Best anti-personnel artillery is ?

[Sir_Hawkwood]

Defending a siege, I think that mortars are the best.
I've got at least 5 in every border settlement, the rest of the garrison being made up of Bill-scum and Chav*-archers...

Never lost a siege due to the power of the mortar battery.

Outside of that, I tow around Culverins and my old, leveled up ballistas.

I agree with Forward Observer, that when leveled up a ballista is a very dangerous weapon, due to its constant accuracy.

Having said that, I wonder how effective my gunpowder artillery would be right now, had I taken the time to build it up rather than improve my ballistas?

* UK modern slang for Peasants, identified by their large sports logos and cheap chunky jewellery...

[Mandos]

Mortars. They have the best accuracy of all the AP gunpowder artillery, and do fantastic AoE damage to everything. They can easily hit moving targets at good range. They are useful on any battlefield, although they shine in sieges. They are basically gurenteed to take out a piece of siege equipment in thier first shot, followed by any troops you desire.

[TevashSzat]

I would say ribaults since shooting them point blank range into infantry is almost instant death for the whole unit. They are even better when defending cities since the ai sends his whole army through the one little gate. All you need is like 5 units of peasants to hold their army and keep it compact. Get 8 or 9 ribaults the fire right into it, 600 to 700 causualties easily since they are so compacted. That is the only reason i am holding Baghdad from the mongols right now.

[Flavius Gonzo]

My turkish campaign just moved into the brave new gunpowder world last night, and I'm curious about how to use arty gunpowder.

I'm a big fan of open field battles with arty, not just for seiges, so I'm curious how to use it. So far I've gotten a few bombards & cannons into combat, no monster bombards yet. Any thoughts on which is the best for an open field battle? Looking at the descriptions, it seems that cannons might be better for anti-personel than monster bombards, is that right? (Or who knows, maybe distance/splash damage make up for the slower reload?)

Also, I've noticed in some battles where I've had only bombards that the line of sight thing is different/trickier than trebuchets... can bombards not shoot over a line of infantry in front of them, or only if they are propped up on a hill? Is the same true of Cannons & Monster Bombard? If this is the case, Trebs may still be the best anti-personel weapon for the Turks.

Also, without cheating, where can I get merc rocket launchers? And are serpentines not available to the Turks?

[Shahed]

I would say the best Turkish options for artillery in open battles (is what I meant in the Op):

-Rocket Launchers
-Catapults
-Cannons
-Ballistas

I would use Cannons actually because I just love the range advantage. But from this discussion I'd say Merc Rocket Launchers are the best overall unit. Forward Observer also put forth a compelling Ballista argument which you may want to consider. Thing is I want the loud noises, things blowing up, you know ? Bombards (monsters, little ones and all) seem to have flatter projectile trajectory than their other gunpowder partners, but they do and can shoot in an arc.

Merc Rocket Launchers are available in the steppe, next province north of Yerevan. I would also recommend Panzerphant artillery available in Arabia (Mosul, Baghdad, Jedda). If you REALLY wanna have a laugh type this is console:

create_unit Yerevan "Elephant Rocketeers" 5 9 3 3

Guaranteed to make you crack up when you use those babies in battle !

Serpentines are not available to the Turks, sadly. Those were my favorite in MTW. I really miss them. In one multiplayer battle with a mate, we set up a partial reenactment of a historical Ottoman formation (using serpentines instead of cannon), and it was amazing. Fantastic battle, and the formation actually worked.

Really miss serpentines for the Turks.... but am making do with cannons.

[belbel]

I wish there was a way to preload the artillery, it has always been a problem in this series.

[Shahed]

Ja, that'z imbecelic, start zer battel wizzout guns loaded ? Dumbkopf !

[Flavius Gonzo]

Is there something about Catapults that make people think they are better than Trebs for the open field? To me it's a no brainer -- Trebs have a much longer range and are therefore superior to Catapults, but maybe I've missed something wrt accuracy, etc. Plus, there's the fetchez la vache factor, handy in some open field situations. The disadvantage is that teching up to a siege engineer is difficult early in the game.

