This Artillery Fixation is getting a bit old now.

[Didz]

Anyone else getting a bit bored with the AI's artillery targetting obsession?

Its got so predictable now that I use artillery just as bait in a trap, and the AI swallows it every damned time. Its bad enough that you have to constantly slap your own artillery round the head every few minutes to get them to stop firing at the enemies guns and target something useful. But whoever programmed the battlefield AI knew nothing about the period depicted. You certainly didn't charge the enemies guns head-on, and definately not when they are fully protected by supporting infantry and cavalry.

Where is this amazing AI that we were promised?

[Dayve]

Where is this amazing AI that we were promised?

That's what i want to know.

[Phog_of_War]

As the game is constructed now counter-battery fire in the period is innacurate, wasteful of ammunition and, except for certian incidents, simply ahistorical. Effective CB really came about once field guns were rifled and the rounds themselves improved. Not to mention advances in gunnery schooling and tactics. Obviously, someone like Forward Observer, who knows way more about artillery than I (I'm an Air Force guy) could comfirm my statements but I believe they are accurate.

As far as a solution goes, perhaps the AI artillery could be made to ignore enemy guns unless well in range. And the AI infantry and cav need to stop charging defended guns. Just the other day I saw the AI sacrificing a unit of elite infantry to keep my cannon battery busy while they charged in cav from behind. A good move except for using an elite unit as cannon fodder and the fact that the AI didnt try to screen its movements at all. And because of this tactical blunder the AI attack on my guns was repulsed with extreme prejudice.

I'm not going to complain about the battle AI because that is like But it seems like the AI should at least screen/support an attack or at least not use expensive, elite units to charge well defended artillery positions.

[Didz]

Well I think the issue is that we were told the AI in this game was an improvement, when in fact at best its no different, and in places much worse than pervious versions of the game.

[Hosakawa Tito]

I can understand counter battery fire till more threatening targets get within effective range, but AI target priority selection doesn't make tactical sense. Even the player's own artillery makes dumb choices when left to their own devices. My 12lber's seem to ignore the immediate threat right in front of them and target their canister shot at another unit that isn't about to over-run their position.

I will give the AI this though; they target your general quite well and you disregard that at your peril. I usually keep my general mid formation and what I think is well back. On quite a number of occassions during full stack battles my general's unit takes 50% casualties or more. I've been getting into the habit of trying to use cover, trees or the back side of a hill, to protect him better.

[Dead Guy]

What I find most annoying is when artillery target the ends of units coming at them with cannister shot. I can't figure out why. It's not that hard to point the cannon in the right direction is it? Especially when the target is 50 men wide. As it is now, if you click to attack a unit, cannister sometimes just shaves 1-3 men off of the edge of the target unit, whereas if you do it yourself (why do I have to do everything myself? ), target manually right in front of the unit in the center, you can kill more than 10 men with one shot and frequently get them wavering or broken if combined with a volley from the line. It's like the gatling laser shooting at an angle in extra stupid generic postapocalyptic FPS 3.

[Zajuts149]

Man, I'm still happy that I didn't pay to Beta-test this game. After I read that it's got Dismounting of cavalry, I'm not buying anymore TW games until we get it in M2..

[lars573]

So your never buying another TW game then. Because dismounting unit are never going to be in M2. It's done.

[Zajuts149]

It's not done. It's just CA who's done with it. They've dropped it to publish another half-baked product on the market.

[lars573]

Units that can switch between foot and mounted aren't possible in M2. They built the ability into Empires engine because it seemed to be wanted.

[Didz]

I think its quite ironic that they have chosen to implement the dismount function in ETW, which actually happens to set in a period when the practice of dismounting to fight was in the decline.

[Forward Observer]

As the game is constructed now counter-battery fire in the period is innacurate, wasteful of ammunition and, except for certian incidents, simply ahistorical. Effective CB really came about once field guns were rifled and the rounds themselves improved. Not to mention advances in gunnery schooling and tactics. Obviously, someone like Forward Observer, who knows way more about artillery than I (I'm an Air Force guy) could comfirm my statements but I believe they are accurate.

As far as a solution goes, perhaps the AI artillery could be made to ignore enemy guns unless well in range. And the AI infantry and cav need to stop charging defended guns. Just the other day I saw the AI sacrificing a unit of elite infantry to keep my cannon battery busy while they charged in cav from behind. A good move except for using an elite unit as cannon fodder and the fact that the AI didnt try to screen its movements at all. And because of this tactical blunder the AI attack on my guns was repulsed with extreme prejudice.

I'm not going to complain about the battle AI because that is like But it seems like the AI should at least screen/support an attack or at least not use expensive, elite units to charge well defended artillery positions.

