Gunpowder!

[Eikon the Magistrate]

75% Potassium Nitrate
(KN03) +10% Sulphur +15% Carbon


Being used to MTW1 with its oddities concerning this type of unit I never gave gunpowder the respect it deserved. Usually the time constraints on the campaign or the cost involved prevented that.

Recently, I began to play with the Portugese and decided to continue after victory. Mainly to see how/if gunpowder had improved. In previous campaigns the Aztecs of the new world cut through many infantry/calvary units quite easily and the campaigns always seemed long.

I built my gunpowder army and sent it to the new world with a couple militia stacks to hold onto my winnings so as to keep my "good" army good.

My gunpowder army

1x Culverin
1x Officer
2x Knight of Santiago
16x Portugese Arbequeser/Musketeer
(NO HANDGUNNERS!)

I completely decimated the Aztecs with that same single army. I wish I knew how to save a screenshot from the game =( cuz it was completely ridiculous. (someone tell me how plz!)

My greatest victory that I can recall since MTW1 .... 17 portugese dead 1935 Aztec dead!

The same turn I took the stack and attacked another Aztec army.... 2 portugese dead
811 aztecs!

Needless to say the Aztecs are no more. The same gunpowder army that destroyed the Aztecempire has returned to europe and is currently kicking Danish butts. Musket fire is not AS effective against heavy armor but more so than arrows anyways. Last battle I had with the Danes was 150/900 with another gunpowder stack, but it was new recruits not my vets..sooo

Id like to point out that not a single unit from my aztec conquest has required retraining yet, the army is still numerically sound at present. After 6 victorious battles my most serious casualty was losing 1 of my 2 culverins in the unit.

The ranges and effect of mass gunfire on medieval troops is truly orgasmic and since I have so many of my stack being ranged it makes outflanking your opponent very easy. In my glorious victory over the Aztec I found I could often put musketeers in front and behind their troopsincreasing the carnage considerably.

They (gunpowder troops)are simply the most devastating and impressive units in the game, although I am and remain a spear fanatic for the early years, Im certainly a Modernist now when I need to be.

I suppose the only downside for gunpowder is defense of cities and castles... they are not an army for that it would seem. Unbeatable on the field except against perhaps a heavy calvary army on flat ground.

[Eikon the Magistrate]

... Also gunpowder units have many more shots available than any arrow units.(probably a 2/3-1 ratio maybe more) I haven't run out of ammo yet except on the culverin. And if you run out.. withdraw!

[WhiskeyGhost]

The morale penalty helps, and particularly if your using long ranged gunpowder units (Camels of DOOM, or musketeers). Try using handgunners, and i bet you they will end up stomped by just about everything.

[Eikon the Magistrate]

Try using handgunners, and i bet you they will end up stomped by just about everything.

YES! Which is why I will never field these hamstrung-at-birth peasants. Although sometimes 1 or 2 will sneak in idk how..

[Ramses II CP]

Handgunners and pikes do okay together IMHO. Put both in a long line with the HGs standing inside the lowered pikes on guard, and let the AI try to fight through them.

Otherwise HGs are one of those hard to use units.

[PBI]

Portuguese Arquebusiers are in my opinion the best gunpowder unit in the game. They are as deadly as musketeers and almost as long-ranged, plus they can look after themselves in melee and don't crumble so quickly under fire. Coupled with Aventuros they make my favourite infantry army in M2TW so far.

I believe handgunners are meant to be more melee units with an initial ranged attack to be used before the charge, kind of like legionaries, rather than straightforward missile units. I've not ever really got them to work very well in either role though.

[Rhyfelwyr]

In my Venetian campaign I found gunpowder weapons to be a disaster in the Americas, they just got massacred by the Aztec javelins and didn't cause many casualties. Although I only had mabye four units of gunmen per army, backed up by archers etc.

In my Byzantine campaign I learnt from my mistakes and took armies of Dismounted Latinkon, Byz Guard Archers, and a couple of cavalry. Using these, I got the kind of kill ratios you are describing. I posted them here somewhere, one battle I lost 13 men and killed over 2,000 Aztecs.

Admittedly, I did take a unit of Elephant Mercs for that adventure though.

Regardless, gunpowder will always be more effective against european armies due to its AP attributes, bullets even pierce shields IIRC. Bye-bye Dismounted Feudal Knights...

In my current Turkish campaign, I'm giving gunpowder another chance, since I want to test out my Janissary Musketeers and Monster Bombards.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Monster Bombards are worthless against troops but will flatten an entire city. Janissary Musketeers are the best gunpowder unit (infantry) in the game. they have the longest range (180 meter) and when you take away their ability to fire by rank (just mod the EDU) ability they will cause havoc. Deploy them at two rows deep.

Gunpowder units don't have more ammo, since only one rank fires it will give the impression that they have more ammo.

When you remove their fire by rank attribute, they will still more or less fire by rank, but they will not any longer do their reformation animation where they change their facing and stop firing.

If you really want some fun play as the Moors and create an army of twenty camel gunners

[PBI]

Monster Bombards are worthless against troops but will flatten an entire city. Janissary Musketeers are best gunpowder unit (infantry) in the game. they have the longest range (180 meter) and when you take away their ability to fire by rank (just mod the EDU) ability they will cause havoc. Deploy them at two rows deep.

Gunpowder units don't have more ammo, since only one rank fires it will give the impression that they have more ammo.

When you remove their fire by rank attribute, they will still more or less fire by rank, but they will not any longer do their reformation animation where they change their facing and stop firing.

If you really want some fun play as the Moors and create an army of twenty camel gunners

I personally prefer portuguese arquebusiers; don't get me wrong, janissary musketeers are a very fine unit, but I find them a bit too flimsy under missile fire. PAs don't need to be looked after so much, plus they can be trained from the second highest level of barracks while JMs need the highest, which I find makes it tricky to field them in decent numbers.

I hadn't heard about that fix with the fire-by-rank attribute before, thanks for the info. Will definitely have to try that later.

There seem to be a lot of bugs in this game which can be fixed by deleting stuff (the pike bug springs to mind.)

[Eikon the Magistrate]

Gunpowder units don't have more ammo, since only one rank fires it will give the impression that they have more ammo.

Is there a resource which gives the total shots per unit? Would seem that the later period a unit is created in, the more ammo and the better shot hed be. Regardless, gunpowder obviously is more accurate so even if there is the same amount, it is being used 1/2 as much and is twice as effective at least..works for me


Here is a stupid poem I made up this morning enjoy............

You know you can trust it,
The crack of the musket,
Sending out doom to all in its way,
Who'd have known that one man,
With one musket in hand;
Could frighten an army away?

/Boot

[Akka]

Gunpowder units may be impressive, but they are gunpowder, and I like medieval times precisely because they were pre-gunpowder and rather "steel and hand-to-hand".

So I don't play with gunpowder. Old ways all the way !

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Is there a resource which gives the total shots per unit? Would seem that the later period a unit is created in, the more ammo and the better shot hed be. Regardless, gunpowder obviously is more accurate so even if there is the same amount, it is being used 1/2 as much and is twice as effective at least..works for me
/Boot

You can find that information in the EDU (export_sescr_unit) in the text line:

stat_pri         16, 3, arquebus_bullet, 120, 30, missile, missile_gunpowder, piercing, none, musket_shot_set, 25, 1

where the 30 is the amount of shots per soldier.

[Eikon the Magistrate]

30 x 60=1800 *2 (2 lines of 30 per full unit) = 900

900 shots per line of 30 Arbequesers

= SWEET!

Thanks for that Alphonse.. not really a techie here

[Rhyfelwyr]

And it will be all the sweeter for me when those bullets are being fired by Janissary Musketeers.

BTW do they really have 180 range? I thought all units had either 120, or 160 for those with the 'Long Range Missiles' attribute.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Musketeers do have a range of 180 meters.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Musketeers do have a range of 180 meters.

That may help to teach those Genoease Xbow Militia a lesson.

[Old Geezer]

I find that even musketeers' fire is very inaccurate and the reload time is so long that cavalry can easily trash them. Pikes can't protect them because pikes can't protect themselves because they switch to worthless swords and stand still to be slaughtered. Any cavalry, but especially the fast ponies, can just trash the gunpowder units that the AI uses. I was very disappointed with their performance in the Americas campaign. In my last LTC campaign which was as the French I didn't even bother taking any of my suave musketeers east to whack the Timurids and just used firey darts from a couple of ballistas but relied on heavy cavalry which worked supurbly well. Culverins and serpentines work well on the field but all the rest are not worth the cost. The Timurid rockets were destroyed so quickly by my cavalry that I am not sure that they ever caused any casualties and I just charged straight into them and the hapless mongol footmen. I did take heavy losses from sticking the elephants, however.

[Eikon the Magistrate]

(Im sure 97% of ppl here know this stuff already..)

As with any missle troops alot of the success I have with gunpowders is to make sure to always use the terrain to your advantage.And to make sure you deploy in depth b4 you begin battles. If you use hills, forests, or deploy your men in the rocks (my favorite) then calvary will have a harder time at it. If you have a hill deploy 2 line of arbs or w/e your using instead of 1. Think Wellington and use a reverse slope! Also since you probably stretch your
musketeer unit out to 2 lines make sure to always be moving the line back and forth so that unit A covers unit B and so forth

The AI usually tries "fake" charges against your missle troops to throw em off and make em back up. Thus I usually have a front line of arbs next to the cannon or officer 4 men deep with skirmish off to absorb anything that makes it through.

Deploy your musketeers on the flanks so that you can outflank with them and also prevent flanking on you. Put those flankers on an angle! Frontal fire is not as good as side or back. Some variation of course ..the muskets can be moved up down or accordingly depending where the AI is. or simply your flank
turned abit more on 1 side of your line may be enuf to do the trick.

Granted there are some armies that have advantages over infantry..a calvary army does cause serious problems sometimes but you can wear em down pretty fast too as long as you keep moving. Covering fire exists and can be used, so when the AI charges forward, grab those musketeers and run em back an inch or 2 thus exposing the attacker to not only return fire from the musket unitbut of the other units that you just put them in range of like ur arbs.

I dont see how any infantry army IE Americas can win against gunpowder.. even late european armies with full plate get slaughtered. Im still getting crazy kill ratios (100 or less to 1000 or more)even when I only have a captain as the officer. it is kinda unfair in a way since the AI is still only sending handgunners as an answer to it.

In regards to accuracy, I find it gets better with experienced units..that is my unproven opinion.Also sometimes it is the positioning of said unit that determines accuracy. if you men are directly in front of your unit or there are terrain features not taken into account that will greatly diminish your results.
range = dead infantry.

[Old Geezer]

Experience does not improve accuracy.

My biggest problem with musketeers, et al. (also archers), is that once the cavalry (or infantry) hits them they will not fire at the enemy no matter what you do to try and get them to and they just stand there and get executed. (Why are the musketeers way on the end of a line pulling out their swords and standing there 50 feet away when they could be loading up and shooting?) This is as big a bug as the stupid pikemen dropping their pikes and getting slaughtered. I really doubt that the game was playtested for more than 10 hours total - or the developers just didn't care and haven't cared yet. The pikemen bug I can mod, but I am at a loss with what to do to make the musketeers work.

If the musketeers and archers have thier secondary weapons removed will they continue to shoot? This might really help them get some kills during "melee".

[ReiseReise]

The most annoying missile bug is the "half way through so lets finish" animation bug where your xbows or guns are going through their long reloading animation as the enemy is getting really close. Finally! Reloaded and ready to fire! Every man points his weapon directly into the eyeballs of the enemy who is now 2 feet away when you hear the sadistically satisfying twang of tensioned bows violently untensioning and the chemical witchcraft of gunpowder erupting into flame. You giggle and wet yourself a little as your sick mind joyfully anticipates the scene of carnage about to be unleashed upon the foolish enemy and ....... nothing happens.

Not so much of a problem with the super long range guns but it makes handgunners useless.

For any missile troops, it is essential that they are deployed on the flanks making a slight 'V' from the sides of your infantry line (it may be necessary to move them there after the rest of your line is engaged). From this position, your missile troops will be able to deliver withering enfilade fire against the enemy while they are engaged in combat with your own melee infantry. You will kill a few of your own troops but the enemy will take the brunt of it and rout before you can whip out a Sharpie and write "THE PEACEMAKER" on the barrel of your favorite arquebus.

BTW Although it is a rare occurence that history and the game actually agree, this was a tactic used by English longbowmen to great success. Not exactly, but rather a version of it (which also involved dismounted knights using their lances as pikes. Oh if only we could in the game!) Somebody else (I want to say Persians) recorded it before that, but it is unlikely the English had previous knowledge of it. Anyway this info is from an interesting book titled "How Wars Are Won" by Bevin Alexander. It examines and expands on Sun Tzu's teachings using examples from the beginnings of recorded history through Desert Storm. If the AI were actually smart you could become a better player by reading it, but in the meantime I recommend it anyway.

[Old Geezer]

I looked at the stats for missiles last night and was surprised (or rather shocked really) to see that all of the gunners have a 0.04 accuracy rating which is the same as that for longbowmen. Why then do my musketeers get so few kills? Is it just a very slow rate of fire which causes this?

[Eikon the Magistrate]

I dont believe you are using the terrain as best possible geezer... musketeers get the most kills per engagement that Ive seen. Usually 100-250 kills per unit with casualties being 10 or less.

Try "going to ground" b4 u begin battle scroll around and try to find the worst place for an enemy to attack.A hill, reverse hill,a valley,a town, maybe there is nothing but flat land everywhere and in the middle of it1 solitary rock. That is where you should be.

Your missle units will still "fire" even if there is an obstacle in the way, which is why you should not put missle troopsbehind any other unit unless it is angled on a hill so as to provide cover. Your missle unit will not intentionally fire
into the backs of your other units so even tho the graphic is there,they are not firing in volley which is the most effective way for them to engage and is one reason why a unit "reforms" as it is moving away from the shooting unit.
Fix this by making sure that no missle troops will be firing into each other.Or standing in the way of a cannon for example.

Put ur musketeers on skirmish with gaurd off and keep them abit away from the rest of ur army. You dont want them to get engaged. When you see the AI advancing with xbow or handgunners to ur musket line...move it back...make em run too. select all the units in that sector and reposition them in front/behind your front line and to the side abit so they keep firing.
This is why an arb front line is nice..cuz your muskets get cover as they move back and forth like so:


mskt---------->


arb---------->


then when they get close:


arb---------->

mskt----------->


rinse, repeat,,,,



always,always have a flank... this is very easy with a missle/gunpowder army cuz u stretch the units out to 2 ranks deep
usually. Put 1 or 2 muskets at a slight angle at the very ends of ur line for the easiest "flank" like so:


mskt \________ __________/

arb ---------->


or abit harder but better is


mskt \ /
\ /
\ /

arb-------------->


generally the most important thing formation wise is to be in a "C" or slightly crescent shape... so that u get firefrom 3 sides. Thats SOP for ambush my man. The only other strat id suggest is like I said b4 a hill which is steep enough to put 2 lines of troops on , the first being at the bottom of the hill the second above them so that they are firing over the heads of the troops below. And dont panic..since youll be moving prolly 2 or 3 ways at once..just gotta practice and get used to fighting mainly at range.

AS a last thought...if all accuracies are .4 or w/e then OBVIOUSLY there is a mod factor for accuracy or at least effective-ness of the shot...meaning perhaps peasant archers would hit the man at arms repeatedly and not kill him and the arb or musket would hit him 1ce or 2ce and kill him. Call that accuracy,experience,upgrades or what have you, it is still a
modifying factor in the hit ratio... I remain convinced there may be hope yet for my theories.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Janissary Musketeers proved very effective for me, they wiped out the Hungarian Pavise Xbows with ease, not all the armour or shields in the world will protect them from bullets.

This is where guns excell in M2TW, not against the Aztecs where you would expect to use them.

[locked_thread]

edit

[Monsieur Alphonse]

I looked at the stats for missiles last night and was surprised (or rather shocked really) to see that all of the gunners have a 0.04 accuracy rating which is the same as that for longbowmen. Why then do my musketeers get so few kills? Is it just a very slow rate of fire which causes this?

Two reasons
Slow rate of fire and musketeers fire always by rank. This means that when you deploy them in three ranks only a third is firing at any time. If you remove the fire by rank attribute their rate of fire will increase because they stop redeploying themselves.

[Redz " Preatorian Knights"]

well.... can anyone telll me if the english have this gunpowders??im finished with the campign but 145 turns and men im telling you i dont have a unit i can hire with even a pebble-shot gun


and please can anyone tell me the time frame for new events like:the world is round thing... cuz im planning to start another faction but if there are more to xpect on continueing my recent campaign(h/h english) well ill be patient and wait til i see all the stuff

[Grombeard]

well.... can anyone telll me if the english have this gunpowders??im finished with the campign but 145 turns and men im telling you i dont have a unit i can hire with even a pebble-shot gun

Did you look in the Town Guard-series of buildings? I think it's in the highest or highest two buildings you can build in metropolis-sized cities (not castles!).

Cannons should be available in both cities and castles by building the correct building. Don't know the english name for it, though...

All of this only works after the gunpowder event, of course!

[Old Geezer]

If possible I deploy musketeers, et al., in two ranks. The only time that I have found them useful was against other Europeans when I was Spain in the Americas campaign. They did get some kills against massed meso Americans who were afraid to charge because of my conquistadors, but not enough to warrant taking up a slot in the army. And, even if they do ever manage to get a silver chevron it doesn't help their accuracy and they still die like flies in melee. The Apache mounted gunners seemed to be more effective as I remember. I think that during the time period of MTW2 that it would be better to have hand held guns in smaller unit sizes (20 men), allow them a decent fire rate, and be able to couple them with another unit (non gunner) so movement would not have to be so micro managed.

[Callawyn]

As I recall, the musketeers in Americas campaign are born half-strength.

In any case, the main thing with gunpowder effectiveness is deployment. You have to be conscious of the fact that they will simply never fire a shot over the heads of friendly units (well, maybe if they're on top of a big hill and your melee line is a good bit below them). They are direct fire only. So, line them up 2 deep directly in front of your main infantry line so they can fire. When the enemy approaches, run them back behind your infantry and then send them around the flanks of the enemy. Unlike archers or even xbows, you can't just leave them behind your infantry and put them on fire at will, they'll never fire a shot.

Also, they have VERY long range. Use it. When you deploy for a field battle, form your line a near the back of your side of the map. AI almost always attacks you, and even if they don't just approach to where your muskets are firing but the enemy ranged units are not.

I usually keep 6 missile units in my fullstack armies, if they are archers/xbows they average about 60 kills each vs a full stack enemy. If they're gunpowder, they average about 110. Coupled with the morale effect, an infantry charge when the enemy finally gets close to my muskets is usually enough to start a general rout.

For siege battles, again you really need to modify your tactics. Not only will muskets not fire over friendly units, they can't fire over walls/buildings at all either. I've had some success firing up at defenders on top of walls, again from outside archer/crossbow range. Once inside a city, I've had great success by running my muskets up onto undefended enemy walls. They then fire down on the enemy. Especially useful if they're on a wall that looks down a road to town square. Otherwise, I've wasted a lot of effort trying to get them clear lines of fire on city streets, basically trying to flank an enemy that my infantry has pinned down, but this isn't easy to do given the restrictions of narrow breaches/roads.

[PBI]

For siege battles, again you really need to modify your tactics. Not only will muskets not fire over friendly units, they can't fire over walls/buildings at all either. I've had some success firing up at defenders on top of walls, again from outside archer/crossbow range. Once inside a city, I've had great success by running my muskets up onto undefended enemy walls. They then fire down on the enemy. Especially useful if they're on a wall that looks down a road to town square. Otherwise, I've wasted a lot of effort trying to get them clear lines of fire on city streets, basically trying to flank an enemy that my infantry has pinned down, but this isn't easy to do given the restrictions of narrow breaches/roads.

Huh, I always find that my musketeers refuse to fire properly from walls. They perform OK firing outwards at an attacker, but firing in towards the city they almost always seem to refuse to fire, but just stand there "reloading" and facing outwards. How exactly do you deploy them in this case?

The only time I had this tactic work well for me was when I had only one man left in a unit of musketeers. I ran him up onto the walls and he fired without any problems, and got about 5 kills.

I find guns to be quite effective in city streets now that I've removed their "fire by rank" attribute; otherwise they inevitably get caught up in the eternal reforming bug since it's impossible to deploy them less than three ranks deep. Coupled with a nice pike roadblock they actually perform quite well. I haven't tried using them on walls since I changed this though, maybe it makes them work better.