Artillery

[Meldarion]

If anyone has tips or success stories were artillery played a crucial role post them here please. Personally I have found artillery to be generally ineffective and not through lack of trying. I have tried using high ground and positioning them at various points across the line, even wheeling some 6 lber's onto the flank during battle, they simply just don't kill enough people to warrant a slot in my armies.

Mortars - I tried using them in various siege battles and in the field, on both occasions they killed less than ten men. I have experiemnted with the various forms of projectile and that changed nothing.

Puckle Gun - Not bad, in a shoot out they can rack up a body count, but no more so than a unit of line or light infantry.

Howitzers - Generally the same as mortars, anything that isn't the size of a fortress wall can't be hit.

6, 12 and 24 lber's - I have probably had the most success with these. Good for making a breach. In field battles with cannister and shrapnel, however, they still don't kill all that many people and aren't very consistent with what they do kill, usually anywhere from 5 - 50 people. Not bad I suppose, hopefully with your help I can make them a little more worthwhile.

Rockets - I almost forgot about these guys, I wasn't expecting to actually hit anything with them anyways. They don't have a drastic effect on morale either, not enough to change the tide of battle.

[ZIM!!]

The only times its really helped me is when I used grape shot and canister, I guess you cant use grape and canister in howitzers I wish I had known that before I converted all the artillery in my entire army.

Cannon of that time used a non exploding plain old iron ball of course and was most effective at punching holes in large columns of men and depending on the period they were not the most accurate things either. so if you shooting grapefruit sized iron balls at a 3 deep column of men the most you can hope to kill is three per shot providing your shot doesnt fly or bounce over the target an inexperienced gun crew probaly does that a lot with distant targets.
if thier under cover or behind a wall it will make it less likely to hit

Later in the tech tree you get grape shot and canister i find this effective at close range. what bothers me is that exploding shot which I just got last night it expplodes over the target raining down shrapnel on the heads of the enemy. using it against the Marathas hiding behind a wall didnt seem to do much good... oh well fire bombs are next I will try those.

[Melvish]

I had great success with artillery especially with the latter impact shell. Good result result were also archive with quick lime where the AI crammed his unit togetter. Round shot are also usefull to blow an house you don't want to waist soldier to storm.

Canister shot have short range so it can expose you cannon to charge and fire, but if you place them up a cliff the enemy can't mount frontal assault agains them, and you get greater range from elevation.
Well placed canister shot can be major killer.

A great way to use them (especially with the impact shell) is to suppress enemy artillery.

Think of them more as a support unit than a main killing tool (although impact shell can rule the battle field).

I must confess that i find explosive shell a bit useless because they tend to explode before reaching the target, but when they do (oh luck shot!) they are leathal.

Fire shot make pretty fire works but are also bit useless due to increased inaccuracy and are not that lethal when the do hit.

Quick lime is quite usefull as it got a large spread and it demoralize the enemy and even have a average killing power (wish i had a screen shot to show you the carnage i've achieve in a fight again some poor dutch colonials).

I haven't use shaprnell yet, I use to have an obsession with howitzers, but i recently re-discovered the power of horse artillery, flying batteries ummmmmm.

The impact shell : the reason i was so obsessed with howitzers and mortar. Major killer.

I like mortar for their long range, use of impact shell and fire above your troops; howitzers for the ability to redeploy, use impact shell, quicklime and fire above your troops; horse artillery for their ability to move quickly to do some close unit support and bail out quickly if thing get too hot.

I like to have 1 mortar, 2 howitzers, and 2 horse artilleries in a full stack army.
Keep in mind thet artillery is not some kind of auto weapon and you must sometime turn off auto-fire and change the shot type depending of the situation to get the most out of them.

my

[Fisherking]

I have to say results for me have been mixed, but it is better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

Canister is deadly in the hands of the AI, just not quite so good for me. However, it does destroy morale pretty quickly.

With direct fire pieces I have found it sometimes better to fire near or behind a formation than at it. My guns seem to take out one end without targeting the other. So one end of a formation gets wasted while the other half isn’t touched.

The indirect fire pieces with exploding munitions are better at counter battery and take out more troops, but all artillery needs close management to be effective and you find that it takes time away from other units that also need to be looked after.

If you have the option to stop and use it in an advance, or in a static defense is when it is at its best.

[Bob the Insane]

Puckle Gun - Not bad, in a shoot out they can rack up a body count, but no more so than a unit of line or light infantry.

On a side note, I manange to mess up my Puckle gun unit during deployment by first enabling the fixed emplacment (which looked a little odd) and then disabling it which left the guns them selves and some men stuck in place while I moved the horses and wagons around separately...

Anyone else seen that?