From what I've read, you are correct in that counter battery fire, as a studied and purposely used tactic, was not common in the 18th century. Obviously artillery duels happened if the situation arose, but given the technological level of the guns of the period, artillery was best used for either breaking up massed infantry formations or siege work. In other words, artillery needed large targets at the time.

True counter battery fire by modern definitions would most likely be accomplished by also using the modern definition of true indirect fire. By true indirect fire, I mean shooting at an unseen target miles away, using information processed by a command control center, which is in turn is provided by some method of remote target observation.

By these definitions, counter battery fire only started to be seen around the time of the American civil war, and was only fully implemented with the technology needed to fully support it was available around start of the 20th century.

As for protecting direct fire units from frontal assault, lately I've been using the light infantry when available to plant stakes in front of my light horse 6 pounders. I have the light infantry unit lined up in front the artillery unit with the arty "fire at will" button turned off prior to ending unit placement. After starting the battle, I have the infantry plant their stakes, then move them out of the way, and put the artillery back on fire at will. While it won't stop infantry, it will help stop a frontal cavalry charge which is one less thing to worry about.

Even with all the functionality problems of the artillery---as the game stands now, I rarely field a full army stack without at least four howitzer units, one mortar unit, and two light horse 6 pdrs. That only leaves 13 slots for my general plus infantry and cavalry. Still, with this mix I routinely get 10 and 12 to one kill ratios even when out numbered 1.5 to one. I was saving screen captures of such battle results, but when I hit 20 or so, I stopped.

I read in the developer's daily update thread that they are going to alter the ranges and accuracy of the the indirect fire weapons. I think this is mostly due to complaints from on-line players and I hate to hear it. While they need to correct the lack of functionality, I don't think they need to nerf the big guns just because on-line players who favor infantry and cavalry over artillery, can't figure out how to use it, or contend with it.


Cheers

[Fisherking]

That is all too true! Online play should not result in weakening the single player mode.

if there is a problem, then give it separate files to work with.

It is hard to say that artillery is too deadly and needs to be nerfed in single player. Most of the time it is hard to justify dragging it along.

[Phog_of_War]

Thanks FO. Its always nice to have the "useless" information I learned in College, be confirmed by someone with real world experience.

[AussieGiant]

I also agree. Nice info there FO.

[al Roumi]

Never mind that the AI is fixated with sacrificing units to negate a perceived threat, the fact that the very threat posed by arty is of less consequence than it should be is more of an issue IMO.

[Skott]

Its a shame they have to alter the range because of whats happening in MP but I can see that they have to do something rather than nothing. I just wish it didnt have to effect those of us that dont play MP.

[NimitsTexan]

I read in the developer's daily update thread that they are going to alter the ranges and accuracy of the the indirect fire weapons.

The problem was that CA made indirect fire weapons, particularly mortars, longer ranged than cannon, when in reality, the opposite was true. Reducing the range of mortars and the like will improve game, both for online competition and for off-line historical accuracy.

[nafod]

Agree with NimitsTexan

Mortars/howitzers of the era did not outrange direct fire cannons. There isn't anything else to say about the sad state of artillery in this game....

[Dayve]

I think artillery damage is implemented brilliantly to be honest. Every musket armed unit in this game is devastating once you have fire by rank researched. If you put your artillery on a small hill behind your line and bombard various enemy units as they come toward you, even if the artillery doesn't kill a single man in that unit they still take a morale hit from being under artillery fire, then when they reach your line they take a volley from each line of whatever units are in range and they route instantly.

What I'm saying here is that battles are already over in a flash of musket smoke, why make them end even quicker by increasing the accuracy and damage of artillery?

I think they should be left as they are. Furthermore i think musket accuracy should be slightly reduced, and musket damage greatly reduced. If, as i read a short while ago, 20% casualties in a battle in this period was considered devastatingly high, then artillery in this game is fine, because even with a high number of good tech guns you're still only going to pick off around 5% of your enemies numbers with artillery fire, and the rest with the main weapon of the day, infantry.

[Didz]

The problem was that CA made indirect fire weapons, particularly mortars, longer ranged than cannon, when in reality, the opposite was true. Reducing the range of mortars and the like will improve game, both for online competition and for off-line historical accuracy.

Ah! well that is true, and I must admit I was a little surprised at the range available to 'mortars', which were essentially short range seige weapons. So, maybe its not going to be a problem, although cannon in general probably ought to have a longer range in truth. They were effective up to 800 yards, the only real problem was being able to see something worth firing at.

[Forward Observer]

I thought I might clarify what I read about the possible changes to the indirect fire artillery. They stated that they are only going to reduce the range of howitzers. They are not planning on reducing the range of the mortars, but are instead going to make them less accurate.

