Unlimited ammo

[powellinthesouth]

I can't believe there's not a thread like this but why do cannons have unlimited ammo?

It's annoying not only when people break online game rules of art but also to have unlimited ammo so they can camp on their hill and fire at me from across the map.

[Brusilov]

Without being silly - artillery have unlimited ammo as that's the way CA designed the game. CA have stated that this won't change either. There have been questions raised in several threads on different topics.

I can appreciate that it's a pain when someone breaks the MP rules - you do have the choice to not continue with the game (even if it does mean you lose experience). The only thing you can do with hill campers, if you are playing 2v2 and both opponents hill camp, is to gang up on one of them. That really upsets them - it's unfair!

[InsanePerson42]

about the ammo. I always disable the time limitations, so the whole thing about artillery having enough ammo for two hours is meaningless to me. The simple fact is that ammunition was frequently a very serious logistical problem, having unlimited ammo is simply not accurately representing the battlefield.


oh and one more thing

I can't believe there's not a thread like this but why do cannons have unlimited ammo?

It's annoying not only when people break online game rules of art but also to have unlimited ammo so they can camp on their hill and fire at me from across the map.

This is exactly the kind of that made me stop playing multiplayer. If it doesn't involve any cheat codes, then it is a perfectly legitimate strategy. If you look at real battlefields you will find that armies and soldiers frequently use "camping" tactics for no other reason than that such tactics are effective. The effectiveness of a strategy is the only important consideration. It is true that in an actual battlefield there are certain rules of war such as "don't shoot civilians" and "don't shoot prisoners", but you should notice that shooting civilians and prisoners does nothing to weaken the enemy war machine, they do nothing to make a strategy more effective, they are just a dick move. But you should also notice that in simulated battlefield environments such as video games there are no civilians or prisoners. In a video game there is absolutely no reason to have any rules other than, don't use cheat codes. In a video game, every possible strategy IS A LEGITIMATE STRATEGY!

If someone is camping on the other side of the battlefield and shooting at you with their artillery, there are ways to counter them; return fire with your own artillery, use your cavalry to flank around and destroy their artillery, use your troops to advance despite their artillery, or any combination thereof! But to simply say that they are using an illegitimate strategy is simple cowardice in my opinion. In fact, If you have a clear view of your enemy, and you have no reason to save your ammo(because it is unlimited) then it seems foolish to wast your troops with any strategy other than sitting on the hill and blasting the enemy from across the map. Of course, this may be another reason why ammo should be limited.

another thing that pisses me off. During multiplayer(primarily FPS multiplayer) I frequently ran into players who did use cheat codes(invincibility, aimbot, unlimited ammo) but they were almost never kicked from the server. It was always the people who were using perfectly legitimate strategies such as camping who were kicked. But the real s( the ones who were using cheats) were never kicked. Does that seem right to you?

you should also note that during the time that I was playing multiplayer I never actually refined these tactics to the point that I could reliably use them. As a result I was never kicked for using such tactics. I am not bearing a grudge over having been personally kicked. I am objecting to the principle of removing perfectly legitimate tactical options by placing a taboo on them, and (more relevant to this specific thread) I am objecting to having unlimited ammo for the artillery.

[Orko]

It's that way because otherwise cannons would be worth much less. especially fixed ones.

[igotballsofsteel]

I dont see any good reason to have unlimited ammo on canon while infantry have very limited ammo ?

[Archimonday]

I like the unlimited ammo on the cannons. As far as exploitation goes you have to look at it this way:

In real life if you could pick an enemy off from a mile a way with artillery, and had an unlimited amount of resources to do it with. You probably wouldn't bother sending in any other armed force unless you absolutely had to. Why waste good infantry if I'm not under attack?

And in another view, if there is a heavily fortified enemy ridge that is doing serious damage to your forces, its usually militarily correct to attack that ridge, or respond equally.

[Yojimbo]

In real life if you could pick an enemy off from a mile a way with artillery, and had an unlimited amount of resources to do it with. You probably wouldn't bother sending in any other armed force unless you absolutely had to. Why waste good infantry if I'm not under attack?

