The Daily Update at the Com

**Fisherking** · 06-20-2009, 16:22

Artillery seems to have undergone some drastic changes since the game came out, and not all to the better.

In the demo artillery had little trouble hitting formations and the AI could usually manage to know out your two horse artillery cannon before you got the 24 ponders. It did have its bugs and always targeted the corner of the formation instead of center mass as it should have.

With 1.2 the fire is down right erratic to me. It reminds me of M2TW where you could miss a castle wall.

It is near useless now and if you make it worse the only reason to keep it around it to take out building to avoid having to take them with infantry. That is provided the clock doesn’t run out before you can hit the buildings.

Even with the special ammunitions you have far, far too many misses at a stationary target. The tendency of cannon to miss was in adjusting the range. Once that was accounted for then the fire got dangerous. Lateral movement is also a problem but direct movement toward a gun should not be. The target has no apparent speed and only shortens the range.

I don’t know what formula is used in the flight but it seems to have far and away too much lateral movement to the strike of the round. Are they firing balls a half inch or more smaller than the gun bore or what?

With indirect fire weapons it is worse still. A round may have devastating effects if perfectly placed but that would be like one in one hundred shots and long before that happens someone has usually closed on the battery and disrupted it in one fashion or another.

**Husar** · 06-20-2009, 17:04

That's what I'm talking about, had a multiplayer game in the early period and made my 3 or 4 units of howitzers fire at a unit of those russian close combat halberd guys. After what I guess must have been 2 or 3 salvos they had lost IIRC 2 men...

Against cavalry the results seem strangely devastating at times though.

**A Very Super Market** · 06-20-2009, 17:31

I think that has to do with cavalry being bigger targets.

**antisocialmunky** · 06-20-2009, 19:00

My arty gripes are for cannons to not send canister in some sort of strange arc and just do the direct fire shotgun type thing. I don't think they ever fixed that either.

@ Hussar - Explosives or No Explosives?

**AussieGiant** · 06-21-2009, 09:19

With a bit of explanation from Lusted it seems CA are getting the arty well balanced.

This patch should be very good.

**Servius** · 06-21-2009, 14:20

I don't play any MP, so maybe I'm missing something, but I've found every artillery piece in SP to be practically useless. They're far too inaccurate, and kill far too few soldiers to be worth the slot. I'd much rather have another unit of Line Infantry than any of the artillery pieces currently in the game.

And a note to the devs, please don't read my comment above and nerf Line Infantry units so that artillery units look better in comparison. I like the Line Infantry units. They're big and resilient. They're the anvil to my cavalry's hammer. I think they work great, so please don't nerf them. Instead, I guess we either need to find a way to improve artillery or I will just continue to not bother with them.

The only things cannons seem to be okay at is blowing up forts. But with every infantry unit getting grapling hooks, and no way to repair damaged city walls, there's really no reason to bring artillery to an SP battle. Their opportunity cost is too high given their ability.

On the patch, can't wait!

**Fisherking** · 06-21-2009, 16:19

Originally Posted by Servius1234

I don't play any MP, so maybe I'm missing something, but I've found every artillery piece in SP to be practically useless. They're far too inaccurate, and kill far too few soldiers to be worth the slot. I'd much rather have another unit of Line Infantry than any of the artillery pieces currently in the game.

And a note to the devs, please don't read my comment above and nerf Line Infantry units so that artillery units look better in comparison. I like the Line Infantry units. They're big and resilient. They're the anvil to my cavalry's hammer. I think they work great, so please don't nerf them. Instead, I guess we either need to find a way to improve artillery or I will just continue to not bother with them.

The only things cannons seem to be okay at is blowing up forts. But with every infantry unit getting grapling hooks, and no way to repair damaged city walls, there's really no reason to bring artillery to an SP battle. Their opportunity cost is too high given their ability.

On the patch, can't wait!

