I absolutely adore artillary and they make the corner stone of each of my armies.


The trick I've been using is simply to expect them to drive the pace of the battle, not win it.



In the set up find a high spot with a great field of vision, set the cannons up, base the formations of your armies around the movement and location of the cannons. always keep them central flanked by two long lines of infantry with cavalry behind them.

The cannons will simply fire away at practically everything on the battle field forcing the enemy to either futilly advance onto your infantry line of death, or delay and attempt various flanking manoeuvres; these take time for them to organise and are generally weak enough to be dealt with by a bit of reorganisation by the line flank closest to it. The cavalry are also key to defeating these. While the enemy prats about trying to set these up the canons are still plugging away at them causing chaos.

Once the battle reaches a balance and no-ones either in range or not worth shooting at anymore, pack up the cannons and move them to a more central position, same exact formation for all other units. Now rotate the lines of infantry so they close like a jaw around the enemy leaving a nice line for the cannons to shoot down with only the bad guys in the way of it. I've never seen any army of any strength break free of this move

I love it. As you rank them up and get better tech you'll find that they become alot more effective, on a few battles now my cannons have managed to kill the enemy general before they even mount their first attack. cannister is invaluable to a high point of defense but be aware that it won't work if the enemy is too close, for some reason it tends to fire over their heads.


Learn to love cannons, I mean everyones play style is different but they were a major part of battles at this time in history. I can really see why!