While I agree that the range they gave mortars is not realistic, I think they purposely gave them longer ranges to counter the fact that they are immobile once the battle starts. They are already fairly inaccurate, so they are best used in for pounding at fixed targets which in this game could include the inside area of a fort, a fixed gun emplacement, or a building containing troops. However, you just don't get that big a percentage of fort sieges in this game.

Given the restrictions on where one is able to place their units before starting the battle, a short ranged immovable mortar would become almost useless for anything other than a siege.

While this is probably more historical, I have sort of come to be depend on mortars for their ability to reach out and force an enemy to have to come to me. This has allowed me to turn offensive battles in to defensive ones where my other artillery can take their toll on the attackers before they ever reach my lines.

I also realize that in reality howitzer did not have the range of the direct fire guns due to their barrel design which was mainly for lobbing explosive shells, but like another poster mentioned I would rather see them increase the range of the direct fire cannons to correct the difference rather than decrease the range of the howitzers. With the speed that ground troops move across the battlefield in the this game you sometimes don't get too many howitzer volleys in before the enemy is inside their range

Actually, according to several of my books on Napoleonic artillery the effective range of cannons and howitzers were not that different.

The reason for this is that the cannons up through the time of Napoleon used 0 to 1 degree elevation to achieve the low angle ricochet effect that took out ground troops. The round would actually hit the ground at about 400 yards, bounce 200 more, then 100 yds more on a third bounce, and possibly roll anther 50 yards. Firing the solid shot like this insured that it stayed below the height of a man until it was spent.

Although higher angles of elevation could increase the range any high lessened the ricochet effect and the chance that the round would stay below human head level.

What this meant was that the effective ranges for all but the largest cannons were about the same as the howitzers.

Here are the ranges for French guns from the period

I might add that both cannons and howitzers could fire cannister although this is not modeled in Empire. Because of the larger bores of howitzers they actually made better shotguns than cannons did because they could deliver a larger quantity of cannister shot.


-------------------Max range----------effective range-------effective range with cannister
4 pdr.---cannon-----1200 yds.-------------700 yds------------------400 yds
6 pdr.---cannon-----1500 yds.-------------700 yds------------------450 yds
8 pdr.---cannon-----1700 yds.-------------800 yds------------------550 yds
12 pdr.--cannon-----1800 yds.-------------900 yds------------------600 yds
6 inch---howitzer----1500 yds.-------------700 yds------------------550 yds

Because howitzers were designed to fire shells, they were generally not rated in the weight of the shot like cannons were, but were measured by the diameter of the bore just like mortars.

I also have the figures for Austria, Britain, Prussia, and Russia at the time, but they are not that different and I am too lazy to post them.

To be honest, the main reason that I don't want them to change the artillery is purely selfish.

I've just gotten so used to consistently annihilating every army I come up against late game with my big guns, and I mean so well that I rarely suffer more than 10% casualties, that I just don't want to lose any of their effectiveness. Of course I am only playing on the normal battle difficulty, which I assume is relatively easy anyway.

Cheers

[Didz]

Actually, I stand corrected. I've just checked the range of mortars and apparently they had a longer range than cannon 670-1,670 yards as opposed to 1,340 yards for a 24 pounder gun. Surprised me I must admit.
[Those figures are from de Vernon's, Treatise on the Science of War and Fortification 1817.]

The other surprising thing was the range of cannister, and I found myself wondering why if it had such a long range its use was so limited. Apparently, the British restricted its use to ranges under 350 yards, whilst the French allowed it up to 600 yards.

There seem to be two possible reasons for this,

Firstly, the amount of cannister carried by a battery was limited and so it was saved for the most opportune/desperate moments of the battle.

Each British 6pdr Gun carried 88 shot, 12 Shrapnell, 8 Heavy Case (long range cannister), 8 Light Case (Short Range Cannister)

Secondly, the reason they didn't carry a greater quantity of cannister in preference to roundshot is most likely because cannister was known to damage the barrel of the gun when it was fired. Apparently roundshot left the barrell pretty cleanly and did little internal damage to it, where as cannister because of its nature tended to disintegrate during firing and would score the inside of the barrel which over time with repeated firing would render the gun useless.

So, basically it seems its use was arbitarily restricted.

Like you I've got used to goading the enemy into attacking me by artillery bombardment, so I'm not too keen on anything that reduces the range of the guns. By rights it ought to take a man at least 5 minutes if not more to walk from extreme artillery range to the mouth of the gun, and in that time the gunners ought to be able to get off at least 5 rounds, and in the final minute possibly three rounds of cannister. Compare that to the actual in game results and you realise that the battlefields need to be wider and the gun ranges longer.