[knoddy]

as i posted in the other thread about this, mortars are crazy good, won 3 battles in a row in spain simply with motars, no motar i woulda lost all 3 battles. they smash infantry and cavalry are good general killers and can easily take out units of men with direct hits. make sure u put them far back, they have a massive range and if u get into a firefight u want them lobbing motars onto the enemy for the whole fight.

protect ur flanks with cannons on cannister shot. take off fire at will load canister and wait for them to try and flank u, stand ur cav behind ur cannon, fire when they come towards ur cannons. if cannister hits it takes out 15-30 guys a shot, then tell them to stop firing and charge ur cavalry through = routing enemy.

[Meldarion]

So, I tried some of the tactics in this thread. My first observations were Mortars an Howitzers being quite poor, but now I've changed my opinion. What threw me out was the end of game statistics seemed to be faulty in some way, artillery kills much more than the figures at the end actually report.

Oddly enough, in a battle where my generals bodyguard sat back and did nothing he somehow ended up with kills, whilst a unit of Mortars I was observing closely ended up with only 4 kills - which I'm certain it killed more. Is this some sort of experience thing to evenly distribute chevrons?

[andrewt]

At the end of the fight, all the units that routed are counted as kills and distributed among your units. It thought it was distributed evenly but some results lately make me question that. I'm pretty sure my grenadiers had way more kills than some line infantry in some of my recent battles. Maybe it's distributed based on size of unit after the battle or just done randomly.

[loony]

I am in love with 12-pounder foot artillery. My favorite strategy is "strategic offence/tactical defence".
When defending you form a line of InfantryCannonInfantryCannonInfantryCannon with the cannon a little (3 ranks) deeper than the infantry.
And when the AI comes, you fire canister and rack 200 kills per battle.
Also, even if on offensive, artillery is good at provoking the enemy to attack, and then, well, you do as above...
Artillery failed me on several occasions, once they refused to fire for whatever reason (bug?) and the second when even with fire at will disengaged and shooting orders cancelled, launched a full barrage of canister into the backs of my troops meleeing the enemy....

[dopp]

The firing animation is quite long so your cannon might still shoot one last round if they were in the process of doing so when you cancelled the order. They'll usually stop after that, though.

I like howitzers but they can't shoot at close range. On the other hand, they don't cause blue-on-blue incidents as easily as cannon, which must be watched rather carefully.

[pdoyle007]

so far only one major battle with cannon, Britain vs Mysore:

I didn't realise two of my cannon were fixed (bugger) however I had (accidentally) placed a moveable cannon betwwen them, all in a pasture behing a fence. The mysores stood off outside the range of the fixed cannons.

Rolled forward the lightweight moveable cannon and targetted their general (elephants). After two rounds the whole army advanced!

I held fire and once the infantry reached the fence and tried to climb they got three loads of grape (or whatever the early 'spread' round is) from very short range.

Cavalry mopped up the routers :)

This wasn't very elaborate (or deliberate) however the artillery was definately my winner

[Skott]

The rockets during this era were not very accurate supposedly but when they did hit they made a real mess of men that they hit. They seemed to scare line infantry men more than anything else so I'm not sure how CA factors in their use when it comes to morale assuming they did factor it in. Which leads to the question does it affect morale?

[knoddy]

ima researching rockets now and gunna see how they go, mortars are full of epic win tho :D :D


edit :: fought a battle this morning against spain, fortified a ridge with my infantry shooting down as they ran to flank and my cannons on the flanks with cannister shot. mortars at the back of the ridge, killed the general and routed 2 unit of cavalry b4 they were even in range of my men, then just smashed them while they were in a firefight with my infantry

[Ishmael]

hi folks, whats better in late game for mortars/howitzers against infantry? Exploding/percussion shells or quicklime? Does it depend on the range?

[katank]

Usually percussion. If tightly packed, the quicklime can be good.

[Furious Mental]

Round shot is pretty worthless - the formations are so open that it's impossible to hit enough troops to cause serious damage. This is pretty much what I expected because since the first screenshots that is how the formations looked (ridiculous).

[A Very Super Market]

Open?

They aren't open at all, my men are almost phalangite-like in their packed together-ness

[PBI]

I've found artillery to be pretty handy as Austria; since Austria's line units are larger than normal, I find my line tends to be somewhat longer than the enemy's. This means that a unit of cannons on the end of the line often find themselves perfectly positioned to fire grapeshot down the length of the attacking enemy line infantry. Very satisfactory results; a full volley of grapeshot in enfilade can easily take out 30 odd men, more than a single volley from Austrian line infantry would manage and quite often enough to rout a unit already under fire.

In any case, artillery is worth having along just because it gives a cheap way of disposing of enemies hiding in buildings.

[Furious Mental]

'
They aren't open at all, my men are almost phalangite-like in their packed together-ness'

Infantry formations in the 18th century stood shoulder to shoulder, pretty much like a shield wall. In the game, the formation is not nearly as dense. The developers admitted this, their explanation is that the engine can't handle putting the men any closer.

[BeeSting]

Shrapnel Shells... does loads of damage. Get two or three horse arty squads and concentrate all their guns on a unit or an area.