Unfortunately I must agree with you. Most of the time artillery does not pull its own weight. Its impact on the battlefield is negligible. Even the exploding round and incendiaries are not likely to do much damage except to the random cavalry unit.

Shrapnel is consistently fired high or otherwise much to long or short.

In single player I see no cause to shorten range or make ammunition less accurate. Less accurate can only mean that it starts to kill your own troops.

From what I see of it, the only explanations is that all the “gun bunnies” are recruited from the blind.

Mortars were at one point fairly accurate in 1.0, but now they have trouble hitting large buildings and special rounds do not seem to damage buildings.

What I think the real shame is, is that many players insist on having units altered rather than think about the tactical problem and use a different approach.

Most any fool can tell you not to mass troops in the presence of concentrated artillery. You disperse and present a poorer target. Close rapidly with the enemy. Or otherwise find a means to silence the guns.

A long thin line takes less casualties to artillery (even exploding shells) than a deep formation. It still handles everything but cavalry.

It is not CA’s place to make the tactics we choose work. Rather it is the place of the player to develop tactics that defeat or neutralize the threat.

**Zenicetus** · 06-21-2009, 20:50

Originally Posted by Servius1234

I don't play any MP, so maybe I'm missing something, but I've found every artillery piece in SP to be practically useless. They're far too inaccurate, and kill far too few soldiers to be worth the slot.

It's not just the raw kill count, though. Artillery has (or should have) an effect on morale and combat effectiveness. It's masked by the way the TW game engine only shows kills or healthy survivors... no intermediate "walking wounded" with reduced combat effectiveness. But it can be represented with a morale hit on the unit, when marching X minutes under artillery fire. If Morale is tuned just right, then artillery fire should still be very effective, even if you're not seeing direct kills.

It's a traditional use for artillery... not just killing, but softening up the enemy advance, instead of some of the silly ways the AI uses it, like aiming for the player's own arty, or aiming for your general.

**A Very Super Market** · 06-21-2009, 21:13

Counter-battery fire has it's proponents, but it's nearly useless in ETW. They simply aren't accurate enough to get anywhere close to your guns, unless you've placed them in a decidedly stupid position.

**Zenicetus** · 06-22-2009, 06:57

BTW, I did a little research on prior threads (because I just picked up the game recently), and Dayve made the same point about morale effect from artillery in this post in another thread:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...9&postcount=20

Originally Posted by Fisherking

What I think the real shame is, is that many players insist on having units altered rather than think about the tactical problem and use a different approach.

Most any fool can tell you not to mass troops in the presence of concentrated artillery. You disperse and present a poorer target. Close rapidly with the enemy. Or otherwise find a means to silence the guns.

A long thin line takes less casualties to artillery (even exploding shells) than a deep formation. It still handles everything but cavalry.

It is not CA’s place to make the tactics we choose work. Rather it is the place of the player to develop tactics that defeat or neutralize the threat.

That's a good way to minimize actual casualties from artillery, but I'm not sure it would reduce the morale hit (that popup note you see about "Concerned, under artillery fire" when you mouse over an enemy unit). IIRC, part of the morale calculation is how far the unit is depleted from full strength, but there are other fixed variables like loss of general. If there's a fixed modifier to morale from being targeted by artillery, then looser formations won't have any effect (other than reducing actual casualties). The morale hit will still be there, and that's the best reason to use artillery on advancing infantry.

It will be interesting to see how tomorrow's 10% movement speed reduction affects all this.

**Sheogorath** · 06-22-2009, 08:11

Originally Posted by A Very Super Market

Counter-battery fire has it's proponents, but it's nearly useless in ETW. They simply aren't accurate enough to get anywhere close to your guns, unless you've placed them in a decidedly stupid position.

Counter-battery fire would require your artillery to be able to hit an object larger than a small mountain. Even by patch #2 this was impossible.

I can only hope that patch #4 will fix my own personal problem of the game freezing at the title screen. Derp a derp a do.