Also, I use fire/exploding ammo ALWAYS except if bashing city walls during the daytime. Is there any open field situation where it's better to extinguish flames on your arty?

[Callahan9119]

i used rocket launcher in a little test in custom game, had 1 RL and 1 unit of guns, i had the english against me with 1 unit of guns and a ribault, when the guns got in range of each other and started firing on one another i noticed my gunners were dropping like flies, i was like man those english guns must be goood

i was focused in on the english watching the death animations, i moved the camera on my guys to notice that my rocket launcher wasnt launching so well, and was blowing the crap out of my gunners, even at 50 yards behind them

[Quillan]

Flavius, it's accuracy more than anything. Most of the artillery is rather inaccurate, but the degree of spread is related to the range to target. The farther off it is, the farther off target a round can land. Since trebuchets outrange catapults by a large margin, they are far less accurate at the edge of their range than catapults are at theirs. You have to bring cats into the range of missile troops with the "long range missiles" tag to be able to shoot at them, while you don't with trebuchets. However, there's been a couple of battles where I've had missile duels between 4 units of pavise crossbow militia on my side and 4 units of trebuchets on the part of the enemy, and I won. The trebs are so inaccurate that they can't seem to hit a thin line of troops except rarely. When they DO hit, it causes a lot of casualties, but I typically will only get hit once or twice total during the exchange. Ballistae are a LOT more accurate.

Me, I like trebuchets against walls, but I don't start dragging any artillery to a field battle until post-gunpowder, unless I just happen to get caught by an army marching towards a settlement I intend to take with it.

Now, after gunpowder, I'll bring them along sometimes. Not always, not even regularly, just sometimes. I use a couple of units of culverins/cannons/basilisks to counter the artillery spam the AI likes so much. I've never yet played a faction that had serpentines. The range on culverins and basilisks is just insane. They also make quick work of walls and towers.

[Flavius Gonzo]

OK, I think that makes sense. So, is it safe to say though that at the same distance, catapults & trebs will cause similar damage? The issue as you are describing is that even though trebs can fire further away, at the furthest ranges it's tough to make a direct hit, and therfore not valuable, whereas with cats, you know that if you are in range you get good accuracy, right?

If fought several battles against the Sicilians where I've tried to soften up their line of Pavises with trebs first from a longer distance -- I agree it's tough to get a lot of hits, but the few that you get make a good deal of difference when you bring up your own archers to duel with them.

[katank]

Yep, trebuchets are horribly inaccurate. Also, in a counterbattery situation, the trebuchet just about always loses to catapults simply due to their enormous size (they are too inaccurate to capitalize on their range advantage).

I rarely bring siege in field battles early on now. Prepatch, 2 units of ballistas for flanking + a catapult for kicks are great for masscring the passive AI. Now, they don't get so many shots off and simply slow your movement down.

Postgunpowder, merc rocket launchers are invaluable (esp. in sieges). Haven't had too much experience with other pieces. Panzerphants are a great addition to any army (don't even slow the movement of a cav army).

[Shahed]

In the beginning ofc I did all cavalry, but now if I keep expanding it's a nuisssance to micromanage everything. So I want some more or less static armies, just sitting there at chokepoints, wating to shoot stuff up.

BOOM !!! BANG !!! WOOP de WOOP !!! KAPOW !!! BUAHAHAHHA!!!

[katank]

In most of my Eastern faction games, I use static armies too often.

It's like the blitz. Horse archer/lancer armies punch holes in enemy lines and destroy large stacks in the field. Heavy infantry armies follow up to do siege assault and defense. Lighter infantry/militia do occupation. Waves of agents help with assimilation.

Artillery is great for guarding any bridges or choke points with a defensive stack.