[IlDuce]

Shrapnel shot is awesome if used right. Lethality of canister but range of round shot. If possible in a defensive battle position your army so that they have a hill to the front on their flank. Then place some cannon up there. Wait until their line engages your line then loose with the shrapnel shot. As it hits them in the flank it can cause massive casualties.

[Ardri]

The key to artillery is to have it shoot down the length of the AI line as opposed to shooting directly at it just as IlDuce mentioned above. Artillery of the era was particulary difficult to find the range for so it was ineffective when firing at a parallel battle line. A great example of this in historical context was at the battle of Gettysburg on the third day before Picket's charge. Lee's bombardment of the Federal lines was basically ineffective due to a lack of depth of target to shoot at, even though it used some 270 some odd cannon (I am not certain on this number, but am relying on my memory here). Basically take IlDuce advice and put the cannons on the flanks of your line and not in the center/direcly behind.

[hoom]

I've not gotten too far in the game so far but yeah, enfilade cannister fire from close up is pretty awesome, while solid shot at range mostly doesn't inflict much hurt.

[Dayve]

I'm starting to believe artillery is totally worthless too, with the exception of grape shot.

[Major Robert Dump]

the army
In battles against well garrisoned forts i will take 1.5 stacks at least....make half or more of my attacking force artillery, bombard the hell out of the fort until there are multiple entry points, withdraw my artillery and let reinforcements fill the spots then attack.

control your fire
Usually the bombardment kills a lot of troops if you don't focus on the same spot with every gun. If you focus with all your firepower, the enemy will move the troops of the wall when it starts to show damage....you don't want that, you want them to be on the wall when the wall cracks, so split up your fire a bit, get a wall to around 30-40% with a single slow gun, then focus every cannon on that wall and take it from 40-100 in a matter of seconds. Toggle fire at will and stop to make sure everyone is firing at the same time

trap them on walls
if you can actually see the layout of the fort you can trap units on walls without ladders attached by destroying both adjacent corners. Even if you can't see in its still a good idea to take out corners. If they can't get down it means they are stuck up there when they run out of ammo....not too reassuring since they still have cannons, but you can always go around or, better yet, destroy the wall they are on because they have no where to run. Beware, AI does this to players in campaigns....


edit: in straight up land battles i dont use much artillery unless i know they will be hiding in houses, at which point the same surprise! your dead method applies....they will move the unit out of the house so you have to hit it gently first, then focus every last gun on it and bring it down fast. There is really never, ever a reason to take just one artillery unit because its useless alone, and it has to be protected.

I also sometimes use cav artillery with canister to ride up close, set up and blast away, but only vs armies with few cav. Its an expensive and risky tactic, but when you are fighting superior infantry its a good way to make up for your lack of veteran line infantry.

[Ardri]

withdraw my artillery and let reinforcements fill the spots then attack.

I feel kinda dumb for not thinking about that tactic myself. Very nice plan and I will be implementing this strategy as I rage across Europe! Seeing 30 or so cannon fire is pretty cool I must say.

[Ishmael]

its interesting to note how in this forum peopel are complaining about how useless artillery are, whilst over in the multiplayer fourum/redoubt people are complaining that mortars are overpowered and uber, and have started banning them

[dopp]

In the campaign you have to research the advanced ammunition to make them dangerous, whereas in multiplayer you just need to select 'late era' and they come with all the upgrades.

[Dayve]

its interesting to note how in this forum peopel are complaining about how useless artillery are, whilst over in the multiplayer fourum/redoubt people are complaining that mortars are overpowered and uber, and have started banning them

That's because people who play multiplayer are, for the most part, utter retards, who use entirely unhistorical and unrealistic armies in an attempt to make victory for themselves as effortless as possible.

This is why i've left every single multiplayer TW game i've ever joined the moment i see even the slightest bit of unrealisticness in my opponents army, such as a Spartan hoplite box with Cretan archers in the middle in Rome, or armies with 10 units of dragoons and 10 units of 24lber artillery guns in this game.

I think CA should have made two different types of online play. Online play for retards who think they're playing a strategy version of Unreal Tournament, and online play for people who enjoy realism and an actual proper battle.

[NimitsTexan]

While I almost always use a semi-historical force mix . . . I have no problem with the ahistorical stuff . . . as it just makes it easier to win.

Even mortars do not bother me that much. The things are generally so innaccurate they do not kill that much. Plus, they are immobile, so the player is either forced to retain units to guard it (thus subtracting from his offensive or is MLR and negating the advantage of having the mortars) or they are left exposed and vulnerable to a quick calvary strike.

Against a mix dragoons and 24lbs . . . well, dragoons are the worse cavalry, and cannot stand up to line infantry in a fire fight. A balanced force infantry and heavy cavalry should simply be able to overwhelm the dragoons and then deal with the artillery at will.