Artillery aesthetic and formations tip - bah it doesn't work :(

[Taiji]

I just discovered you can set up an arty unit in the EDU as specified below:

Light Artillery:

category         siege
class            light

Artillery:

category         siege
class            missile

Heavy Artillery:

category         siege
class            heavy

Which means you can have seperate blocks for different types in formations_ai, e.g.

    begin_block 5
        max_units               8
        unit_type               phalanx      		2.0
        unit_type               spearmen infantry   1.0
	unit_type	       	     light siege  		1.0
etc....

To explain further: This allows you to create a formation for the AI which places light arty on their front line or wherever, while keeping the heavy arty protected behind the lines.

The nice aesthetic touch is that these arty units will now have tooltip labels that describe them as 'Light Artillery' and 'Heavy Artillery' to distinguish them from the previously known 'Artillery', which can act as medium.

I haven't found a problem with it since discovering it earlier today...

edit: Hmm testing is going badly. The AI seems to be treating arty like infantry - not good!

I guess they really need that 'missile' class afterall, damn

[MiiKLL]

Hello Taiji...

Darn...still a very good find. Maybe something will pop out in testing to make it workable....

[Taiji]

I have a related idea for something that would be very nice.

A 'Mantlet' (wheeled siege pavise) that is pushed into combat.

Missile fire would become more inaccurate for firing over/around them, if it did not simply stop the projectiles (as I suspect it would, like it does for towers).

They would afford protection from a cav charge.

It'd require a melee combat crew.

Basically the effect would be something like the sadly non-existant hussite war wagons but with the wheels pointing in a different direction. Mobile fortifications.