Agreed this is how I interpreted the choice.

[ASL Veteran]

Generally speaking Napoleonic artillery never ran out of ammunition. The batteries kept plenty of ammunition near the guns and there were reserve carts in the artillery trains as well. Regarding the Confederate artillery, I don't know what their situation was, but you should probably keep in mind that their bombardment was on day three of the battle and if those batteries had been in action for substantial portions of the first two days then sure - there may be an ammunition issue. Very few Napoleonic battles were more than a single day affair though. I can only think of a few battles that were multi day battles on back to back days, Leipzig being the most obvious. Total War battles with a timer only last an hour or two so it's even less time than a real battle.

There are a few problems in ETW though with artillery ... first fatigue. Firing a twelve pounder artillery piece is supposed to be a very physically demanding activity. Rolling a two ton piece back into position after every recoil would get old in a hurry. Long bombardments in no way came close to being sustained at the maximum rate of fire. It's just not possible to fire a big artillery piece for that long that fast without the gun crew collapsing from exhaustion.

Next, your line of sight is going to be obscured by battlefield smoke. There is very little smoke on a vanilla ETW battlefield and even the mod probably doesn't affect your pixeltruppen's ability to see their enemy and fire at them. Artillery pieces would have to let the smoke clear for a bit before firing another shot - at least if they wanted to hit anything. You can get a few shots off, but eventually the thick clouds of smoke get pretty bad after a while and you can't see squat. I'm sure our reenactor friends can attest to that.

Last, the size of the battlefield is too small. I'm sure it's limited by computer processing power, but not only are the artillery ranges much shorter in game than they are in reality (about half to one third) the map isn't really big enough to allow your troops to deploy outside of the shortened ranges as they are. Armies typically didn't deploy within effective artillery range of the enemy. Your troops would only be in effective range if they were attacking or if the enemy maneuvered it's artillery into position to bombard the enemy.

So the problem isn't necessarily the ammunition per se, but a whole host of other factors. Sure, individual ammunition could be tracked, but it would just add needless complexity to the game when it's probably superfluous and it seems like CA has enough to worry about just making the game run correctly right now.

[Valantine]

It is quite fustrating at times though, I do feel that the ammo should be limited but the supplies should last for the lenght of an average engagement - whatever that works out to be! Perhaps even leaving the standard solid shot as unlimited and simlpy limiting the upgraded ammo such as Carcass shot etc. - that would add a bit of balance and also stop those hill campers with their devastating special ammo!
V

[NovaColonel]

If real life was E:TW, Picketts charge would have been successful - iirc, the confederate artillery ran out of ammo rather quickly, which is why they were not able to deliver enough preparation and support fire (with some counter battery fire, there would have been much less cannister thrown at the advancing infantry). Well, its good that real life is not like E:TW....

[Keiichi]

If real life was E:TW, Picketts charge would have been successful - iirc, the confederate artillery ran out of ammo rather quickly, which is why they were not able to deliver enough preparation and support fire (with some counter battery fire, there would have been much less cannister thrown at the advancing infantry). Well, its good that real life is not like E:TW....

Well the Confederate artillery was also terribly inaccurate, with most shot passing over the Union front line positions on Cemetery Ridge and landing far to their rear. There was so much smoke from the artillery fire that the Confederates couldn't even see that they were missing their targets, so even having more ammunition may not have helped the rebels that much.

[A1_Unit]

Well the Confederate artillery was also terribly inaccurate, with most shot passing over the Union front line positions on Cemetery Ridge and landing far to their rear. There was so much smoke from the artillery fire that the Confederates couldn't even see that they were missing their targets, so even having more ammunition may not have helped the rebels that much.

Rebels? Let's not get nasty please.

Don't you think that artillery crews in ETW would be able to bring enough ammo to last several hours (i.e. a whole battle in ETW). That means unlimited ammo during the battle. It's not like battles in ETW last days because if they did then unlimited ammo wouldn't be right.

