Artillery ignore "fire at will" being off

Is this a bug, or just me being stupid? On a number of occasions I've turned "fire at will" off on a set of 12lb foot artillery, only to have them fire. This usually ends up being friendly fire, as I only turn FAW off if I'm charging infantry in front of them.

I've tried clicking "stop" and turning FAW off. Same thing. I've wondered if they just continue to fire the charge they've just loaded, even though FAW is off. Maybe, but sometimes they just keep firing regardless.

I couldn't see anything about this in the bugs thread, so apologies if I've missed it being reported already.

Arty is a bit stupid in general. Try turning FAW off, then pressing backspace, then setting them to melee only then backspace again. Or just limber them

If you've targeted a unit then turn off fire at will they will fire at that unit

I just turn off fire at will then press backspace and that stops them.

If that doesn't fix it, tell them withdraw, off fire at will, and cancel the withdraw. This usually fixes even problems like batteries not packing up.

Artillery certainly needs alot of hand holding. A very slippery business.:sweatdrop:

I've had them continue to fire even after turning off FAW and hitting backspace multiple times. I assume its a bug. If you can get the unit to move with FAW off that will reset it or set the unit to melee as someone suggested. If its a early tech unit where it cant move once placed on deploy tell the unit to fire at the ground in front of them. Just make sure no friendlies are nearby and let them pound the ground harmlessly.

its not a bug they follw orders. sometimes theres delay or confusion when too many rapid orders are given but otherwise i ahvent had a problem. might also have to do with PC processing speeds.

I had an army last night where my three batteries of 12 lb howitzers not only kept firing with "fire at will" off, they decided independently to target one of my own line infantry units that was behind them and to the right! The unit was playing flank guard against a possibility of sneaky native American units coming around the side, but there were no enemy units there at the time. At first I thought it was just a graphical glitch when one shell went to the right instead of ahead at the target, but when I turned FAW off they all switched to that unit and killed off 1/3 of it before I could get them limbered.

After I moved them and unlimbered them, they targeted that unit again! I wound up having to give them specific targets for the remainder of the battle (including bare ground when I didn't have an enemy unit to shoot at) to keep them from killing my own troops.

I've found this, particularly with howitzers. They seem to decide, in the absence of orders, to just start firing shells at a random spot of ground in front of them.

Various random combinations of switching FaW on and off and hitting backspace seem to fix it eventually, in the meantime I tend to order them to target some random patch of ground out of the way of my troops and switch them to roundshot to mitigate friendly fire while I fix them.

The good news is I've always been able to regain control over my gunners eventually, the bad news is these problems do seem quite frequent, especially with howitzers.

Yeah, noticed that too with the howitzers.
Didn't have a clue how one of my Republican Guard units could have been almost annihilated without any enemy infantry coming even close, then in the next battle I saw 5 or 6 howitzer units targeting the spot right in front them, all by themselves... Another unit of Republican Guards gone :furious3:

Arty will often return to their original positions and discharge a round after you order them to stop. Sometimes even if they were reloading when you ordered them to cease fire. That's why I don't put infantry in front of my artillery, even if shots would normally go over them. Never know when the stupid buggers will just discharge a round into the dirt, right where your general is standing.

@foop original post in this thread: I've got a list of 4 artillery problems around the bottom of page 4 of the stickied bug thread.

I've had an even better one recently, or perhaps a combination of two. I have 3 units of howitzers at a bridge battle. I fire a few rounds in their initial position, then move them. They unlimber fine and fire a few rounds. I try to limber them again and they do the (for me) fairly common "limber unlimber limbo", a funny dance but one I'm getting a bit fed up with. They limber up, and once the horses are in front and just about ready to go, they immediately unlimber again, and repeat that every time I give another limber button click.

Fair enough, I'm used to it by now, so I realize I'll just have to do without them for the rest of the battle. Except they combine this with the bug the OP mentioned, still firing despite Fire at Will being off. And both the buttons Fire at Will and Stop Current Order are greyed out, and clicking them doesn't highlight them. The only button highlighted is the Limber/Unlimber one and that is the only button that has any effect for the rest of the battle.

So for the rest of the battle I had to visit the artillery every 30 seconds or so, hitting Limber, and try to remember to go back to rehit it before they finished their Unlimber and start firing again. I couldn't seem to direct their fire - they seemed to chose their own targets - usually one next to some friendly units. It was so silly, I laughed more than I cried.

Perhaps this is just how artillery behaved in the 18th century. Napoleon would give them an order to move but as soon as his back was turned, the French gunners would quickly unlimber and begin firing at some enemies, even when their shells were killing more of the Old Guard than the enemy. The scamps: I bet their general would cancel their supper before they had a good laugh together before bedtime. Sigh.

I almost cried yesterday when i turned fire at will off on my howitzers and all 12 cannons fired explosive shells at a Spanish unit of armed citizenry that was engaged with a unit of my grenadiers with 2 chevrons of experience and decimated both units...

I just limber them up when melee starts, and even then some of them ignore the limber up orders.

Yeah, ignoring fire at will is one thing, but unlimbering without being told is another.
Yesterday I lost 4 units of horse artillery, because they refused to limber up. Rather, they would unlimber immediately after limbering up. Idiots. Couldn/t they see they were all alone on that little hill and there were like 5 regiments of nasty indians with even nastier axes walking their way?
I mean come on!
If you wanna be suicidal, drink yourself to death, don't waste my cannons!!!

I have seen it but the opposite too, fire at will on and them not firing at all, just loading their guns standing there...

I have also had the limber-unlimber-limber dance going on. That one I go around by just clicking on a bare patch of ground about the time the limbers got in front of the arty pieces; even though it was still the target icon they started moving to that point instead of shooting at it. Once I got them moving, they unlimbered and acted fine for the remainder of the battle.