**Fisherking** · 06-22-2009, 09:33

Originally Posted by Sheogorath

Counter-battery fire would require your artillery to be able to hit an object larger than a small mountain. Even by patch #2 this was impossible.

I can only hope that patch #4 will fix my own personal problem of the game freezing at the title screen. Derp a derp a do.

That sounds like you have a mod or altered files or even some corrupted save games.

It might work to go in and delete save games and do a reinstall.

**Hosakawa Tito** · 06-22-2009, 15:07

What time today can we anticipate the new patch?

Considering the recoil of cannon and the 18th century way of dealing with it, allowing the gun to roll back on a wheeled caisson, the inaccuracy is depicted well enough. Artillery is used primarily to deny the opposing force certain areas of the battlefield. Perhaps the morale penalty should be raised a bit to reflect that.

**johnhughthom** · 06-22-2009, 15:26

Originally Posted by Hosakawa Tito

What time today can we anticipate the new patch?

Most patches have been released around 18:00 British time.

**Hosakawa Tito** · 06-22-2009, 15:32

Originally Posted by johnhughthom

Most patches have been released around 18:00 British time.

Thank you kindly.

**Monsieur Alphonse** · 06-22-2009, 16:00

Steam is updating ETW! Whoot

**Lemur** · 06-22-2009, 16:12

I've left Steam on just in case, and I'm not seeing any updates yet. Past 4 p.m. in Britannia, so who knows? Maybe we Colonials get it later.

-edit-

NVM, it's updating now.

**johnhughthom** · 06-22-2009, 16:13

And we are go for the new patch.

**Monsieur Alphonse** · 06-22-2009, 16:17

Todays update from Mark

June 22nd:

Hi guys,

In addition to the 14 free units available in Update 1.3, we have today announced the Elite Units of the West DLC which is now available on Steam.

We can also now bring you the full fix list for Update 1.3 below.

Thanks,

Mark O'Connell
(aka SenseiTW)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Also:
Economic tweaks
re-balancing of units

**Forward Observer** · 06-22-2009, 16:27

I realize that it may be a whole new ball game after the patch, but I sometimes think that everybody who claims that the artillery is not effective is playing a different game than the one I have. For me, in mid to late game when large howitzers, mortars, and explosive ammo become available, I find that my artillery biased armies dominate every opponent army they come up against. I'm only playing on the normal difficulty level, so I realize that is a factor, but I still rarely lose even as much as 10% of my forces in any battle regardless of the odds--- and I owe it all to the fact that I field a lot of howitzers and mortars.

I think I may have discovered one of the factors that may be misleading people about their artillery results--- and that is the kill counts shown in the after battle stats. We all know, or at least I think most of us suspect, that the after battle stats sometimes have little resemblance to what we perceive to have happened in the battle.

I have been running some tests in the play battle component of the game--just to see how many artillery units I could put in an army and still have enough mêlée units to both protect them and defeat any forces the artillery did not eliminate.

I usually pick the late period, clear weather, an open battle field such as Caucasus, and the medium difficulty. I then use either a British or French army with the other nationality as the opponent. I also occasionally make both armies of the same nationality to level the playing field. When one does this their army will have a green band around their flag while the enemy's flag will be banded in red.

Anyhow, by fielding an army that was well over 50% artillery, I have consistently defeated the opposition with less than 10% friendly losses. My best score was only 3 men lost and that was from friendly fire. On the next difficulty level my losses usually climb to about 20%, but a win is still in the bag. In all my tests the enemy army reacts in one of two ways, which seem to be totally chance. Sometimes after getting lined up for a brief period they steadily advance and then other times they simply line up and stall in place. I have no idea why this happens, but obviously when they stall they get decimated long before they ever hit my lines.

