gunpowder army tactics

**Marquis of Roland** · 02-17-2007, 00:00

Playing currently as Turks, I got bored and made a musket-based army for fun. Unfortunately I don't know too much about musketeer tactics so can anyone give me some pointers? My army is made up of:

1 general
1 Qapukulu
2 Sipahi lancers
12 Janissary musketeers
4 cannons

About as close to a napoleonic army as I can make

Specifically I want to know whether I should stretch out the formation for max volley but slow reload or go with a shorter line for quicker reload/not so great volley damage, and how to effectively place 12 musketeers in formation in my army in relation to cannon placement.

**Shahed** · 02-17-2007, 11:14

Go for maximum volley damage. Deploy in groups of 4, slightly spread. Leave your cavalry to defend the cannons, if necessary. Deploy artillery in the center or to one flank from where it can shoot without too much friendly fire. Don't deploy anything in front of the artillery.

**Marquis of Roland** · 02-18-2007, 00:28

So deploy in long lines in groups of 4, with the groups of 4 slightly separated? With only 4 cav units I try to keep my cav together for a mass strike, and I usually keep these right behind my cannon, with my cannon in the middle of my front line.

Since muskets are straight shooting weapons, I don't usually deploy a second line unless I'm on a hill. Is this correct, or should I have somewhat of a infantry reserve? I primarily use my cav units to plug holes.

**Foz** · 02-18-2007, 01:11

An infantry reserve made of musketeers will not do much good. What would they do, fire into the melee once other units get engaged? Your best bet is certainly to get them all into firing positions and pray they can sufficiently cut down the enemy army before any melee is joined. Melee troops in reserve would be useful, but since muskets are so poor in a melee capacity, I just don't see any reason to put them there.

**pike master** · 02-18-2007, 03:20

of course you use your gunpowder troops to shoot any one who flees. that way it acts like the great cross and gives melee troops more incentive to fight. 8|

**Lorenzo_H** · 02-18-2007, 14:11

Musketeers backed by Pikemen standing behind them are an ace formation, unstoppable by infantry and cavalry.

**TevashSzat** · 02-18-2007, 14:14

Well, the jannisary musketeers aren't that bad at melee and are actualy half decent. It is still recomended to bring infantry, but they can hold there own if they get engaged by some mediocre infantry

**Lorenzo_H** · 02-18-2007, 16:10

yeah, but Cavalry Charges can still devastate them significantly.

**Marquis of Roland** · 02-22-2007, 18:47

I wanted to make this army specifically all gunpowder (except the cav units) just for my eccentric, fun reasons

. Which is why no pikes. Playing as Turks, I don't have any pikes anyway.

I've been testing this army out vs. the pope. It appears that if the other army has over half the army as heavy cav, I am not usually able to stop their charge with my cav plus musket fire before they breach my line. Other than that the musketeers hold up pretty well. And yea, they do pretty well in melee; they use a 1 handed sword with pretty decent animation speed. Just don't expect more than half to live in a cav charge.

**Gratian** · 02-22-2007, 23:55

I'm assuming that you do not micromanage your musketeers - just leave them on "fire at will", right?
Just wondering... i have never tried the Turks, but Cossack Musketeers (and Spaniards also) almost always prefer to shoot at some rubbish, like peasant archers for instance, even if a whole s@%tload of dismounted knights is charging right on them.

Or they just do not have enough time to change targets between volleys... in any case I just had to manually chose targets for each CM unit... but in campaign game i never had more than 4-5 of them in an average army...
i wonder how do you cope with such large amount of Janisary Musketeers - is it possible to micromanage such army at all?

**Marquis of Roland** · 02-23-2007, 01:30

Yea in the beginning I wasn't really micromanaging them too much, just let them shoot whoever comes close, but later on I had to start micromanaging because of the change in composition of the enemy armies (to more heavy cav) and the fact that some units on the flanks were clipping other units with their volleys when they shoot into midfield due to the fact that they need to change facing to shoot, although I believe they have maybe a 30-40 degree leeway in shooting straight (in my case, they had to shoot at something attacking my center so they had to turn about 45 degrees to do so).

Believe me, sometimes I paused the game every 2 sec. or so

I got tired of it later though and just let my men shoot each other