Artillery? How to get them to obey?

[Mahrabals apprentice]

In custom battles my artillery consistantly ignore my orders.

If I tell them to use explosive ammo they usually will, but not always. No matter how many times I try canceling the orders and re-issuing them they insist on using regular ammo.

Even more annoying is trying to get them to target a specific taget. In custom battles if you autoselect an army for the AI it usually (always?) selects 3 units of missile infantry and 3 artillery units. I want my cannon to target the big chunk of heavy infantry deployed between.
I usually start the game with fire at will on.
They taget the archers.
I want to mess up the melee infantry which are so packed together in a big juicy target so I select a target and the artillery continues to target the archers.
So I turn off fire at will and again click on one of the infantry units
either they refuse to fire at anything at all or they continue to fire, at the artillery

"either we fire at the archers my lord or we go on strike"

Can somebody please explain what I should do to get them to fire at the target I would like to.

[Musashi]

Wish I knew... It seems like they can't see the target because the archers in front are blocking their view, so they just shoot the archers.

[Shadow_Wolf33]

your general just needs a larger stick to command with

[Mahrabals apprentice]

your general just needs a larger stick to command with

You have a button to try to ralley fleeing cowards by blowing your horn, why not a button to walk over to a unit, disembowel one or two and give the rest a stern talking to.


"YOU WILL DO AS YOU ARE TOLD YOU STINKING PEASANTS OR I WILL HURT YOU. I MADE SURE I PACKED MY EXTRA POINTY BRAND AND MY CUSTOM BUILT FRENCHMAN FLAYER FOR THIS CAMPEIGN"

[Wizzie]

I'm having the same problem in my Venice campaign. I had two ballistas with my army invading Sicily, and fought several large battles with them. I had the ballistas on a hill in most battles, with my army deployed in front of them but lower down the hill. I found one of my ballistas obeyed my commands perfectly, but the other would only fire at specific units in the enemy army (usually the ones on the flanks for some reason). If I tried to tell it to fire at any other unit, the men would align the ballistas towards the target and then stand there doing nothing. Something I noticed that while they were stood there doing nothing, the little icon on their unit card denoted they were at "Firing" status.

[Cesare diBorja]

.........the AI. It takes out with what it can take you out with first and best. Then, from there, it works its way down the ladder, so to speak. Infantry, without missiles, is low priority and usually left to your infantry(non-missile) and cavalry. Missile battles usually happened first in Medieval warfare anyway(Agincourt, Crecy, the Crusades). The AI does very nicely; when the enemy had nothing but missile units, a few heavy infantry units, and a few artillery units, I watched my army not only engage with missiles but then, all my cavalry charged in and swept the field clean of them............in five minutes!

Too bad forthe Milanese

You need to give the game a chance..........

M2:TW may not be historically or geographically accurate, but their isn't much wrong with the AI. Tone down your archers and watch your butt get kicked. You'd be a bit put off, too, if you enemy showed up with all archers and artillery.
I play the French, my armies are heavy with cavalry.

6-10 cavalry
2-4 missile
1-3 artillery
3-4 infantry(non-missile)

pretty typical of the times.........

Get medieval-minded. Read some books on the times and then play..........or continue to play like a person out of our modern times. Our opinions(mostly) are based off of our current 'mind on war'. You will never get a 'Medieval' fight from an enemy by fighting them like "Schwartzkof".

diBorgia

[shifty157]

If theyre not firing at all that means that the angle is bad and that they cant hit the target within their limited trajectory. This can be a real problem especially for Ballistas because they cant shoot downward and they need a straight line of sight so if you place them on the summit of a hill (sitting horizontaly) and the enemy is coming up the hill the ballistas generally wont be able to hit them.

This can happen with catapults too if the hill is steep enough. Positioning your troops just on the other side of a hill has always been a standard tactic used to protect them from artillery.

This actually just happened to me recently. I attacked a small enemy army with my own that had a few units of catapults/trebuchets in it because i had just come from a seige. The AI (without any missile units of their own to counter) realized i would just sit back and let my artillery use up their ammo before attaking positioned just behind the summit of a large hill in the center whereas normally they would have deployed at the top to gain the height advantage. Due to their perfect placement my artillery couldnt line up a shot on them without getting too close which rendered them useless so i gave the order to assault and crushed them anyway. I have to say that i was impressed and frustrated that the AI pulled that little tactic on me. I was really hoping i could just sit back for a bit and enjoy the explosions and flaming enemies but they denied me that little pleasure so killed them to the last man and slaughtered those who surrendered (by trebuchet firing squad).