Guide: How to successfully defeat mortar spam/defensive tactics

[sparkzbarca]

pick your general army strat then follow directions

I'M RUSHING(no artillery of my own)
deploy at start 2 ranks deep and several lines one after another.
place plenty of space between each unit so theres no miss one hit another
this alone will reduce the casualties from mortars to such a small amount, a mortar round will kill MAYBE 4 to 6 guys if it hits.
(obviously if there is no mortar just take a minute to reform he's hardly going to cross the whole map in the time it take you to line back up)

I'M NOT RUSHING

BASIC STRATEGY
bring 2 mortars of your own and target his mortars if he doesnt target your mortars and your in 2 ranks deep, you may be able to wheather the volley until your mortars defeat his, if he does target yours begin moving up right away while he's busy, each shot fired is a shot wasted.

p.s. space out your own mortars for the same reason, you dont want him to target one mortar and hit another, try to take advantage of this yourself if you can, 3 mortars lined up? target the center one with your own.

EXPECTING 2 TO 4 ENEMY MORTARS

ENEMY MORTARS KEPT BEHIND LINES
bring two mortars, start with your whole army deployed at the very back of the map so there out of range and your mortars deployed up front, ignore targeting his mortars, target his cavalry first, then his best infantry(why are you doing this? go on custom battle sometime and tell 2 units of mortars to fire at two others, they take forever to hit such a small target he'll lose hundreds of men trying to take them out even with 4 mortars) the best case scenario and one WHICH I'VE SEEN HAPPEN, he retreats his whole army behind the mortars, in which case see enemy mortars kept in front of lines, and no the answer is not cavalry there. case B you kill large numbers of troops while he kills 2 mortars, given a decent amount of time you can do as much damage to him in the 20 minutes it takes him to take out your 2 pesky mortars as he can do to you in the 10 minutes its going to take you to move up and attack, now the mortars won't decide the battle.

MORTARS IN FRONT OF ARMY
use american long riflemen, or austrian elite jagers, the 800 dollar ones not the cheap 420 ones, and walk up to his artillery and shoot them, they wont know what hit them because they can walk while hidden, he'll have no idea your even approaching, the austrians can even fire while hidden, if cavalry charge drop stakes, and if there americans the long rifle men hardly cost more than mortars anyways, a one for one trade and catch the cav in the stakes and your golden.

EXPECTING 5+ MORTARS

christ that sucks, if you dont wish to mortar yourself this calls for a rush, there is however a few extra stimulations, get 20 units, he's going to hit guys, you can minimize damage by losing 20 militia or linemen instead of 20 elites.

alternatly bring a large horde of skirmishers that hide while moving, not an entire army of them of course, you just want like 8 to 10, take the rest of your army and stay at the very edge of the map out of range.
walk up and begin firing into his best units, 8 to 10 units of skirmishers will do far more damage than they recieve even once they arrive and the mortars finally start firing, carefully micro to keep enemy linemen out of range, if you got american skirmishers, you've got so much extra money your remaining army is nice, do enough damage hopefully disable some mortars, if you've got expensive ones(i think there are other factions besides austria and us that have them) they probably reload faster so you can fire even more between each mortar shot.

post problems/suggestions/anything

Sparkzbarca

MORE TIPS POST 8

[spanish_emperor]

very nice indeed. I haven't played with mortars yet but do normal cannons have more range?

[kungtotte]

No. Mortars and Rockets have the longest range (750), foot-artillery has a range of 400, and I think normal stationary artillery has a range between 500-600 something.

[REBEL555]

Good guide. Thank you for your time posting this.

[Zyphlan]

Indeed good guide. I tried different tactics but i always end up with 6 mortars and a fishnet formation. Im getting sick of steam. I had several disconnects when im winning / losing or when the game is even. But indeed good guide.

[Hostile]

Indeed good guide. I tried different tactics but i always end up with 6 mortars and a fishnet formation. Im getting sick of steam. I had several disconnects when im winning / losing or when the game is even. But indeed good guide.

That NOTHING to do with steam really. It doesnt affect your internet connection in anyway.

[sparkzbarca]

more tips for fighting mortars

during the first volley this is especially effective.

mortars are aimed by the engine during the first second of fire. what that means is if your troops are stationary and then you run forward just at the mortars leave the tube the whole volley will land behind you, alternatly be running and halt just as they leave the tube the whole mass lands in front of you. if your rushing they get MAX 3 volleys before your all over them so this is very nice.

problems with this.
1. as you get closer you have less time to move, so it doesnt work as well but it does still work some.

2. if your halted with multiple units deep and he aims at front unit, you start running he'll just hit the second rank of units instead of the first, as such hope he aims at the front units and run then halt, or dont deploy lots of units deep to prevent this.

