Cossack Musketeers

[Czar Alexsandr]

Hello! I recently just had the gunpowder event and have vile plans to use this new weapon on thosse annoying barbarians that keep coming out of the east. I have two Huge cities, Kiev and Novgorod. Now it says all I need for my Cossack Musketeers is the Huge wall. Well I have that and I can't build them. Do I need to build something else first?

I checked all the Academy buildings and Barracks and everything but still all it says I need is the Huge wall. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have grand plans for my muskets.

[lars573]

How many turns have gone by since the gunpowder event?

[Monsieur Alphonse]

How many turns have gone by since the gunpowder event?

Because you will get them next turn. Huge walls is all you need.

[Czar Alexsandr]

Oh ok. Well I just had the event so I'll be looking for them the next turn then. Bwahahahha. You are doomed you Mongolians and in the future you Timurids!

I just wanted to make sure I didn't have to fully upgrade the barracks or something. Which I likely will anyway's but.. I usually put it off a little. ^_^;

This is good though. I've got several places that can train Dismounted Dvor, two places that can build Cossack Musketeers, a few places with fully upgraded siege works, and all my cities are currently making gunsmiths. In later years.. my wars with the Mongols will be called... "the Russian Halestorm of Turn 81."

[Lamprey]

Don't get your hopes up too much, gunpowder units in this game tend to suck pretty bad. You may be better off getting a few units of good archers instead of the musketeers, they're much more effective.

[Flavius Gonzo]

I really disagree with the above. In my Russian campaign, my cossack musketeers dominated the battlefield.

I never fought the mongols with the Russians, but I did fight them post-gunpowder with the Turks, and the Jannisary Musketers just crushed the mongol archers.

[IvarrWolfsong]

long range gunpowder units are great. the normal ones are useless.

[Czar Alexsandr]

I've used the Cossack Musketeers in countless custom battles and I do have them now in my campaign game and I have nothing to complain about. They do their job magnificantly! I got to use them on a rebel stack that had popped up near Novgorod and man.. was that fun. Aside from the unit tidyness problems firearm units have.. the Cossack Musketeer has no flaws. Really if you just keep the enemy far away and use some patience, and a little luck, they can perform really well. At a reasonable distance though the Cossack's fire, cycle, fire etc... and they do it perfectly until the enemy get's goofy and runs off to far to the right or left. ^_^; But even then the Musketeer's have excellent range. I think they're excellent.

And about gunpowder infantry. What's so bad about them exactally? I mean... the hand gunners, arbequeisers, muskets, Janisarries, and Cossack's work fine for me. Serriously though gunpowder units are great. Look at the price and upkeep on em and all that. Even the primitive handgun's a good unit. It's like a javelien unit with more shots and can follow up with a sword! And the handgunner's just look cool. The arbequeis I'm less enthusiastic about but at least' it's longer range... and Portugal has some nice arbequisers. So do the Moors and Egypt. The musket's are good of course, but what could be better than the Cossack or Janissary musketeer? Like the Hangunner's and Portugesse Arbequisers they can fight in melee! I'm sorry... I like my troops that can shoot and fight. ^_^; And feeling like you're blowing everyone out of the water technologically always feels good. And it's gotta be a first for Russia to.

[TheLastPrivate]

First of all they can't fire behind your own troops. They will act like firing, reload, go dagadagadagadagaboom but no musketballs are fired. I reckon its a bug but i doubt its gonna get patched anytime soon since its still there in kingdoms as well. - which means, with their slow firinig rate you have roughly about 3 shots before enemy infantry/cavalry reaches you, and even those 3 shots are amazingly inaccurate. If they have more ranged troops the enemy will just sit there and soak up the musket fire...but i don't like having to rely on AI stupidity to do things.

Second, the musket formation MUST face the troops they're shooting at, so if the target moves across the battle line, your msukets will reform so that musket firing line is parallel with the enemy. While looking pretty ur muskets wont fire at all during the period, and even after reforming, about half of ur muskets which are now somewhere in between ur infantry line (which is somehwere behind your muskets i assume), thus not firing either.