However, in several tests, I noticed something else interesting. The battle results charts were simply not giving my artillery credit for anywhere near the kills they were getting. Fortunately, I saved one of these battles for replay, and went back to observe what happened. In this test, I played the French with the Brits as the opposition. My army consisted of:

1------General's unit
5----- 24 pdr howitzer units----set to percussion shells
3----- 4 inch mortars----set to percussion shells--I had funds to give one unit a single chevron
2------18 pdr horse guard--set to shrapnel
6----- standard line infantry units
0------cavalry
Total 924 men

I used the default composition for the British

1-------General unit
2-------life guards cavalry
2-------regiment of horse
2-------6 pdr light horse
2-------12 pdr foot
1-------grenadier---one experience chevron
5-------light infantry
5-------standard line infantry

Total 1236 men

I simply lined up my infantry, lined up my indirect fire guns behind them, and put each of the direct fire cannons between two infantry units on each end of the front line. I probably didn't even need a General's unit, but I include them since it alway seems that enemy armies tend to head for this unit.

Well, for some reason in this test the British simply stalled outside my howitzer range, and just stood there as my 12 mortars took their toll. The enemy artillery was eliminated first and never got set up in range to fire a single round. I saw a total of only 6 men route off the field. From that point on, I directed the fire as best I could trying to inflict damage on every unit. When a unit would hit somewhere between 70 and 80% in losses they would route off the field.

Finally when there was nothing left but about 50 men each of two line units, maybe 40 men each of four light infantry, 40 grenadiers, and 12 men in the general's guard, the enemy advanced towards me. When they got in howitzer range it was all over with. They all took an additional hits, and routed off the field.

As best as I could account for in total, only about 270 enemy troops routed off the field. Since my infantry never fired a shot, the artillery had to account for all kills, which would be 966 total. I also played the battle out until the end, but the final stats only gave my mortars and howitzers credit for 367 kills but said the enemy army lost 1100 men. The kill count for my arty is a little over a third of what I actually witnessed them destroying. I lost 4 men when I sent my General's unit after some routers, and forgot to stop my mortars from firing.

The bottom line is that your artillery may be doing a lot better than you think, because either the battle stats screen is bugged or it simply performs some sort of auto-calculation after the battle that only tries to approximate what actually happened--or maybe even somehow tries to seperate KIA's from MIA's.

**AussieGiant** · 06-22-2009, 16:40

I don't mean to be rude, but that #$3$^ing list is ridiculous.

Perhaps SEGA executives need to do a bit more home work before forcing a product like this out the door, because I'm totally positive CA did not recommend it.

Apart from that...pretty impressive list.

I'm interested to see the performance increases they have committed to.

-EDIT-

Given the information above from our resident Artillery expert I'd say CA are heading in the right direction then. That type of warfare is wholey inaccurate.

**crpcarrot** · 06-22-2009, 17:03

i agree with forward observer with a little exp arty is really powerful and can decimate armies befre they ever reach me. if arty is buffed up any more that they are alreeady this game becomes way too easy.

**Servius** · 06-22-2009, 17:15

I only bother with artillery after howiters and at least one of it's special ammo types becomes available, as I've found that the rocket-looking shells tend (or at least tended) to be far more accurate than round shot. When I deploy them, I've found that having 2 units is utterly useless and 4 units is pathetically useful. I never look at the after-action reports. I put my cursor over the enemy units during the battle and see how many casualties they take while being bombarded. I fight on Hard campaign and Normal battle.

You might see different results because of the shear number of arty units. If you're over 50% arty, I'm guessing that means 11+ arty units. With 33+ howitzers, maybe they become effective, especially if they do far more morale damage than physical damage.

One thing that concerns me with that strategy is that it seems like you'd get a lot more routing enemy units, which means more enemy units will still be alive at the end of the fight, which means the army will flee and start pillaginig your towns on the camp map. I hate chasing down remnant armies on the camp map, so I always go heavy on the infantry and encircle the AI forces so nothing escapes.

My standard 20-unit stack breaks down like this...

