Still not happy with artillery

[Didz]

Well, all guides recommend targeting the ground in front or behind the target unit. It's quite inefficient to ask the artillery to 'follow' a moving target. Targeting the ground (auto-fire off), they will shoot until you ask them to stop. True, they might still shoot out the last remaining loads they have in one or two of the cannons, but that does not bother me too much. At least in my battles, after the artillery reloads, they stay quiet if asked to do so.

I'm not actually talking about following a target, although they obviously will do that and will continue to fire at it even if the shot travels the full length of your battle line destroying half your own army in the process. I've even had a kamikaze artillery units destroy themselves by firing sideways into their own guns in an attempt to hit an enemy unit that was flanking it.

But the target fixation problem is something different. What I mean is that they keep firing on their very first (initial) choice of target regardless of everything else going on around them. That target might be 2 miles away, routing and well out of range, and they will still keep firing shot in its direct in the hope of hitting one of them even though another enemy unit is standing 50' away shooting their gunners.

Incidently, I learned the hard way never to tell the artillery where to fire or what to fire at. Once you do that they become fixated with that spot of ground, building, or whatever and just won't stop firing at it unless you tell them to limber up, press HALT 16,000 times, smack their officer round the face with a wet kipper, and piss in their beer. And even then I've unlimbered them again and seen them start bombarding next doors vegetable patch despite the fact that battle has shifted 2 miles down the road.

My bigger problem is the kamikaze AI cavalry who will try to sneak to your indirect fire artillery units no matter what the odds and who is standing next to them. Seems quite unrealistic to me: sacrificing the most valuable units outright for trying to silence a cannon. Outright charge by the whole army (and THEN trying to sneak the cavalry behind) seems like a more appropriate solution to me.

Yeah! I know what you mean its pretty lazy programming. There are some obvious pre-programmed priority targets in the AI routine where the programmers have just left things unconditional rather than include exceptions.

Another one is the obession that all artillery has with counter-battery fire. That has been carried over from MTW2, but at least in that you could get them to stop and target something else if you wanted to.

Seriously, though I've found the best solution to get the artillery to change targets is to make them do something that makes it impossible for them to keep targetting what they are currently firing at.

So, for example if they have fixated on bombarding an enemy artillery battery 2 miles away, then sometimes switching to cannister will stop them shooting at it and get them to focuss on the incoming infantry, as long as you don't switch back to roundshot.

Likewise if you have made the mistake of asking them to bombard a building then sometimes making them limber-up and unlimber again will get them to stop and focus on the enemy infantry nearby, although usually they will just go back to bombarding the building until its destroyed even though the infantry have left.

The worse thing that can happen is letting them keep firng at a target the leaves the battlefield, this seems to trigger a response which causes all the guns to turn 90 degree's and fire at the friendly unit next to them, so its best to try and stop them firing at routed units as soon as possible.

Another trick that sometimes works is to switch off 'Fire and Will' and pump the HALT button repeatedly until your sure they have stopped firing. Then if your lucky clicking 'fire at will' back on will get them to choose another target, as long as there are no enemy artillery in range.