Artillery is frustrating the hell out of me

[Taiaha]

Having played a few more scenarios now, I'm still not sure the limber/unlimber is working properly. For example, today I was replaying the second scenario where you are commanding Heth's devision. I repeatedly gave the battery on the far left of Heth's line (I'm blanking on the name) the order to limber up, after TCing the battery. Two of the guns limbered up, two didn't and remained firing at distant troops. Could it have something to do with terrain? The guns seemed to be on different levels. The guns limber up just fine if I give the entire battery a move order, however. The same thing happened again when I moved my batteries closer. I tried to get two of them to limber up to relocate again, and they didn't respond, just kept firing. Now, I can understand batteries refusing to limber up if they feel threatened. But by that point they were shelling the most distant of Cutler's regiments.

Of course, this was the game I DIDN'T save.

Anyone else seeing this?

[RebBugler]

Ya know, I've never seen this problem because I never use the limber command. Why? It's just a useless (for me) step. Just move them, they will limber if the distance warrants it. If they are receiving infantry fire, retreat them, this is the only time they won't automatically limber with a move command.

Of course, moving with the battery commander TC'd always works, whereas unTC'd can be iffy.

[GShock]

I fully agree. Although I am quite good at capturing batteries, it has always seemed a bit 'gamey' to have, pause, to reform the regiment, pause, give it the location of the next gun, pause, double time, pause, charge! Better, would be to give a regiment the initial location of the guns to overrun and then automatically capture all the guns within 10-20 yards, if the regiment makes it to the guns. This would also make it a bit harder to capture the guns as a sizeable portion of the battery would be fighting off their attackers, not just 15 men, (they always loose).

This is a very good idea. Guns should be considered in an area of 50 yds as the same unit and work just like a regiment does for the purpose of targeting/charge/capturing.

What happens right now is that you target, shoot and kill one gun, you get 3 cannister shots from the remaining three. You shoot or capture the second gun, and you take 2 more cannister shots from the other two, you shoot or capture the third gun, and again you take another shot, you capture finally the 4th gun. Oh of course the fact the guns MIGHT be forced to aim again is the only thing that saves the regiment... in any case, the regiment itself is really hit very hard when capturing guns just because of the fact they are considered to be separate entities even when they are so close to one another.

Once captured, it would indeed be nice to have the option of spiking the guns. Almost always, I would rather keep the men rather than the guns.

Because even the goblin shortbowmen kill more efficiently than the artillery as it is now.

[Cruiser]

I have a different approach to attacking guns with infantry. It is unchanged from TC2M. Here 'tis:

1. Always take command and attack with 2 regiments.
2. Realize that the battery will inflict casualties - that is why I use 2 Regts. This way, the damage is spread between 2 units.
3. Advance until about 50 yards or less.
4. Hit Charge button on 1 regiment.
5. After a few seconds, hit charge on 2d regiment.
6. After 1 gun is captured, immediately have that regiment Charge again.
7. Have the 2 regiment charge any remaining gun(s).
8. Continue until all guns in the battery are captured.
9. Immediately reform the two regiments to defend against AI counter-attack.
10. Move the remainder of the brigade to the area and defend while the two assaulting regiments rest with the brigade commander nearby.

I prefer to use smaller, rested regiments for this when possible.

Attacking and capturing guns with infantry is one of my favorite parts of the game and something I seek to do whenever possible.

[DrMike1997]

Want an even gamier way to capture guns :dry:
1. Take command of a regement
2. Order them into column formation :unsure:
3. Double time them to as close to the guns as you can :blink:
4. While still in column formation hit the charge button
5. Repeat charge button as soon as possible and before the regiment can shake out into line :laugh:

Totally unrealistic tactics for the ACW but it works. I even used it in an MP game I was in the weekend the game came out. I was shocked that the other side didn't howl in protest!

[Taiaha]

These are both great suggestions for capturing guns, and I used both of them in TC2M. My success in using them here has been mixed and that is mainly due to the tendency of individual guns to go walkabout. The McPherson's ridge scenarios are a great example of this. The Federal guns are rolled about willy nilly to the point where you even end up with some of them down in the railroad cut (would loved to have seen them do that in RL). Therefore, when you attempt to capture battery, that battery can often be spread out across a pretty wide area. Playing Heth the other night I also ended up in the somewhat strange position that my troops couldn't see the last gun down in the railroad cut, but that gun could apparently see well enough to fire bucketloads of double cannister at me. So I couldn't get them to charge it (morale was fine, etc.). Trying to move them closer used up valuable time that the enemy gunners used to pour lead into me. One entire regiment was driven back by a single gun.

The bottom line is, while the suggested strategies usually work, we wouldn't have to resort to them if there was a realistic battery capture mechanic here, so this would be at the top of my list for a future feature patch.

[norb]

Thank you for exposing all your secrets here I will be working hard behind the scenes to teach my AI how to defend against such non honorable tactics.

[DrMike1997]

Good! we shouldn't be able to do these things. Up the canister hit in both casulties and morale hit to units in column should stop my tactic!

[GShock]

Another nice feature would be to actually let the servers rout but leaving the gun where it stands for you to capture. We shouldn't really be forced to charge the gun as the only chance to capture it... Muskets can kill servers and rout them so we don't strictly need to charge into cannister range. Just a thought.

[Taiaha]

What Gshock said!

It is a little unrealistic to have the only "rout" behavior be packing up the entire gun and getting out of Dodge. This is one area where I think Empire: TW has the edge in realism (and I hasten to add that when comparing ETW to SOW that is probably the *only* time you will hear me say that!): the servers run for their lives if they take too many casualties and leave the guns where they are. (BTW, for those who haven't played Napoleon yet, one nice feature is that if the coast is clear, the artillery unit will often try to return to its guns. . .rather than charging the enemy line which was the standard behavior in ETW!).

By all means, teach the AI to defend against our sneaky tactics. But make those tactics unnecessary by making gun capture realistic.