Grand Bombard = teh sux

[Goofball]

Fought a battle yesterday, open battlefield, no trees. I was defending, and situated my forces at the edge of the battlefield at the top of a very gentle upward slope. Had one GB unit that I parked in fron of my army. The AI decided they were too afraid to charge me, but not afraid enough to stay out of range of the GB.

And ideal situation for GB fire, one would think: Enemy lined up all nice and neat in a big bunch, at the bottom of a very gentle slope, just waiting to be blown up.

The result?

The GB expended all ammo (firing flaming rounds) during the "battle." The targets never moved, they just stayed where they were.

Only one shot hit.

It was like clockwork: One shot would plow into the dirt well in front of the enemy, the next one would go sailing high over their heads.

One thing I will say, the one shot that hit killed 25 enemy.

But come on! One hit? In ideal conditions?

I'm going to melt down all of my GBs and turn them into Camel Gunners. Those guys at least know how to kick a little arse...

[Bijo]

When having fired upon their target, especially a fixed one, the artillery crew should have zeroed in on it, then make many effective casualties. Or like somebody once suggested a "Fire at this area" option must be included. Maybe it's moddable? Probably not

[Carl]

You do realise that the purpose of GB is demolishhinmg walls, it even says they are innaccurate against infantry. They arn't SUPPOSED to kill much in the way of enemy infantry when fired at them, plus flaming rounds are even more innaccurate in any case so turning those off would have helped a lot.

[Goofball]

You do realise that the purpose of GB is demolishhinmg walls, it even says they are innaccurate against infantry. They arn't SUPPOSED to kill much in the way of enemy infantry when fired at them, plus flaming rounds are even more innaccurate in any case so turning those off would have helped a lot.

I realize that. But they were firing at an entire full stack army grouped together. The army wasn't moving, and was as big of a target as a wall would be.

And only 1 shot hit.

Let me say that again:

Only one shot hit.

I wouldn't be complaining if even 10% of the shots had hit. Or even 5%.

But only one hit in those conditions is just silly.

And I actually did (sorry I didn't mention it in my earlier post, but I didn't think it was material to the topic) try turning off the flaming ammo for about 5 shots.

None of those hit anything either.

[lars573]

Bombards are desgined to hit the broad sides of barns. They couldn't hit men in the field if they had an engraved invitation and the enemies names scratched into the ball. The larger siege guns do better, cannons, culverins, basiliks. But with falming missiles they miss almost everytime. The field guns (mortars, serpentines, ribaulds) hit troops much better.

[Goofball]

Bombards are desgined to hit the broad sides of barns. They couldn't hit men in the field if they had an engraved invitation and the enemies names scratched into the ball. The larger siege guns do better, cannons, culverins, basiliks. But with falming missiles they miss almost everytime. The field guns (mortars, serpentines, ribaulds) hit troops much better.

I must admit, the most pleasure I have had from this game so far is when I managed to sneak a ribault around the flank of an enemy army and it put down volley after volley of perfect enfiladed fire, reducing several entire units to nothingness.

Mwahahahahaha.....

But have I mentioned camel gunners yet?

Have you tried them?

Man! They lay down a perfect hailstorm of death, and they're fast enough to keep out of trouble.

Hands down the best unit in the game.