The Little Artillery That Could

[Leviathan]

Rather amusing thing that happened last night that I thought I'd share. I swear Inverse Ninja Law can be applied to Great Britain's Artillery...

Anyways, Chapter 4 of the Americas campaign, normal difficulty.
I'm marching my army towards one of GB's cities (they went to war with me after I declared war on one of their allied Native tribes), and they send an equal sized army against me.
I thoroughly obliterate them (1000+ casulties on their end, ~100 on mine), but one single, solitary 12lb horse drawn artillery manages to get away. Most of the crew gone, and down to one cannon out of three.

So on my turn, I move after them, and hit their unwalled town, defended by two units of firelock citizenry, that one 12lb cannon, and one unit of Elite foot as reinforcements somehow able to cross a river to get to them.

So I setup my troops in my usual line, screen of Line Infantry in the fore, three mortars just behind the LF in the centre, a 12lb horse cannon in a gap (so it doesn't hit my own troops with canister shot), various light infantry and grenadiers at gaps between the line infantry, cavalry on the ends, and started the match.

The two units of firelock went straight into buildings, the elite infantry began its slow march from the far side of the map, and the single cannon setup at the edge of the buildings.

I decided just to take out everything with the artillery rather than bother charging, so I set my three mortars and one cannon firing at that single, lone canon, at very long range.

Volley after volley from my guys (all with one Chevron of experience), and not a single hit on the enemy artillery, even using all different kinds of shot the mortars could.
That damned GB cannon though..

One a per-cannonball basis
* Twelve line infantry down
* Four cavalry down
* One of my 12lb guns down
* Takes out all three guns from one unit of mortars. WITH ONE CANNONBALL
* Another dozen infantry down
* Another half dozen cavalry down
* Another two mortars

At about this point I quit, reloaded, and ran the bastard down with my cavalry!

[Fisherking]

That seems to be a very wise decision on your part.

Three mortars in one shot!?

[Leviathan]

Three mortars in one shot!?

The mortars thing made *no* sense! My mortars were in a single line, and the GB artillery was on maybe a 45-50 degree angle from them, and yet one cannonball somehow managed to bounce sideways and take out three mortars. Barely touched the crew (I think I lost four crew members), but destroyed all the mortars...

[Rothe]

Maybe it hit a mortar when it was just about to fire and the thing blew up and destroyed the other mortars...

Seriously though, it is ridiculous what the AI arty can do compared to the ones the player gets. Their accuracy is really really good and I have given up limbering and moving my guns, because the enemy will always hit them when I am moving them and kill half of the unit with one shot or something. Difficulty should not affect accuracy on the AI units.
Same goes with their infantry, they are really effective and shooting it out is not going to work even with superior troops on the player side.

The game needs serious tuning to make it more enjoyable, especially since it shows a lot of potential if everything was just a little better balanced.

[Leviathan]

Maybe it hit a mortar when it was just about to fire and the thing blew up and destroyed the other mortars...

This is certainly a possibility, though I would have thought there'd be more crew casualties if that was the case.

Seriously though, it is ridiculous what the AI arty can do compared to the ones the player gets. Their accuracy is really really good and I have given up limbering and moving my guns, because the enemy will always hit them when I am moving them and kill half of the unit with one shot or something. Difficulty should not affect accuracy on the AI units.
Same goes with their infantry, they are really effective and shooting it out is not going to work even with superior troops on the player side.

The game needs serious tuning to make it more enjoyable, especially since it shows a lot of potential if everything was just a little better balanced.

I havn't noticed the AI being any more effective in most cases, though I am on normal difficulty. Heck, when their artillery isn't pinpoint sniping my troops, it's usually setup in such a way that firing at my troops fires directly into a hill and never gets anywhere near me.

[Rothe]

I played one campaign on normal difficulty and I was wondering about the complaints of AI arty being too effective. Then I started a new campaign with H/H and I noticed that the AI can hit moving artillery (limbered) with amazing accuracy - so amazing that you should never ever limber and move your artillery if you are in range of the enemy artillery.

