The french don't have mortars? Ridiculous!

After many hours of play I understood at last the french don't have cannons which are able to fire from behind the walls. I knew they don't have mortars, but thought some of their cannons could be able to fire in high arc... and to find out there aren't. Obviously the french are extremely idiots after they are not able to produce one of the most simple cannons - the mortars, which can be build even in some backyard.

I understand the devs made it trying to find some differentiations in the units, but lacking a high arc firing cannon is not a differentiation, but a stupidity.

Maybe this is just balancing out all the other French strengths. Just a thought...

It's simply a balance issue, and one which really doesn't mean that much. Just knock down the damn walls and shoot through them :P

Not such a big deal really.

As Sapi and Slug have said it is probably by design for balance purposes rather than some glaring omission.

Besides: what would you need mortars for? They are only good for long-range bombing of men grouped tightly together, which only happens when you need to defend a narrow pass and you're pinning them with your infantry. Like bridges.

Played a custom battle to check out the mortars, and they're pretty cool actually, if used right. They can be pretty deadly.

Was totally outnumbered defending a bridge with 4 spears, 4 long-range archers, and 4 mortars in the rear. Against 4 heavy infantry, 2 spears, and LOTS of peasants, and a general.
Archers were useless mostly against the armoured ones. And those infantry pushed through my spears at some point. From the moment they engaged "Defeat was certain." They couldn't hold them for longer, but then my mortars fired right onto the enemy infantry. What a nice sight to see them flying! They routed within seconds.

That's the only useful scenario I've seen with mortars.

Well, catapults work almost as well and are lower tech. I find that catapults have the biggest problem with rangefinding in that they either overshoot or undershoot. Bridges are ideal as there is a wide set of ranges at which you can fire and hit densely packed units. 300 kills with a single catapult during a bridge battle:yes:

They don't have musketeers, either. Last I checked the Three Musketeers were French!

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Originally Posted by Daykeras

They don't have musketeers, either. Last I checked the Three Musketeers were French!

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Happens outside the time period of the game, I'm afraid.

Keep in mind that the "musket" was used until it was superceded by the rifle in the 19th century. Of course, those in the game are generally matchlock, but I think the Riters are using wheellock pistols.

It is probably done for balance, but this is actually a whole class of weapons. Every other french cannon type needs a line of sight; basicly the cannons are two classes and this is true even for the today artillery. Those which need line of sight (like todays anti-tank guns) and those which don't need line of sight.


BTW - a miscalcualtion, which is true for all type of troops, not only for the artillery - it often happens to me the captain to be in an artillery unit. Meaning this artillery cannot use explosive shells simply because there is no icon for the special ability. Of course this happens with every other non-general unit.

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Originally Posted by Daykeras

They don't have musketeers, either. Last I checked the Three Musketeers were French!

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About 100 years later, and they were Dragoons.

@Handel, i always find that things go the other way - my general can't use the rally ability because he gets put in a cavalry unit with either the shooting circle or the wedge ability :(

Surely it's only generals who can rally troops - not jumped up captains (hence your problems, Sapi)?

Just checked again. With trebuchets. This time the special ability appears instead of rally button. Maybe those cannons didin't have any special ability and that's why the rally button appeared.

Cannons don't have a special ability, but I believe I've seen somewhere that they give morale to troops (like a standard).

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They don't have musketeers, either. Last I checked the Three Musketeers were French!

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You could even point that musket is a french word (mousquet) but french armies themselves didnt use it before the 2nd quarter of the 16th c.

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Originally Posted by katank

Well, catapults work almost as well and are lower tech. I find that catapults have the biggest problem with rangefinding in that they either overshoot or undershoot. Bridges are ideal as there is a wide set of ranges at which you can fire and hit densely packed units. 300 kills with a single catapult during a bridge battle:yes:

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As you pointed out the range finding problem, I think they don't even work almost that well as mortars, especially when using fire giving more risk to your own infantry. They can both be clumsy, I think.

The mortars also overshoot or undershoot, but I've noticed that's more the case when set to 'Fire at will,' they just waste my own spears who were already losing. Happened at my bridge battle, so I put that off and manually targeted the pinpoint, which worked a lot better.


Artillery should be more accurate anyway against fixed targets. After 2 shots or so, they should always hit or get VERY close to it. This should be the case especially for gunpowder artillery.
Those cannons often miss. I expect an artillery crew to be trained to be effective killers who kill as much as possible.

What I think would make all artillery types much more usefull is a "shoot here" option. You could fire at the ground in the middle of an army to use the overshoot. Or place those rounds where the enemy will be as they marched.

Sounds like a great idea! You could post it in the Post-Patch Wish List thread.

@ Bijo, catapults aren't that big a risk to your own troops with flaming shot. Always shoot at the middle of the bridge, they very rarely hit your plug on the near side. It's hilarious to see a constant stream of white flags from the enemies. They rout back, rally forth, getting shot up the whole time.

Just to ease everyone in this thread's concerns, I was indeed kidding.

Do that with rotting cows from a trebuchet for even more fun. Every unit crossing the bridge will take the morale hit and many will rout almost instantly when they get to the troop line defending the edge.

I gotta try that. Hopefully my own dudes won't turn green also.

This could be extra fun with amphibious trebs stealthily approaching the other side to fire extra far!

That's the tricky part. Since you don't have the "Area fire" option, you pretty much have to target a unit on the far side of the bridge and hopefully when they hit it'll be in the middle somewhere. I've managed to do it a few times though, so it's not too bad. Just keep the trebuchet fairly close to the battle so it has plenty of range to acquire the target on the other side. If the cow lands too close to the fight your people will suffer too, and that would be decidedly unpleasant for the battle outcome.

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Originally Posted by HughTower

Surely it's only generals who can rally troops - not jumped up captains (hence your problems, Sapi)?

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no, certain captains can use it
it all depends on which unit is made the leader due to special abilities

Is it possibe to defend the castles with mortars form inside the walls against artillery? What is the range of the mortars? Due to the canon towers bug the castle towers never have canons, so they are absolutely defenceless against the enemy cannons.

Yes, you can defend with mortars in a settlement. They were designed for it, too, I think. They just shoot over the walls. But since you can't deploy them outside the walls if you defend you'll have to deploy them inside.

To defend with them against artillery is tricky, especially cannons, because they have long range, or even very long range. From the top of my head I'd think you should then move your mortars outside the walls, but then they'd be vulnerable, because the cannons would have the first shot at you.


@katank
Okay then. For a bridge it works, but for a straight field battle...