Quote Originally Posted by Servius1234 View Post
I never bring any artillery because I've never found it to be more effective than line infantry at anything. Low accuracy, slow rate of fire and failure to kill even when it does hit makes it essentially useless.
Canister is truly devastating in both casualties and demoralization, and round shot is useful to goad the AI into giving up a defensive posture and attack...incidentally often bringing the enemy in range for canister.

In one battle i expected to pound the enemy with cannon and then finish them off with infantry, but the AI adopted a nifty reverse-slope defense, immune to my cannon and meaning that I would have to close to point blank range to even see them, not what I had in mind. I sent a battery of horse guns to their flank and they abandoned the reverse slope and went after the horse guns and then my main line (and very nearly overwhelmed my line, but that's another matter).

Since the AI's goal is often to get to the guns it's effective to set up a shallow "V" with the guns at the bottom and line infantry slanted in on both sides. When the enemy advances they enter a killing ground of overlapping musketry and canister.

Goading the enemy into attacking is a way to turn your attacking battle into a defensive one. Similarly, if you attack a city and lay siege they seemingly never surrender, they sally to try to break the siege, turning you into the defender in the battle. (The other way to become the defender is to get caught with an inferior force, or hopefully a force that the AI *thinks* is inferior.)