Need help enjoying this game-Land combat problems)

**yaang** · February 19, 2010, 05:47 AM

Ok first of all i love the game, the era, land combat. But there are several things that really annoy me. I'm trying to be optimistic right now and hoping some of you will tell me that I'm being an idiot and stuff I'm talking about has very easy solutions or simply I'm doing it wrong.

-Damn cannons

They just fire and kill friendlies even when they are supposed make longs shots, where the cannon should have been angled upwards. Is this a bug ?

In addition I can never make them to stop shooting. I turn off fire at will then order them to stop and attend to front lines only to find they never stopped and killed half of my reserves. How do I make them stop ?

Mortars seem to be stupid when the enemy unit i ordered them to attack closes in they track them untill some proximity then start shooting places that just doesn't make sense. I re-order them to attack but they just keep shooting nothingness. I mean if the target is too close why doesn't it go back and shoot then ? Is this a also a bug ?

-Damn Infantry

Several times in every combat i see my units just stand there and enjoy the view while enemy infantry guns them down painfully slowly. They still got ammo, i keep ordering them to attack they just don't do anything. How to fix this ? And why does this happen to begin with ?

They just don't do anything when they are attacked from sides or back.

Ok so first thing they teach you at the army is marching forward, turning left,right and turning 180 degrees. It's basically just a discipline training today because you never use those except in formal events and stuff. But these stuff were essential combat stuff for 18 century.
My question is there a way to make units turn left,right,180 degrees easily. Because when a units is attacked from flank i re-position them accordingly then they break formation run around and try to regroup the new way i ordered which takes forever.

Also when an odd man stays behind for some reason rest of the unit can't attack. Is there a way to fix that ?

I organize my units in the deploy phase for 10 minutes, when the battle begins if the enemy places the units directly in front of me i can use the forawrd button on the lower right to make them move without breaking formation but if they are slightly on left/right I'm

ed because turn left and right buttons turn each units separately and breaking the formation of the army in general. Is there a correct way to turn the entire army ?

One of the key tactics of the era seems to be missing or maybe I couldn't find how to do it. I'm talking about the tactic when the infantry on the front line shoots, runs back and becomes the last line of the group while the second line steps forward and becomes the front line and starts reloading. It's a like fire and advance but they are are not advancing. Is there a mod or something to add this ?

How to win back the units that are running away ? I see AI doing this but can't figure out how ?

Is there a way to join units in the battle ? For example say I have a 50/120 and a 60/120 unit can i join them into a 110/120 unit somehow ? Also can i split them ?

Damn walls

I can't use walls, I mean i order the units to take cover behind the wall but when the do they don't attack at all ? Do I have to do something special to make them attack while taking cover behind the wall ?

Damn AI

Is there a way to modify AI so it doesn't think it's smarter then me and try to flank me in every combat several times ?

Campaign Map

Why is it that AI forces you to be the only country in the world ? I mean they just won't agree with anything you offer(1 region country in war with me, a 75 region country i offer them peace and they tell me they are insulted so i rape) and force you to destroy them. And is there a fix for that ?

Why can't I attack fleets in harbors ? I mean it's not that hard to do they are standing still and everything.

Organ Gun

I see that Ottomans can produce organ gun and even in the early stages of the game but I can't find how ?

TL;DR

How do i fix this game ?

**hobopunk** · February 19, 2010, 06:36 AM

There's no organs guns in the normal edition of the game because there is a 'special' edition with 5 or 6 new units for an extra tenner or something.

**TheAussieDigger** · February 19, 2010, 06:39 AM

on art:

only howitzers and mortars are able to shoot over the backs of ur infantry. foot artillery and demi-cannons will shoot at a low-trajectory and kill ur own men. so in other words: dont put ur men right in front of cannons

if getting rid of fire at will and stop doesnt work, just make them shoot somewhere nowhere near anything, at least they wont do any damage

mortars have a minimum range. their arc of fire is such that they cna thoost anything which is closer than say 150m to them. this isnt a fault, this is historically accurate

on infantry:
make sure fire at will is on. they should start firing. if they dont, move them a tiny bit and the next time they should start shooting. this used to be a bug a long time ago but i havent heard of it much recently

they dont turn automatically. if u mean in melee, unless u click to melee charge the unit, only people who are actually attacked will turn to defend themselves

the pathfinding is occasionally bad in ETW but on the whole its pretty good

one way to make the whole army to turn on an axis is to group the whole army together. then the formation will rotate rather than each unit

afaik thats pretty unmoddable to add firing drills
u can do it manually with two units where u advance one, it fires, then move one whole unit back and then another one forward to shoot. this is with a whole unit though as opposed to each line and this is pretty useless in late era anyway with rank fire

generals are supposed to be able to regroup units but its never really worked for me
if the it says the unit is "Routing, Broken" it means they are routing currently and may regroup. if it says "Routing, Shattered", then theyre gone for the whole battle and wont regroup.

u can join units together while still in the campaign map by clicking and dragging, but u cant do it in battle mode. afaik u cant split units

on walls:
yet again, make sure they are on fire at will and they should be shooting from behind the walls. if not, its a bug

on AI:
u should consider urself lucky the AI flanks rather than runs at u in a big blob and just melee rushes u. darthmod and other large mods modify the AI to much better levels

find them in Empire:Total War General Discussion > Hosted Modifications

on campaign:
yet again, this is a bug with diplomacy where the AI considers its own things far more important than the players which is one of the major problems with the campaign

a navy cant force a ship our of the harbour but wouldnt want to enter because of artillery etc. on the shore.im sure naval sieges did happen though. so thats probably some historical inaccuracy. however 1 unit of heavily depleted militia will kick out an entire fleet of 1st rates from a harbour. then u can attack with ur fleet.

on Organ Guns:
i believe Organ Guns are recruitable from Istanbul and possibly Ankara from the very beginning
u do have the DLC for them dont u?

mods do fix this game very well. However CA have pretty much abandoned the game and gone to NTW which is released in a weeks time. so if u want a great game from CA of the time period, that will almost certainly be the better game. unfortunately ETW is pretty bugged and a bit of a Beta itself

hope i helped

**yaang** · February 19, 2010, 09:03 AM

one way to make the whole army to turn on an axis is to group the whole army together. then the formation will rotate rather than each unit

ah this is great thanks

My units are almost always have fire at will on. I might have figured out why they don't shoot though, just a moment ago i was defending a siege an enemy infantry unit climbed the walls and came down the stairs in a single line my infantry which had fire at will on, had ammo and had the enemy in range just didn't shoot them. Until last one of their unit was in my infantries range, then they started shooting.

I figured mortars had a minimum range but there is no minumum range indicator and it doesn't go back to maintain that range. It doesn't say no, i cant do it either so it's a little confusing. You can very well fire a mortar 90 degrees and kill yourself btw

Naval sieges really did occur in fact Ottoman Empire loses it's fleet that way in 18th or 19th century. Fleet gets bombarded while it was docked and 50 something ships burns down along with 6k sailors.

**Jack Aubrey KB,MP,JP,FRS** · February 19, 2010, 05:27 PM

Clicking the attack order for an infantry order restarts the reloading process just so you know.... you may have actually prevented them from firing yourself.

**yaang** · February 20, 2010, 01:34 AM

Originally Posted by Jack Aubrey KB,MP,JP,FRS

Clicking the attack order for an infantry order restarts the reloading process just so you know.... you may have actually prevented them from firing yourself.

Oh didn't know that