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Originally Posted by nederlander

I have seen it but the opposite too, fire at will on and them not firing at all, just loading their guns standing there...

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It's possible you manually gave them a target they can't see/fire at. I noticed that sometimes my fixed arty would just stand there like idiots during a city battle after I ordered them to blast a building to smithereens (don't you love infantry garrisoning buildings ? It's like a yummy arty piñata !). Turns out, there was no direct line of fire. I had to blow up a few other buildings that were in the way, then they were able to shell the intended target.

The LOS is sort of picky, too. It seems to be calculated from the center of the formation, so sometimes one piece will have a clear LOS but won't fire because the target is masked from one or two cannon. And this is one more reason fixed arty sucks :)

I think that the limber / unlimber thing is serious bugged. I had two units of 12lb foot artillery with me to destroy the pirates when one got stuck in some kind of loop. One of its four cannons was already unlimbered while the other three weren't. Whatever I did, I was not able to get them working again. And then the other started to get a mind of its own. Whenever I told it to move, the damn crew would start parking the horses in front of the pieces, just to unlimber again and start shooting again. In the end I quit the battle, reloaded and auto resolved. I hope CA will fix this because other wise the game will become some kind of CIV 5.

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

It's possible you manually gave them a target they can't see/fire at. I noticed that sometimes my fixed arty would just stand there like idiots during a city battle after I ordered them to blast a building to smithereens (don't you love infantry garrisoning buildings ? It's like a yummy arty piñata !). Turns out, there was no direct line of fire. I had to blow up a few other buildings that were in the way, then they were able to shell the intended target.

The LOS is sort of picky, too. It seems to be calculated from the center of the formation, so sometimes one piece will have a clear LOS but won't fire because the target is masked from one or two cannon. And this is one more reason fixed arty sucks :)

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I've seen this too and I think you have the right explanation. But I don't mind it - it does seem somewhat realistic that LOS issues could lead to an artillery piece not firing. In fact, I've got into the habit of zooming the camera down to ground level to identify both LOS to potential targets and also to check the terrain, since I suspect that it affects LOS as well (a raised bump just ahead of the firing position is particularly bad). M2TW had these issues too with seige pieces and cannons sometimes not able to fire. But like I said, I don't mind this behaviour, though I guess it is frustrating until you work out what is causing it. Some way of showing the problem in the unit card or report when you mouse over the unit would be nice.

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Originally Posted by Lord of the Isles

But like I said, I don't mind this behaviour, though I guess it is frustrating until you work out what is causing it. Some way of showing the problem in the unit card or report when you mouse over the unit would be nice.

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Agreed.

Heck, I'd love to have the option to imprint some sort of wire/grid overlay over the terrain - it's kind of hard to see every bump and cranny from above, unless you zoom to ground level. It's also hard to see whether a flat plain is really flat, or a veeeery gentle incline that'll still give a bonus to the unit higher on the "slope".

But I guess that's just a pipe dream - the only way to do that that I could figure would entail finagling with the ground textures themselves (thus always seeing the lines, even if they somehow align when different terrain types merge)

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Originally Posted by foop

Is this a bug, or just me being stupid? On a number of occasions I've turned "fire at will" off on a set of 12lb foot artillery, only to have them fire. This usually ends up being friendly fire, as I only turn FAW off if I'm charging infantry in front of them.

I've tried clicking "stop" and turning FAW off. Same thing. I've wondered if they just continue to fire the charge they've just loaded, even though FAW is off. Maybe, but sometimes they just keep firing regardless.

I couldn't see anything about this in the bugs thread, so apologies if I've missed it being reported already.

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I have noticed that if you turn fire at will off and backspace to cancel orders, the artillery will not fire (at least the animation does not fire); however, the arty going off sound will still be playing now and then. I guess, it's an audio glitch.

I served 3 1/2 years as a maintenace tech in a field artillery unit and we use to call them "GUNDOGS"! Similar to the term "DAT'S"(DUM-ASS TANKERS").:dizzy2:

You have to remember that standing next to firing guns all the time, they're likely deaf as posts and unable to hear your orders.


:laugh4:

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Originally Posted by foop

Is this a bug, or just me being stupid? On a number of occasions I've turned "fire at will" off on a set of 12lb foot artillery, only to have them fire. This usually ends up being friendly fire, as I only turn FAW off if I'm charging infantry in front of them.

I've tried clicking "stop" and turning FAW off. Same thing. I've wondered if they just continue to fire the charge they've just loaded, even though FAW is off. Maybe, but sometimes they just keep firing regardless.

I couldn't see anything about this in the bugs thread, so apologies if I've missed it being reported already.

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I realised pretty early on that artillery is so 'bug' ridden in ETW that its just not worth using.

On top of the problem you have highlighted there is the 'Fire At Will' bug which no longer takes any notice of friendly troops, and the unlimber bug, that causes artillery to spontaneously unlimber without orders and bombard the location to just ordered it to move to.

I vowed after the first couple of battles never to use artillery in my armies, and I've stuck to that rule with the exception of howitzers, which because they fire on a high trajectory at least manage to limit the damage they do to your own army.

It just a shame they changed the way artillery worked in ETW as it was quite fun to use in MTW2.

Turning of fire at will then press the stop button THEN limber work most of the time. I had some exceptions although like when the cannon crew re-unlimbered and proceeded at shooting my general with cannister shells. :wall:. Even with the risk of silly bugs i consider cannon to valuable to be excluded from my army. In their current state i only include one 12/24 lbs foot for building/wall demolition and defensive support. One 6lbs horse cannon that i use with cavalries/dragoons; very useful for quick redeployment on the flank for canister shot action. Tree howitzers because they need less micromanagement.