Idiotic Fools = Muskets @ Otumba

[Sun of Chersonesos]

HI,

has anyone noticed that at Otumba the musketeers barely manage to kill anything? My crossbowmen killed 180 while those clowns with socks barely managed to kill 80 between them and kept getting entangled in my infantry line while i was engaged with the aztecs. no good. probably more expensive than the crossbowmen as well, what's wrong with them?

Sun

[ChewieTobbacca]

Musketeers, and gun units in general, are very ineffective at medium to longer ranges. When a unit of peasants charges you, keep fire at will off until they are very close. Then, when the line fires at them, you will not only see a large # of units die at once, but the morale hit from gun weapons will likely make low morale units such as peasants rout immediately.

Musketeers against armored troops, such as knights, are very effective as well.

[Dan.o6]

^^ agree 100%

[Aracnid]

On Otumba, placing all my missile units on the hill my muskets always do better than my crossbowmen, I put all my missiles on fire at will so I can concentrate on my melee units and I normally get 150 each for the muskets and 120 for the crossbowmen.

[Roy1991]

Put your musketeers in skirmish mode, that way they won't keep switching ranks, turning, etc.
Only the front rank fires, but it's still faster then all the reforming between volleys.

[Zatoichi]

Also, putting them in 'fire at will' mode will help in this battle, but beware the friendly fire.

[Aracnid]

yeah but I on Otumba, I form up my infantry on either side of the hill and use my can to chase routers off the field so I am not that vulnerable to freindly fire.

[cannon_fodder]

I had the same experience with the musketeers.

It seems to me that CA set the firearm rate of fire a little too low, in terms of both gameplay and realism.

[Sun of Chersonesos]

I form up on the side of the hill.

I won Otumba but thing is I had my crossbows and muskets on fire at will. Wether i had them on skirmish or not i dont know but what i do know is they had exactly the same status order(s).

[Furious Mental]

Well once you have the game you'll probably be able to change their attack value to whatever you like.

[O'ETAIPOS]

the reality was that first firearms were extremely inacurate. It is said it was difficult to hit a barn from some 100m with it.
The main values of it were:
-blast of fire
-sound of shooting
-cloud of smoke
-pieces of gunpowder contaminating the wound

As you see it was more anti-morale instead anti-personel weapon. Obviously they were also able to penetrate armour well.

[Aracnid]

The thing about early gunpower compared with arrows was there was no gradient of effect, it was one hit, one kill, against peasants or knights, with archers they were a lot more effective against unarmoured units than against armoured one (I know about the bodkin arrow). So gunpower units should be better than archers (bar mayby top rank English longbowmen) against armoured units, but should be worse than archers against unarmoured units. This may well have been implemented already, because at Pavia I tended to get about the same killed per volley (c.10) against knights as against pikemen (a lot less heavily armoured).
So even though my muskets did slightly better than my crossbowmen at Otumba it might have been due to a better position, because armour penertration is kinda irrelevent when fighting naked guys.

[Phalaxar]

Also, putting them in 'fire at will' mode will help in this battle, but beware the friendly fire.

Do they not cease fire/switch target when you engage that enemy with melee weapons then?

[Marius Dynamite]

I think musketeers are most effective when their opponent is coming straight at them. When they are at an angle, the musketeer must reline to face, which can be time consuming. The positioning in Otumba is bad. On that little hill, I always feel my Musketeers are at a bad angle.

Musketeers will prove more effective when fighting an enemy directly infront of them on flatland. Also, to make the enemy go straight against Musketeers, you will need musketeers in abundance and not just two units. Your Musketeers will have to form the frontline and the frontline will have to be very long.

When watching Pavia, The Arquebusiers and Musketeers completely destroy the French Cavalry charge at the start. Then the pikemen finish the cavalry with relative ease. This is how Gun units should be used when they make up the lesser part of an army I think.

Much will depend on how many volleys Musketeers can get against a charging enemy and the effectiveness of musketeers when defending against Cavalry charges, both light and heavy.

[Burakius]

hey I just played otumba and the crossbowmen slayed 169 men where the musketeers only killed 80 each. they suck. lol

[shifty157]

For those of you who's musketeers barely did anything in the battle of otumba all I can say is that you must be using them incorrectly.

For me they were incredibly effective. I placed them both on the hill and they managed to rout several of the aztecs in the initial wave before the lines even met. They must have killed about five to ten men per volley which more than acceptible at such a range.

Then once the lines had met, the height advantage of the cliff allowed them to shoot down into the massed enemies with minimal risk of friendly fire. I dont know how many aztecs they killed per volley here because there were too many aztecs to tell but it must have been a good number because you could see a the mist of blood rise up from the crowd.

I won the battle on my first try by the way.

[Gith]

My muskets were very effective, with one slight problem: they seemed to fire at a really inconsistent rate... I had them firing at will with skirmish off, but several times I would see them not fire for a period of time that was unacceptable (a minute or two) and during these times the unit was "reforming". Any advice? Am I just not doing something right?