suicide by artillery

[CannonBall]

does anyone else have this problem/issue where the artillery loader gets hit and dies when the serp, cannon, mortar, etc fires? What the heck is that and is there a fix or remedy? Instead of units sounding we're under attack every few seconds, how about "hey stupid don't stand in front of the barrel."

[FactionHeir]

Yup, happens to me as well.
The reason for this is the radius of the particle that is being fired. The larger the radius, the greater the impact and kill zone of a particle.
In this case, the cannonball ejecting from the cannon has a radius large enought to hit the hitbox of the loader and thus kill him. As the particle is bodypiercing, it doesn't stop there and then goes on to its intended target.

The second reason is the distance the loader stands from the cannon. For basilisks (which IMO is where it happens the most), the radius is large and the loader stands close, so the chance is fairly high. For a monster bombard, the loader stands a considerable distance away and therefore does not get hit even though the radius is large.

Then of course, the less common reason is you positioning the artillery badly, so the loaders have little room for movement or the terrain is too uneven and elevated, decreasing their mobility and thus getting them killed.

I never had the problem with mortars however, but the gunpowder artilleries (besides bombards) all have this type of problem. I should also note that all artillery, including ballistae seem to have a tiny chance to backfire, which is related to the projectile accuracy.
As each distance unit forces a drift check, and it is possible that at the first distance unit the particle fails it, it can basically go backwards and hit some of your units standing behind your artillery, which again is somewhat silly.

As for what you can do about it, you can either decrease the radius, making artillery less useful, or you could see whether you can mod the distance between loader and cannon. However the latter will make the loading animation look very awkward with the cannonball being loaded into the air.

[TheLastPrivate]

Although I love having serpentines/basilisks in my army I don't see it often enough to find myself going thru all the files and modding it...

Just assume that your loader got his hand stuck or something... no industrial insurance those times :p

[DVX BELLORVM]

I guess the early artillery was more dangerous to its crew than to the enemy

[ReiseReise]

Good info FH

[Ramses II CP]

It happens, but not so much that it seems unrealisitic. These are battlefield conditions, mistakes are going to be made.

[ReiseReise]

Yep, your soldiers are only human.

[Sentinel]

Just a thought, I have not tried this so it may not work.
If you put the unit into loose formation the crew will spread out further from the gun and therefore less chance of being hit?

[FactionHeir]

Not really. Only the rear ranks would spread out, not the ones handling the cannon.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I've never seen my artillery backfire before. Does it kill the artillery piece and some of the crew?

[FactionHeir]

When it backfires (rather than strafe one of the loaders), it usually hits a unit behind the artillery, although I did see once that my artillery piece itself got itself destroyed (with the loaders)

[Rhyfelwyr]

Must be extremely rare, I've used cannons all the time and never seen this, sounds like a cool feature. Did this not happen quite a lot though historically?

On a side note, just saw something really cool in my campaign last night, my fire archers torched a siege tower when the enemy were retreating through it. Wiped out a unit of Mongol Infantry.

[WhiskeyGhost]

Must be extremely rare, I've used cannons all the time and never seen this, sounds like a cool feature. Did this not happen quite a lot though historically?

On a side note, just saw something really cool in my campaign last night, my fire archers torched a siege tower when the enemy were retreating through it. Wiped out a unit of Mongol Infantry.

I once had a tower filled with nearly 6 enemy units go up. I laughed my arse off since that turned a hopeless battle into an instant heroic victory. The entire enemy army routed once it collapsed, due to the massive morale shock of losing more then half their army.

edit: also, i've had on rare occasion artillery hit its own units/misfire, but it was really rare. The only one i can clearly recall was when it was on a bridge and firing, i think a round hit the bridge, then bounced backwards, but i'm not entirely sure

[predaturd]

that wasnt heroic it was the will of god