2 Generals
12 Infantry (10 Line + 2 Gren or just 12 Line)
4-6 Cav (usually Dragoons)
0-2 Howitzers

The patch just downloaded, so I'm going to go start up a new campaign!

**Prodigal** · 06-22-2009, 18:02

Well...started a new game with the patch installed, the pirates are destroying all my trade fleets, which I guess is good, and I'm being attacked by pretty much everyone

(feel a new thread "this game's too hard" coming on).

**FactionHeir** · 06-22-2009, 18:05

Arty dont get credit for carcass/quicklime unless its direct impact. The clouds don't count as kills for arty and consequently units don't display concerned under artillery fire messages either.

**anweRU** · 06-22-2009, 18:19

Originally Posted by Prodigal

Well...started a new game with the patch installed, the pirates are destroying all my trade fleets, which I guess is good, and I'm being attacked by pretty much everyone

(feel a new thread "this game's too hard" coming on).

Are they attacking the ships in the trade spots, or ships en route?

**Forward Observer** · 06-22-2009, 19:33

Well, I went back and tried that last scenario again after the patch was applied. The first thing I noticed was that after setting my army I had about 550 extra in currency left, so they must have reduced the prices of units slightly over all. Hopefully that will lessen some of the economic challenges brought on by the last patch a bit. Personally I think they over did the cost increases the last time.

Anyway, the battle played out quite differently.

First of all, the mortars did not easily take out the enemy artillery like before even though several rounds appeared to have hit with in a few feet. This must have to do with the increase in hit points for the artillery train mentioned in the patch data.

Next. the enemy did not stall but spent a short while getting in battle formation and then steadily marched across the battlefield to my lines. Still, I could tell they appeared to be moving a bit slower, which actually looked more realistic.

Also, the light infantry of the enemy deployed differently. Before they always went into the spread out mode where they would constantly appear and disappear. This time they simply stayed in close formation and then oddly planted stakes at strange angles on the battlefield when they got in within shooting range of my lines.

Of course a lot more troops reached my lines for volley exchanges. Also a few of the cavalry charged one of my exposed direct fire artillery units, but the first got decimated by canister and small arms fire. The second unit that charged managed to run off the horses and limbers before it lost it steam, but most of my gunners survived to be able to re-man the guns.

I also had to go into mêlée with the remnants of the infantry and concentrate my mortar fire on the two opposing artillery units that managed to set up in range of my lines. All in all it was a tougher battle, but I still won---only this time I lost 267 men to the enemy's 1100. Also this time my infantry got most of the credit in the stats report although I think once again some of the artillery did not get credit for its contribution.

When one thinks about it this battle may have played out more realistically, but I am sure going to miss my previous uber-artillery scores.

Cheers

**Cheetah** · 06-22-2009, 19:41

Originally Posted by Forward Observer

Well, I went back and tried that last scenario again after the patch was applied. [...]

Anyway, the battle played out quite differently.

[...]

When one thinks about it this battle may have played out more realistically, but I am sure going to miss my previous uber-artillery scores.

Cheers

This all sounds very good. What you described in your previous post is the usual mortar-spam hill camping in MP. It worked well, and it was very popular/hated (see here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=114387).

**Sheogorath** · 06-22-2009, 19:46

Originally Posted by Fisherking

That sounds like you have a mod or altered files or even some corrupted save games.

It might work to go in and delete save games and do a reinstall.

I'm fairly sure it's not. I've totally uninstalled/reinstalled the game.

And it's not freezing on a menu, it's freezing on the title screen, where the copyrights and stuff are, you know, right before the opening cinematic?

**Sheogorath** · 06-22-2009, 21:07

Yup...new patch, same problem. Freeze on title screen with no possibility of alt-tab/control-alt-delete/anything.

Thread: The Daily Update at the Com

Thread Tools

Display

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Re: The Daily Update at the Com

Tags for this Thread

Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions