How powerful should artillery really be?

[Polemists]

So I like polls, they are fun, they kill time, and opinons are always interesting.


All this news on Empire Total War land battles has got me to thinking. Just how powerful shound artillery (Cannons, and other seige weapons using gunpowder) really be?

If you recall there were actually a variety of cannons in MTW2, they were useful but not over powering. There were exceptions of course, but usually they killed a handful of men.

So in Empire Total War, how powerful do you want to see cannons be?

Feel free to post your opinon.

[Mailman653]

As long as it brings down an elephant in one shot, don't care too much about the rest. How crazy would that be if an elephant takes two or three cannon balls to bring down?

[PBI]

In my view artillery should be the most powerful arm of the military in this period.

The caffeine addicts and ADHD rushers have had their turn in the "ZOMG CAVALRY SPAM, CHARGE!" days of M2TW. I want Empire to be geared more towards the boring, meticulous, obsessive-compulsive players like me. So, picking the optimal place to deploy your guns to best dominate the battlefield should be absolutely crucial, and making hasty attacks directly across the enemy artillery's field of fire should have suitably humbling results.

[Alerion]

As far as I know, melee combat WAS historically speaking still a major part of battle back then. but I agree that artillery should be very effective and powerful. But then again, artillery should easily be ripped apart, if not protected from cavalry outflanking the army

it has to be powerful, but it can`t be the "I win button"
and you should have to know, how to use it...

[Sheogorath]

Arty should have its best effect against infantry and cavalry. Field pieces wouldn't be too terribly effective against buildings (a solid roundshot is just going to fly right through most non-military buildings with minimal damage), and while grapeshot might knock the paint off and put some dents in the brickwork it probably wouldn't go through.
Now, against men, artilleries effects should vary. Roundshot depended on the depth of formation of the enemy. Against a line of men three-deep, the most it could kill would be three men. Although you might be able to wound six with a lucky, one-in-a-million shot.
This is assuming no collateral damage from the wounded men suffering 'friendly stab' with their bayonet or accidentally firing their musket.
Grapeshot, though, at the right range, could take out massive numbers of men. Considering it was basically a concentrated musket volley firing 1 inch balls (Or, if you were desperate, whatever fit down the barrel. Nails, bolts, cats, small children...
Regardless, any infantry foolish enough to get too close to a cannon should suffer for it. Cavalry too.
There was a reason it was difficult to get people to charge artillery batteries. Nobody wanted to find themselves looking down the barrel of a 12 pounder cannon charged with grapeshot. And the effect of those shots on morale should route all but the best trained units in 1-2 shots.

[Sol Invictus]

In my view artillery should be the most powerful arm of the military in this period.

The caffeine addicts and ADHD rushers have had their turn in the "ZOMG CAVALRY SPAM, CHARGE!" days of M2TW. I want Empire to be geared more towards the boring, meticulous, obsessive-compulsive players like me. So, picking the optimal place to deploy your guns to best dominate the battlefield should be absolutely crucial, and making hasty attacks directly across the enemy artillery's field of fire should have suitably humbling results.

I am with you. The obsessive-compulsives must have our moment in the sun.

I hope that Artillery will not be very destructive at long range but will be quite effective as the range closes.

[rajpoot]

There was a reason it was difficult to get people to charge artillery batteries. Nobody wanted to find themselves looking down the barrel of a 12 pounder cannon charged with grapeshot. And the effect of those shots on morale should route all but the best trained units in 1-2 shots.

Exactlyl; CA give us that, give us that and all will be well..........I mean it's so so sad when you see horses and men charging straight at your precious guns in Imperial Glory........

[ByzanKing]

I think the artillery should just be a "support" group to the ground troops. I don't want to see cannons ripping apart an entire army with a few shots before any type of melee battle begins. Plus we all know CA is notorious for having the AI build entire stacks of nothing but artillery, so hopefully the artillery is not to overpowering, i.e.-war elephants. IMHO.

[Megas Methuselah]

I agree with Byzanking.

[Sabuti]

I think when Cavalry charge cannons the game should play the song "The Trooper" by Iron Maiden.

[Alerion]

and then they should die... ^^

seriously... they have to make it impossible to charge an artillery unit that is somehow functioning head on and still succeed... that WAS impossible and that should be impossible... I mean we're not talking onagers here...

[pdoyle007]

We have to remember that in this era most of the shot fired was solid. Other than howitzers and shrapnel casing there weren't really explosive rounds. More solid lumps of metal fired.

If you move your troops behind a building then they should be safe from grapeshot as it'll be like firing a shotgun against a brick wall. Roundshot can punch through but only in a straight line and not immediately collapse a whole building. Plus that cannon may take 2 minutes to reload when your men can them emmerge from cover and snipe at the crew.

I would also like to see troops show more self preservation, it was common in the era for troops to lie down to minimise casualties and spoil the crew aim. Also use dead ground where the contours of the land meant they were effectively safe.

A head on charge would be stupid, unless it was a whole troop and the cannon had roundshot - as previously mentioned it would fire in a straight line, take out troops along that line but would then be vulunerable to the survivers, grapeshot would be alot more effective but you still couldn't guarentee 100% kill rate. A single gun crew that got pincers between two attacking troops would be in big trouble (hence why protection was still needed for them).

[Alerion]

of course... so artillery shouldnt be overpowered... but given a unit of 2 cannons ( we dont know yet how many cannons an artillery unit will include) is charged by 40 horses... both cannons fire grapeshot into the attackers... whoever is left (if any) will not be in the mood to charge on....

[Megas Methuselah]

I suppose if they use grapeshot, it might be another matter altogether. But look at this, the wiki article on the charge of the light brigade:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_..._light_brigade

Sure, it was disastrous, but the cavalry still managed to drive off the enemy artillery crews(their main target), despite charging through a valley occupied by a large amount of both enemy infantry and artillery on both sides and at the opposite end of the valley.

Lol, keep in mind, though, that the Russian infantry could barely ever hit their targets. Still...

[rajpoot]

So basically, artillery needs to have a realistic moral damage effect, insted of being very powerful. Somehow I never thought that the guns and muskets in M2TW scared the enemies enough.....specially in the Kingdoms xpack, the natives.......I mean guns should scare troops a lot, alot.

[Sheogorath]

I suppose if they use grapeshot, it might be another matter altogether. But look at this, the wiki article on the charge of the light brigade:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_..._light_brigade

Sure, it was disastrous, but the cavalry still managed to drive off the enemy artillery crews(their main target), despite charging through a valley occupied by a large amount of both enemy infantry and artillery on both sides and at the opposite end of the valley.

Lol, keep in mind, though, that the Russian infantry could barely ever hit their targets. Still...

The 'Russian' gunners were Don Cossacks, actually some of the best 'irregular' gunners in the world. Of course, they didn't match regular army gunners, but they were pretty good.
The Russian infantry by this point had actually got marksmanship training, however, the ones behind the battery were, again, Don Cossack troops and most likely armed with muskets, not rifles or even rifled muskets. Keep in mind, Cossacks were NOT known for their ability to engage in 'attrition' type combat. They were light infantry.

As to the charge, the Light Brigade suffered something like %35 casulaties (that includes wounded and prisoners), and lost almost half its horses. Despite taking the battery, they were rendered essentially combat ineffective.

Which is not to say I doubt the gallantry of the British cavalrymen, simply that, like the Thin Red Line, it's been overglorified. In both cases, the British were facing Cossacks, typically with their own elite units.
Against the regular Russian army, the British tended not to fare too well. You'll note that, over the course of the war, more allied troops died than Russian ones. Although the Russians did suffer heavily from disease, taking something like 500,000 casualties. However, of those, only about 100,000 were actually killed, to the allies over 300,000 (although its true that most of these were Turks, and their army, while at a high point, was hardly better than the Russians in terms of medical care.)

Back on topic, if you want to see the real power of artillery of the era, check out the Siege of Sevastopol form the same war.

So basically, artillery needs to have a realistic moral damage effect, insted of being very powerful. Somehow I never thought that the guns and muskets in M2TW scared the enemies enough.....specially in the Kingdoms xpack, the natives.......I mean guns should scare troops a lot, alot.

I think that MTW2 levels of morale damage would be approriate for this era, except for the close range cannon fire.
Most people by now knew about muskets and what they were, and, hence would be less likely to shout "OMG, ITS THE IRON FIRE-TUBE OF SATAN!"
However, they need to give untrained militia incredibly low morale. Which, I think, should increase greatly (even faster than regulars, perhaps) with training.