[al Roumi]

In my recent (H/H) Ottoman invasion of the Cherokee lands (now that's a re-write of history!), I came accross a similar situation at the hands of the notoriously elite native artillery.

Basicaly, they completely out ranged me -even though I had Ottoman 24lb'er foot artillery with a couple of chevrons. I know there are many threads complaining about the North american Indian forces complete inconsistency with history, so i shan't dwell on that particular issue. I guess it's just another case of one rule for the AI, another for the player.

[crpcarrot]

well obviously u were aiming at one pice of canona while he had much more to aim at even if he missed the intended target he was going to hit something.

so do u reload everytimt u lose? :P

[Monsieur Alphonse]

I find the AI's artillery a little to effective. Reminds me of those sniper ballista in M2TW which always took my general out with their first shot. Last night I attacked a Barbary fortress. I had sixteen cannons but their artillery took them out by one. Mine were hardly hitting the walls. And that on VH.

[crpcarrot]

AI artillery seem to know exactly where to aim, even when out of range they target the ground pretty affectivy to get kills on the bounce

[Dayve]

I've decided that difficulty level has nothing to do with AI artillery accuracy, their shells are simply more accurate than yours are and will always hit more than yours do, no matter what level you're on.

[al Roumi]

I think it's clear from other posts that the AI has bonuses to both range and accuracy on H and VH.

It's a pain in the ass and seems very unfair, but i guess (assuming a modicum of logical reasoning behind this situation) that it's done to force the player to engage (possibly at a disadvantage -or at least requiring more application), rather than sitting back and forcing the AI to do so.

Based on my experiences so far of playing the game with these rules I'm fairly underwhelmed tbh. Its ANOTHER foible to work around.

EDIT: sorry Dayve, i was writing as you posted. there have been a fair few posts on the AI's bonuses at different difficulty settings -I've not played around with the settings enough to differentiate but I agree, any AI arty I've played seems more accurate than mine.

[Dayve]

Now range is something i've never noticed, they may have more range than yours on hard or very hard i suppose, or it could just be that they are firing at the very limit they will allow, hitting the ground in front of your soldiers and the bonuses they get are allowing the cannonballs to bounce a couple of times and hit you.

[al Roumi]

:) that's the trick i tried to counter their battery, to no avail.

[Leviathan]

well obviously u were aiming at one pice of canona while he had much more to aim at even if he missed the intended target he was going to hit something.

And how does that explain one cannonball taking out three mortars, and ten minutes of solid volleys from four artillery (three after the aformentioned patriot cannonball) not taking out a single crew member?

so do u reload everytimt u lose? :P

Only when something stupid and illogical happens. Like when a forth rate fired at one of my second rate admiral flagships (first shot of the battle), and not only did the half a dozen shots that hit set the ship on fire, but the few cannonballs that missed flew over the ship, hitting another second rate, and set *that* ship on fire too.

[crpcarrot]

next time AI has arty dont deploy in range and take it out first thats what i would have done even if it was just one peice of arty. thats what i would have done i wouldnt have sent a whole army after it anyway.

so you shot your own ship up and thats the games fault ? umm well i guess u wot be doing that again right?

[A Very Super Market]

OK, you seem to be being rude on purpose.

He was testing out the arty for fun, and found that the AI had a strange advantage over his. This is unreasonable, because it is on normal difficulty and they are magically more accurate than his own.

He didn't shoot his own ship, an AI ship managed to blow up two undamaged ships of own with a single volley. I think that it is slightly more reasonable, but you should read the post more carefully.

[Leviathan]

so you shot your own ship up and thats the games fault ? umm well i guess u wot be doing that again right?

Have I said something to get a bee in your bonet or are you just being nasty for a living?
Either way, as A Very Super Market said, one volley from an enemy ship took out two of my second rate admiral's flagships. Perhaps you should re-read my post?