[igotballsofsteel]

Its a major drop down for me the ammo add a lot to the strategy i hope someone try to mod this ...

u have to help the AI by sending your troops cause u can just sit and wait and pwn them all whit your artillery


They should add a button in the option like in rome total war :

realistic battle - limited ammo full effect moral

arcade battle - unlimited ammo no moral

[Keiichi]

Rebels? Let's not get nasty please.

Er, sorry, I did not realize that was a derogatory term. A lot of the literature I've read about the period has Confederates referring to themselves as 'rebels' (i.e. giving the 'rebel yell'), so I didn't realize people would be insulted by that. I didn't mean anything bad by the term .

[A1_Unit]

Er, sorry, I did not realize that was a derogatory term. A lot of the literature I've read about the period has Confederates referring to themselves as 'rebels' (i.e. giving the 'rebel yell'), so I didn't realize people would be insulted by that. I didn't mean anything bad by the term .

If used in that context it is acceptable.

On-Topic:

Unlimited ammo makes sense if you read my previous post.

[Pantz Master76]

Er, sorry, I did not realize that was a derogatory term. A lot of the literature I've read about the period has Confederates referring to themselves as 'rebels' (i.e. giving the 'rebel yell'), so I didn't realize people would be insulted by that. I didn't mean anything bad by the term .

You were not in the wrong, rebel is not derragatory. If you're American you would know that Rebel is a commonly used term to describe the Confederates, much like Yankee was used to describe the Union.

[dmcheatw]

Er, sorry, I did not realize that was a derogatory term. A lot of the literature I've read about the period has Confederates referring to themselves as 'rebels' (i.e. giving the 'rebel yell'), so I didn't realize people would be insulted by that. I didn't mean anything bad by the term .

they were rebels, you're terminology was correct.

I'd also like to add that in addition to the ineffectual artillery barrage which you pointed out, the union line had the advantage of a stone wall and a recent troop redeployment that actually put more units in the union center.

[Richard Sharpe]

Well the Confederate artillery was also terribly inaccurate, with most shot passing over the Union front line positions on Cemetery Ridge and landing far to their rear. There was so much smoke from the artillery fire that the Confederates couldn't even see that they were missing their targets, so even having more ammunition may not have helped the rebels that much.

Thats actually factually incorrect. The Confederate artillery did tremendous damage to 2nd Corps battery's near the clump of trees and wrecked havoc on the union line from Hancocks knoll to cemetery hill. Lets not get involved in lost cause revision here.

The confederate attack failed because they did not have enough fresh artillery batteries to provide close in fire support, eight supporting brigades did not move to support the assault (especially along the flanks), and some of the units of Hill's Corps choosen to participate in the assault had no business being on a battlefield considering the pounding they took on July 1st.


Oh ya, those tough veteran Yankee infantrymen had something to do with it also

[Chevalier IX]

If real life was E:TW, Picketts charge would have been successful - iirc, the confederate artillery ran out of ammo rather quickly, which is why they were not able to deliver enough preparation and support fire (with some counter battery fire, there would have been much less cannister thrown at the advancing infantry). Well, its good that real life is not like E:TW....

nah,they would have just continued missing the Federal Batteries forever instead of the 3 hours or so they kept up their cannonade

[SMIDSY]

If real life was E:TW, Picketts charge would have been successful - iirc, the confederate artillery ran out of ammo rather quickly, which is why they were not able to deliver enough preparation and support fire (with some counter battery fire, there would have been much less cannister thrown at the advancing infantry). Well, its good that real life is not like E:TW....

There was a bit more wrong with Pickett's Charge than ammo for the artillery. They ran out of ammo fast because they were firing just about every cannon in the Army of Northern Virginia at the same time. Even if they had delivered a good barrage against the Federal position, they still had to march over a mile in open country. The fact that the rebels even made it all the way across before they were repulsed is astounding.


I've always found it a mystery why an otherwise successful General such as Lee would make such an elementary mistake like that.