Basically, unless the AI just sits there and have an archery duel with you (and archers tend to be easier to replace and more cost-effectice in terms of battle usage) muskets get maximum of 3~4 shots before they a) get massacred in melee b) run behind infantry line, where they sit there and do nothing c) move to flank and try to do some damage but end up not shooting do to same reason of b), or if they do shoot they end up friendly firing and causing morale damage to your own troops.

Conclusion: hand-held firearms suck unless they're mounted.

[Czar Alexsandr]

Well that's all true and all.. (Except the mounted muskets are the only useful ones thing.) But you musn't be using them right because they can be very effective. In a custom battle once my two Cossack Musketer units both killed more eniemies than any other unit in my army. It might be worth noting it was a bridge battle.. but clearly they can be very effective. I had Dvor in the battle too but the Cossack's outperformed the Dvor by a rather suprising margin.

I think it's just a thing of working with the in game flaws and the unit. Guns should be able to fire in semi-organized or sloppy formations like archers, but.. they can't and you gotta keep that in mind. Besides that the are like very economical javelin troops. They carry way more shots, can kill anything they hit pretty much, and in most cases are much longer ranged. And musket's are very accurate.

The gunpowder troops shouldn't be really good really, it's Medival Total War. Not Renisisance Total War... but the units really can be used effectively. They pack more punch than other missle units and used properly they should be able to do considerable damage.

Key's to remember...

They're not archers, they need to form ranks to cycle fire. Archer's can fire wherever you stop them cause they're archers... with bows... and don't need to form ranks, cycle etc.

If they're taking to long to cycle.. put em in rows of two or three. I prefer two cause I think there is less stalling that way

They need to be in front of the army. Use them as pre-battle skirmishers. ('m a skirmisher. I beat the heck out of the enemy before I engage him head on so I've always done this naturally.)

They're perfect for bridge battles. Once they're in that perfect straight line they won't need to turn to the left or right since the eniemies are dead ahead. (Muskets are ideal for this. Arbequeises and Handguns are probably almost useless here.)

The longer the distance away from the enemy the better. If you can hit em... that's all that matters.

That's all I can think of. Well you know, look for the highground, avoid enemy missle or missle cavalry troops, and consider positioning archers behind them? They can be used effectively. I killed a small rebel stack earlier with nothing but two Cossack Musketeers. Didn't lose a single man and the enemy had it's own missles. I had to move em around the battelfield to. It wasn't just a archery duel. Run em into position, position them in the position you want straght lines etc.. click run in the bottom right to make em get into position faster and fire! Nothing say's modernization like a musket ball in the face. But I wouldn't pass up the benifit's mastering gunpowder can give you. When you reach the gunpowder event... build some guns. You wouldn't wanna be labled obsolete would you?

[TheLastPrivate]

given the circumstances they do perform well, they just need long pikes between their legs and arms to be utilized at maximum performance with the given system.

Also, try turnng on skirmish mode. They will not fire in Maurice-style cycle but fire at will, making the fire rate slightly faster because they don't file back to the ranks but they'll just kneel to reload and the second rank will fire over them. This seems to only work in 2-rank deep formation though. This method is not great at damaging morale in a burst but allows a continuous stream of leadballs launched at the enemy, chugging out more balls per mnute. Of course when the enemy closes turn off skirmish and fire a volley and promptly flank to cause a mass rout.

[Czar Alexsandr]

That's very interesting. I should try that with my gunners. In skirmish mode the fire over the shoulder's of the guy's reloading? Hmm... sounds useful. Yes that would be a pretty steady rate of fire to. And it would speed up the time in between volleys due to the fact they wouldn't need to reform all the time.

I really like the gunpowder units...don't know why but even in Medival 1 and Shogun I used gunpowder rather extensively.