[Andy]

In my experience, the Balista is good against other artillery like catapults. For anti Infantry arty, A well aimed barrage of Rocket Artillery fire is excellent. But the best are the Panzerphant

[Antipodean]

I always ignored ballistae until one day I jumped a pathetic little 5 unit HRE army with a full stack of cranky Sicilians. The 2 HRE ballistae took out my four catapults before they got a shot off: one ballista shot, one less catapult. Then proceeded to eat holes in my stack before they got close enough to do some smiting. I won, but my casualties were similar to what I'd expect from an equal numbers engagement, humiliating...


Post powder, I like to use 4 or 5 units of serpentines and a unit of culverin (or all culverins if I can't have serps because I'm a pom or something). I back them up with 4 units of heavy cav and fill the rest of the stack with elite melee reasonable archers (as french I use scots guard rather than crossbow dudes). The fast firing serps cut the enemy to ribbons, then they usually break as the remnants charge home into the burning arrow fire. It works with culverins and basilisks, but if I have access to serps I just bring one or two big guns to sort walls out.

I don't much like bombards or any of the other slow, short range primitive bang bangs. The serpentines, culverins and basilisks pick up chevrons quickly with kills and progress rapidly from accuracy only a bit better than a catapult, to elite ballista quality marksmanship, but across the far side of the battlefield. You'll never again need to face an enemy general with 36 elite bodyguard, or worry about the enemy artillery getting into range (and should an enemy artillery piece survive by shear luck, there'll be so few naughty enemy dudes around it that it becomes practical to just wipe it out with a cav unit).

I found trebs to be more than a bit useless against anything smaller than a city wall until recently I used them pre powder, on the immediate flanks of my archer double line in an archer rich army, while the supporting cav were away slaughtering other things. They're big enough to totally break an enemy cav charge to the flank, and with the breaks on the enemy horsies, archers have an even chance to cause some hurt to the naughty wicked cav in melee. It worked so well I'm using them for this purpose at the moment and considering it just luck if the trebs actually manage to do something hurtful to the foe in their own rite.

[Sheogorath]

I once set up a battle between the Timurids and the Spanish.

The Spanish were loaded down with elites, Terico Pikemen, musketeers, conquistadors.
I had nothing but rockets, a general, and a unit of elephants.
Guess who won?

(Also note, I didnt use the elephants :P)

[Musashi]

If you think that's funny, try giving a musket unit the rocket projectile line from the rocket launcher unit in the EDU, and watch what happens. Even if you reduce their ranged attack to 20 or so they will literally wipe out an entire enemy unit with a single volley at point blank. Well, maybe not wipe out, but kill 100 men and rout the unit, yet.

[Shahed]

Ouch ! that would be fun to watch.

Hey i was looking through my folders (New Year's cleaning you may call it) and I found this old screenshot.

It's from a multiplayer game in MTW. It was a 3vs3, the 3 of us on my team were split up, cavalry, foot, and missile and artillery. 3 seperate armies acting as one, hence why I only have arty and missile since that was my "regiment".

Check the Serp kills.


If you guys have good kill scores post away ! Would be good to see.

[Musashi]

It's too bad I didn't screenshot it... But one time I ran a custom battle, with a huge army on both sides, and one unit of serpentine in my castle.

The serpentine only got off one shot, literally, only one of the two cannons fired, and it only went off once... But the enemy army was completely packed into the gateway of my castle, and that one shot put the entire army into rout.

When I checked the unit statistics at the end, it said that serpentine unit had 145 kills.

[Andy]

That reminds me, When I used my Balista to Snipe Mongol catapults, they came with their battering ram. I could not attack it with my Balista because the enemy archers were laying down suppressing fire on them if they left the city. (I was the moors and this was in Tunis) So the ram broke threw my gates but the Mongols got a volley of deadly close-range balista fire. That routed most of the enemy infantry but the Mongols still attacked with their calvary, bad move because Most of my army was Spearmen, who slaughtered
them.

[BrianMHS]

I want to try out Serpentines in my campaign. What's the unit name, so I can add_unit?

In my experience, Rocket Launchers > Monster Ribaults based on increased range and increased explosive killing power.

Basilisks aren't very good against personnel. Decent accuracy, but they'll only take out 4-8 people on a direct hit.

