Artillery Fire at Will

[Peasant Phill]

While I'm at it, has anyone noticed that when telling a cannon to attack an infantry unit with canister shot, the cannon seems to aim for the sides of the infantry formation, and not the center?

Yep, noticed that to.
Just this day there were a huge number of enemy millitia units right in front of my two 12lb foot cannons. I tell them to focus there cannister shot at the closest unit in the middle thinking that it would result in a horrouble amount of carnage. Unfortunatly the cannon crews aimed to the side of the stationarry target and got almost no kills. It was actually hard to hit that few men.

[al Roumi]

Yep, noticed that to.
Just this day there were a huge number of enemy millitia units right in front of my two 12lb foot cannons. I tell them to focus there cannister shot at the closest unit in the middle thinking that it would result in a horrouble amount of carnage. Unfortunatly the cannon crews aimed to the side of the stationarry target and got almost no kills. It was actually hard to hit that few men.

For me, even micro'ing doesn't solve the issue. A barrage of cannister shot from a 3 gun battery theoretically has the spread to annihilate a single (3 to 4 rank deep) unit. Currently, the most you can hope for is inflicting casualties up to 1/3 the unit size -unless they are formed in a column.

Batteries loaded with cannister shot should IMO, when targeting a specific unit, "share" their fire over the formation, rather than (as now) aiming all guns at the same point (as pointed out, the corner of the unit). The first shot kills, the following 2 fly over corpses.

The best i can achieve while micro-ing, and if your guns fire at different intervals, is to spread the fire out by clicking a different target before each gun fires. Can't do that for more than a unit at a time though really and what causes delays in firing is subject to more factors than i think are controlable (rotation for aiming is the only manageable factor, possibly).

[Marquis of Roland]

Well this would jsut be more micro but I was thinking, what happens when you aim at the ground with canister? I was wondering if clicking on the ground right in front of the target as you're about to fire would cause more casualties. I'm a howitzer guy myself and not too familiar with canister trajectory, although from custom battles I found the best range for that was between around 40m to 80m. The day I fired a point-blank canister volley over the heads of the attacking line was the day I stopped using cannons lol.

[Flavius Gonzo]

I've had limitted success with micro'ing the cannister shot. (Though, definitely for mortars, howitzers & round shot, shooting the ground works really well.)

I've had some luck hitting enemy formations with cannister by firing at the ground just inside their effective range, when the enemy is just outside of it. I can't tell though if shooting the ground near an enemy in range works better though. Once the enemy has closed, there is so much else needing your attention, it is tough to micro just your cannon fire. (There is always a few units that need to be re-positioned at the flanks, and invariably, a unit of missle cav about to be trapped in the corner by melee inf.)

So, I still can't tell if aiming at the ground is worthwhile or if it's better just to fire at units directly and hope for the best. My current strategy is to shoot the ground just with cannister shot just before the enemy comes within range, and then have cannons fire away at specific units. (Exception -- fighting an army with predominantly melee inf or lots of cav, then I always shoot the ground.)

What say the rest of you -- do you micro your cannister shot all the time? One mitigating factor is that a shot to the corner of one unit may destroy the unit next to it, so it's not always a wasted shot.

I still think that Arty rules the battlefield in ETW, even with the buggy behavior. For me artillery units almost often have the highest # of kills. The only thing holding them back is all the damned blue on blue shooting.