[al Roumi]

Prodding the AI to attack your neatly deployed battle line is a lot easier with mortars. Because they out-range cannon it's possible to prompt even a dug-in AI force with fixed cannon to attack you and abbandon their defenses & cannon.

I think Mortars should have their range crimped, but perhaps be deployable with a ready made breast-work defense. That way they will remain usefull for sieges, but unable to do what wrecks on-line play by firing accross the battlefield from a secure position.

[AussieGiant]

And here we all are talking about not making the game harder, when everyone says it's so easy...I have to laugh.

I also remember them saying they are slowing down movement in the game as well. This is a hugely important piece of information for a variety of different reasons as I'm sure everyone can get.

I think the game balance will be a major part of the next patch. Some may like it some my not, but it will be a significant change I believe.

[Didz]

And here we all are talking about not making the game harder, when everyone says it's so easy...I have to laugh.

I was not aware of anyone saying that at all. I thought we were discussing not nerfing the artillery when it was already underpowered. Thats not making the game easier, its just making it even more a-historic. (key point: The AI uses artillery too)

[AussieGiant]

My statement was in reference to a few people who go on the offensive and then use arty to spur the AI into attacking thereby allowing them to play defensively.

A reduction in range is regarded as not desirable as it will reduce their ability to activate the ai into attacking.

That's all.

[CBR]

The other surprising thing was the range of cannister, and I found myself wondering why if it had such a long range its use was so limited. Apparently, the British restricted its use to ranges under 350 yards, whilst the French allowed it up to 600 yards.

As the balls spread out as well as lose energy they had to keep the range short.

The tin case would disintegrate when it left the barrel so there would not be any extra barrel wear.

So they never had that many canister rounds because they would rarely get to shoot that many as the enemy infantry would either be advancing or getting shot to pieces rather quickly.


CBR

[Didz]

My statement was in reference to a few people who go on the offensive and then use arty to spur the AI into attacking thereby allowing them to play defensively.

A reduction in range is regarded as not desirable as it will reduce their ability to activate the ai into attacking.

That's all.

What you mean like the British did at Colluden?

Pretty unsporting but if the AI has turned up without any decent artillery like the Scots, what do you expect.

As the balls spread out as well as lose energy they had to keep the range short.

Thats why the batteries carried heavy case.

The tin case would disintegrate when it left the barrel so there would not be any extra barrel wear.

Well unfortunately, Captain Mercer as well as a number of other writers from the period beg to differ. The point is that any round which was not a solid ball becomes compressed as it travels up the barrel and effectively the only thing that prevents it spreading laterally to diserpate the energy behind it is the wall of the barrel, hence you get more barrel wear. Attempts were made to reduce this problem by placing a sabot behind the missile package which would act a bit like a plunger and push the missiles up the barrel but gunners of the time still noted that guns employed heavily in the firing of case shot wore out faster than guns that were employed soley for bombardment.

So they never had that many canister rounds because they would rarely get to shoot that many as the enemy infantry would either be advancing or getting shot to pieces rather quickly.

Well again I'm quoting from official documents from the early 19th century quoting the instructions to gunnery officers on the correct employment of case/cannister and they state 350 yards (British) 600 yards (French). Having said that we know that Mercer was actually using heavy case over round shot at virtually pointblank range against cavalry at Waterloo. He was also very concerned that one of his most worn guns might burst under the strain.

[CBR]

Well unfortunately, Captain Mercer as well as a number of other writers from the period beg to differ.

Nonetheless when Prussians tested case shot they fired 240 rounds from one gun without any problems. Some contemporary accounts might have considered it worse but it certainly was not the reason for the lower numbers of such ammunition.

Thats why the batteries carried heavy case

And heavy case still spreads out so much that at one point it would be better to use round shot. The British also used Shrapnel for longer ranges which was a round the French did not have. A Prussian test showed about 1/3 hits (against wooden wall) from heavy case at 450 meters and we would have halve that for actual hits so would be 5 hits per shot. If shooting at a column it might even be better to use round shot.

Well again I'm quoting from official documents from the early 19th century quoting the instructions to gunnery officers on the correct employment of case/cannister and they state 350 yards (British) 600 yards (French)

And that is considered a rather short range because an advancing infantry force would give the artillery at best maybe 10 shots before being overrun or having to pull out. Artillery would find itself shooting at long ranges for much longer compared to case shot range hence the need for round shot which of course also were best against buildings or redoubts.

He was also very concerned that one of his most worn guns might burst under the strain.

Yes double shots and high fire rate would put a lot of stress on guns.


CBR