Trebuchets are hilarious from about 30 feet. Just whips the giant rock almost striaght down on your units. Ineffective, but scary.

[Quillan]

It's probably NE_Serpentine.

[katank]

Ever had a point blank catapult hit before? Once, I was fighting the Sicilian King in a siege. His unit was stuck reforming in the streets while my catapult was about a whooping 12 feet away. I ordered the catapult to fire and it point blanked 1/2 of the BG unit.

I was laughing so hard. I then pinned the BG with some cheapo slav mercs and then did two more catapult shotgunnings to finish him off.

[Zenicetus]

Ever had a point blank catapult hit before? Once, I was fighting the Sicilian King in a siege. His unit was stuck reforming in the streets while my catapult was about a whooping 12 feet away. I ordered the catapult to fire and it point blanked 1/2 of the BG unit.

I was laughing so hard. I then pinned the BG with some cheapo slav mercs and then did two more catapult shotgunnings to finish him off.

That's hilarious! I guess CA didn't bother with a minimum range limit. I'm imagining the crew just cranking it back a little bit, and sorta dropping the rock on the enemy's head.

[Forward Observer]

Just thought I would post the following two shots as examples of my side flanking tactic when besieged.

I was defending Jerusalem for about the umpteenth time--this time against the Egyptians. I had a good size army, but mostly archers, only 4 units of real infantry, one unit of mounted knights not counting my General's unit, and only 2 units of artillery--a mortar and a ballistae unit.

The Egyptian force had 3 archer units, 3 or 4 Arab cavalry, 1 missile cavalry, maybe 4 spear units, the general's heavy cav, and both a catapult and a trebuchet unit. Fortunately their trebs and cats couldn't seem to get it together and do much damage before my mortar took them out.

Then they stupidly parked their Mamluk missile cavalry on their right wing within range of my longbows on the walls, so they were eventually wiped out. Now all I had to worry about were the foot archers.

I put my 4 heavy infantry with 4 longbow units and my knights to protect my one ballista unit and went out the side gate. I went for the enemies left flank because it was closer and most of their cavalry was on their right flank.

When I got in position, I sent a sacrificial depleted 8 man unit of spears out the front gate to keep the Egyptian missile troops occupied. I had two other light infantry units, but never had to use them.

In this shot I marked the spearmen (red circle) taking all the missile fire while my ballista systematically nibbles away at the enemy ranks


They finally broke and withdrew. I lost 55 men and they lost 682, but the but look at my ballista unit's score---195 kia's--not bad for one unit!


I realize that this is out-gaming the game since any reasonable army would move to meet such a cheap flanking trick, but hey--a win is a win!

As a historical aside, in reality trebuchets were probably the most accurate seige engine of all and that includes most of the the primitive smooth bore artillery. While its range was limited to about 300 yards, unlike other primitive artillery, the trebuchet's propelling energy relied on the absolute constant of the force of gravity. Unless one changed the position of the engine, the length of the throwing arm, the fulcrum position, or the size of the counterweight---a trebuchet would put a projectile of uniform size and weight in the same spot just about every time.

All of the other big guns--whether torsion or black powder were affected by temperature, humidity, and in the latter's case the consistency of the manufacture of the propellant.

Cheers

[Von Nanega]

Good screenies F.O. I have begun to use more arty in my armies after reading your posts.

[Quillan]

As the Spanish, I had one battle where I had 2 small armies against one. The army I attacked with was 4 jinetes and 2 mounted crossbows. The reinforcement army was a single swordsman militia and a basilisk. I pinned the rebels with the main army and had enfilade fire with the basilisk. Bowling for rebels, a dozen men per cannonball, right down the line.

[katank]

That's just beautiful. It matches with my general experience that artillery typically has problem finding range (further or closer) while they are pretty good with regard to left-right alignment. Thus, for best results, shoot at flanks.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Hey, with a name like Forward Observer, of course he's going to be good with artillery.

I like the Serpentine - it makes me feel like I'm playing NTW or something. And it can double as a pretty destructive siege engine.