Contadina Cavalry

Average outcome (after seven reemergences): 2500 kills, 200 casualties each time. Those Serpentines work wonders against the tight masses of Order Foot Knights the Pope likes to field...

[katank]

Quote[/b] ]"Katank, katank, katank" sounded the big boulders while they tumbled through enemy lines crushing anything in its path. "Muahaha", laughed the merciless warlord Katank I.

Thanks for the tip. Hadn´t thought of using them in a one- bridge-battle.

Guess I'll take it as a compliment

LOL, that's what I do although I like to use follow projectiles for some real fun http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

I say don't use much more than 6 as then you wouldn't have enough defense troops.

For my horde battles, it's funny how I have 6 catapults, 6 pav arbs, 3 plug units and my general.

it rains complete hell upon them.

it's beautiful to see their units bottled up at the bridge mouth being stopped by my pulg and volleys of big boulders bounce through their thick swarming masses.

big bouncing rocks going through furballs of enemies sure gives satisfaction particularly when following projectiles and see the camera crash through the units.

first battles you don't get as many kills but when they gain some valour, the catapults are real killers.

their range is great and with 100+ kills per cat is wrong.

they are only keep level too.

I love em.

it's funny to be in a defensive battle as the byz, deploy on the edge of the map with massed cat, naptha, treb archers, and spears to massacre approaching forces and withdraw your missles after out of ammo and then have katank and varang with hardcore byz inf stream in as reinforcements.

I got something like a 2k:100 kill ratio is such a battle with much of it from friendly fire. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[Herodotus]

Siege engines are also very cheap. In a recent game as Spain i used about 4-6 catapults to defend Valencia (which has a bridge to its north and south) with two halberdiers and a decent commander. I could have used archers or even crossbowmen for this duty but catapults are far cheaper.

[katank]

yep, the catapults also only cost 12 support IIRC so they are really cheap in the long run.

[katar]

believe me, there`s nothing nicer than seeing six cats letting rip all at once and watching the rocks bouncing along happily... as they shred four units of gothic knights into dog food. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[SpencerH]

I had a bridge defense last night against the Mongol Horde (4000 men) at Kiev circa 1233-34. Included in my 2500 men was a merc organ gun (OG). A-hah thinks I, time to let rip with arty at a bridge defense. I had previously used naptha throwers and found them very useful, but had not used arty per se.

The set up required some troop movement to the bridge, but I set up the OG quite close to the bridge, but not too close (didnt want arrows dropping amongst my hardy gunners). The mongol heavy cav charged the bridge and were being cut down by arbalasters etc but I was surprised/stunned/pissed off to find out that the damn OG was not in range of the horde on the bridge Does this thing have to be point blank? Or did it not function since we dont have gunpowder yet (in which case why can I hire a merc gunpowder unit) ?

Anyway, despite killing the Khan and 2500 hordesmen to my 1000 lost (probably 300 or so after routing) they won since my troops routed. Personally I dont understand that result but since I took Kiev back next turn, c'est la vie.

[Oaty]

If you can get a gun unit pre gunpowder era it will work. The best way to explain how they work is for you to try them out in custom. There range is very short but pays off very well. They can very easily inflict over 50 percent casualties on 1 40 man unit of cavalry. I havent used organ guns in a while but I can say there range is not much more than the width of a typical bridge in MTW (not the length the width)

There default in prebattle is to skirmish and will be nearly worthless if you leave them in skirmish and I always use hold formation

[WorkNeglecter]

Last night I attacked Toulouse from Provence with just 4 cats, 3 genoese archers, 2 turcopoles and 3 spears. I had a zero level general and the enemy - two stacks of FS, FFK, RK and FK - was led by a 5 star king. There's only one bridge and I never had any intention of crossing it, I just wanted to take out a few enemy troops. They sat by the bridgehead and I took out 350 top-notch troops without a single casualty. I used the turcopoles to cover the withdrawal, just in case.
I tried to repeat it the following turn but they had the good sense to abandon the province http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-inquisitive.gif

[Daveybaby]

The key to using arty successfully against anything other than walls is valour. Low valour artillery rarely hit anything they aim at, but as their valour increases so does their accuracy.

So you have to invest in some training exercises - keep some arty around in as many battles as you can. They wont make much difference to the outcome at this stage, but every time they do manage to score a hit they will be on the road to improvement.

[SpencerH]

Quote[/b] (oaty @ April 28 2004,22:35)]If you can get a gun unit pre gunpowder era it will work. The best way to explain how they work is for you to try them out in custom. There range is very short but pays off very well. They can very easily inflict over 50 percent casualties on 1 40 man unit of cavalry. I havent used organ guns in a while but I can say there range is not much more than the width of a typical bridge in MTW (not the length the width)

There default in prebattle is to skirmish and will be nearly worthless if you leave them in skirmish and I always use hold formation
Thanks for the answer. I had the OG about a bridge length from the end of the bridge so no wonder it didnt find a target in range. I guess its a bit of a suicide job for these guys in a bridge defense.