Artillery use

[Harris2000]

Is your artillery working? Every time I try to use any of those ballistas catapults or canons on auto fire mode it take for ever to fire if ever and if I set them manually they wait until some of my troupes are around the target ant then hit them. And even so the very fast get over run by enemy cavalry.

[User Name]

To be honest I only use arty when i siege and even then i love my towers so I dont take much arty with me. To anwer your question arty was always slow and in game it has o be that slow so as to not OP it.
however I would like to see better uses for at least ballista

[Nastaroth]

I only use cannons and mangonals.

Mangonals, because they are damn handy !!

Cannons, my Sounds ( BASS ) sounds so awesome when they fire verry addictive.

Arquibusers, use them for the verry same reason.

[Problem Sleuth]

Is your artillery working? Every time I try to use any of those ballistas catapults or canons on auto fire mode it take for ever to fire if ever and if I set them manually they wait until some of my troupes are around the target ant then hit them. And even so the very fast get over run by enemy cavalry.

That's unrealistic how? These things didn't have laser scopes, and if they fired randomly they'd never hit the damn castle walls. If you're using them for field battles... They weren't used for a reason. It's realistic to have them be major suckitude.

[DireklianCliff]

...And even so the very fast get over run by enemy cavalry.

Have you ever tried to push a trebuchet?

[Harris2000]

Have you ever tried to push a trebuchet?

Nop but I believe it was much better than first line

[Tresidentevil]

i love custom battles all siege engines vs all peasants - for sure the most amazing feeling with all those guns firing

[Harris2000]

Hey I would not mind if the same thing true for the AI but in a field battle my catapult fire once and AI one already run out of ammo

[themoob]

Siege weapons can still be useful in battles. Sure they take a long time to reload and are inaccurate, but they have very long range, so you always get a few shots in. And if you're lucky, you get some massive damage on the enemy. I killed an enemy general right at the start of the battle with a lucky treb shot once.

I guess it depends what scale you play on, I used to play on normal where I found siege weapons pretty useless, but now with my new computer I can play large and there's a lot of difference in there.

[Harris2000]

Siege weapons can still be useful in battles. Sure they take a long time to reload and are inaccurate, but they have very long range, so you always get a few shots in. And if you're lucky, you get some massive damage on the enemy. I killed an enemy general right at the start of the battle with a lucky treb shot once.

I guess it depends what scale you play on, I used to play on normal where I found siege weapons pretty useless, but now with my new computer I can play large and there's a lot of difference in there.

I only play on max my computer can hold it

[Clayton Gold]

Artillery seems ok to me - pretty much what I expect - and I try to use it as often as possible. I expect the reload times to be slow, which is why I usually split 50/50 between auto fire and fire on orders - so I can alternate firing somewhat. I also use only exploding ammo; the accuracy isn't much different in my experience.

I find if you can get in around 10-15 good hits on the enemy, this will bring them to the brink of routing.

[obbob]

serpentines and rocket launchers in a field battle.... amazing

[Glade]

We get rocket launchers?

[crackerjack1348]

Yeah, whenever serpentines become available I always take them with my field armies. They're particularly good at smashing up cavalry formations before they can run down your troopers.

[Harris2000]

will it be nice if we could capture the abandoned artillery pieces at least to use them in the next battle

[SunofVich]

One of the things I noticed, especially with cannons, is they refuse to fire when your troops are in front of them. Place them aways for your main army force and they should fire at enemies pretty well.

[Mr.Elendig]

I've used pikes combined with the bombards with great success in the field.

I deploy most of the pikes in a single line, and a couple of units of bombards at one end of the line, defended by a couple of units of pikes/spears.

I let the enemy engage my main line, then I move up the bombards, and shoot down the line. Since the shots from the bombard often bounce, they often hit 2-3 enemy units at once.

Also, serpentines, balistas and mangonels are nice for thinning out heavy infantry and cavalry. Specially when the enemy are waiting for you in a defensive stand.

[Tetsu]

I don't use artillary as a rule of thumb. To me it seems a waste of a slot that can hold more archers/infantry/cav, whatever I need in that stack. The few times I've used it it's never been as effective in my tactics (I use a very fluid style of combat, so the artilleries lack of mobility is a liability) as infantry.

[s0meguy]

I only use 1 trebuchet sometimes when sieging, because I don't want to sacrifice another unit slot and the trebuchet allows me to take a city without the enemy having time to properly organize a defense.

[Gorrrrrn]

Had a big siege battle - didn't bring any artillery to it myself but my French allies did - their trebs and mangonels did a good job on the wooden walls of Vienna.

(meanwhile myself and my Polish allies swarmed over the walls and through the gates aided and abetted by a Venetian GB.)

It was supposed to be a crusade battle but the pope died between me besieging the place and the battle starting, but we all attacked anyway.

Good to see a siege battle with 3000 attackers and 1000 defenders work so well, no slow down or anything. French sat back initially and bombarded the walls, but even they sent their cavalry in for the kill and a unit of macemen picked up some spare ladders I hadn't used and deployed them against a wall.