FIGHT ON HUGE UNIT SIZE
mortars are unbalanced on some unit sizes, on medium large and huge they get 4 guns all other arty gets only 2 on medium or 3 on large for example this favors mortars on less than huge unit size, 4 guns is balanced for huge unit size play it that way. now each shot does as many kills as it did on large or medium, but those kills mean less because there less of the overall percentage of your unit.

i'm fairly certain left to there own devices to shoot mortars target the closest unit just as other units fire at the first unit in range. make that unit a worthless 400 dollar skirmisher.

if you bring mortars bring 2 exp 5 mortars instead or 4 exp 0 mortars, the bonus of +10 to accuracy is huge, try it is sp custom battle. a unit of 2 experienced mortars will beat 4 unexperienced ones because they will hit fairly often, the 4 others will do alot of missing and once they lose a few guns they've lost there only advantage of numbers. also the experience makes them less likely to rout early and still have a gun avaible to man.

[Bratalix]

What im trying atm is using mass line infantry (not really a super secret move xD) and just line them up nicely, cover them with 2 mortars of your own and some cav, then just march and pray to God like a good soldier should!

[guerra]

I recently played a game with Bhufstader, a 2vs2 match.

I picked the Spanish with a balanced army of line infantry, cavalry, artillery, skirmishers and elite troops.

My ally, Bhufstader, also did the same. A balanced American army.

Unfortunately, our opponents decided to spam mortars. Within the first few moments of the match, my artillery batteries were destroyed from mortar fire and I was forced to launch an attack. I sent my cavalry at my rival's mortars, knowing full well they wouldn't return, but it was enough to keep the mortars off my back for a bit. He spammed elephants, too. Kind of a cheap tactic, my ally helped attack him while the other enemy hid in the forest for us to attack.

Eventually we managed to kill the mortars and the elephants, using mostly cavalry charges and skirmishers (Spanish skirmishers are quite nice!)

and we turned our attention to the British enemy in the woods. He really dug in and had some mortars firing on us, so we had to move pretty quick.

This goes with most defenders, they have a static position. Static positions are very easy to flank, and that's what we did. We attacked from 3 different angles. I didn't think we would win since the Indian mortars really just decimated our numbers, but the flanking moves managed to work. I sent my line infantry in first to take the bullets, then brought my skirmishers from the rear, shooting at his elite troops. Then I sent my elite guards and grenadiers, throwing grenades into their ranks and charging their flank with my elite guards, while my ally brought down a torrent of bullets from a different angle. I was lucky enough to have the enemy facing him, as my troops probably wouldn't have lasted long. The forest really covered his numbers well, but we managed to kill his general and route his troops.

Here's the replay, it will probably provide better insight on how to deal with cheap tactics. Of course, not all mortar spammers use this tactic, but if you see it, you'll know how to deal with it.

Let me know what you think.

Update: I've included another pretty good 2vs2. It shows two Austrian players, one who obviously has an affinity for mortars and jaegars, and then his teammate is a bit more honest and balanced force. As you can see, his deployed mortars killed my horse artillery with a few moments, and I am forced to mobilize my entire army to support my teammate in crushing him.

Look at my (Prussian) line advance. It shows how to deal with the popular Jaegar and Mortar combo. Bayonets and keep your men spread out.

Please post comments, I'm curious to know what you gents think.

Btw, any programs besides fraps I can use to capture video? Preferably open source?

[jo the greek]

Well static players are quite vulnerable in manoeuvres

[Zyphlan]

If your a static player you deserve to lose seeing if someboy can outflank you easily you already screwed up.

[Mordrorru]

If your a static player you deserve to lose seeing if someboy can outflank you easily you already screwed up.

Funny you say that.

[jo the greek]

but some static players choose the right location in the end of map near a cliff and there is no way to outflank them

[Ryttare]

Unless they camp the map corner

[Zyphlan]

It's all about who is smart enough to win the waiting game.

[Metalhead1986]

It's all about who is smart enough to win the waiting game.

Dude is it really smart to waster the afternoon with that?

Somebody did me this with dragoon, I tried attack him several time and he always falled back finally I engaged him but damn... I had like 6 more times men than him and he tried this for me to quit...

[YellowMelon]

I remember somebody had Marathas and it they didn't even leave their deployment zone. I sent Dragoons in and ninja'd the great guns, but the guy wouldnt come towards me, so I just kept playing around with my dragoons on skirmish. If they came towards my army perhaps there would have been a match, but they kept after the dragoons and skirmishers then rage quit.

[RTKBarrett]

It's all about who is smart enough to win the waiting game.

Seeing as this is ure first total war mp experience ill forgive u >.<

[|Sith|Duke_Spartacus]

Seeing as this is ure first total war mp experience ill forgive u >.<

lmao barret i missed your great comments on the Sith forum

[Toorima]

It's all about who is smart enough to win the waiting game.

Why don't you add your wise men's slogan to you signature and then stop to repeat your simple statements about those grandmasters holding that inaccessible hilltop so well.