Rockets in bridge battles

[Rakoua]

What is the most effective way of using rocket launchers in bridge battles?

I tried putting them in the back but my guys were blasted apart more then the enemy, and I tried at the sides of the bridge, but they only once managed to fire off one shot before a stream of enemy routers passed by and for some reason they abandoned their guns just when they were supposed to fire a bunch of rockets at a bunch of elephants. Lucky me, my Naffatuns handled the elephants.


I usualy play multiplayer, so enemy artiliery and people actually being smart should be taken into consideration.

[Valandur]

Right at the end of the bridge. Hopefully you can get them to fire and you should be able to cause the enemy quite a bit of damage, but mos Rockets will probably land in the river.
Make sure you withdraw your Rockets to safety before the enemy hit them because they are pretty valuable. You actually might want to leave your rockets to block the bridge a bit and remove your crew to safety as Rockets will just respawn in the next battle.

[VersionLangley]

since artillery elephant is in the same period, taking rockets is really dangerous since the equipment is quite large and shorter range!!!! . So either hope that their ele is close to the bridge and you get your shot off before they kill you...or you have no choice but to deploy them far back and hope that your rocket rout the ele on the bridge before they did good damage to your men. To get a good distance, deploy the rocket far back then move them up until the arrow on your cursor become green at the end of the enemy's bridge side. Shoot the ele when they're closer to your side and pray that they run amok backward. You can put and shoot at other distance if you want...knowing that the art ele can not shoot when they move

but really, the rockets isn't worth their cost of 1000 nor the slot that they take in your 20 units army...naff or other seige will definitely do a lot more for you

Edit: they drop the equipment because when the router touch your men, they are sent automatically into melee mode

[Silverheart]

Many bridge battle scenarios have nice, high hills not far away from the bridge.
I would suggest placing the rocket launchers (as well as other artillery) on these hills, since it will both increase their range and allow them to fire over your own troops.
I have not yet had a chance to try rocket launchers like that, though, so you might want to be cautious about how to place your other troops.
If you don´t have the hills, or if they´re not close enough to the bridge, I would suggest placing them right at the end of the bridge, like Valandur described.

[Rakoua]

Thanks everyone.

Valandur: Thats a good idea, tho it does leave them really vonurable to enemy artiliery.

VersionLangley: Well, elephant artiliery is pretty costly and I usualy take more long range artiliery to take out the enemy artiliery. I use rockets for one thing only: The large bombardment area. I find that this allows me to blow holes in most units of an enemy army when they're entering the bridge. It's like naffatun but with less accuracy and more shots.

And would guard mode prevent this?

Silverheart: That would probably cause my troops to be hit too. Usefull, but not optimal for the cost (I want to take everything out of the 4 shots they have for their huge cost).

[VersionLangley]

And would guard mode prevent this?

I don't know...guard mode is the initial stand of every art unit?

But i'll be amazed if you can blow an actual hole in anything with those rockets ...since even if a rocket hit a unit bogged up in the bridge, it will only kill 2-3 men...some of them don't actually kill anything when hit

If you can get them to work then +rep, cuz i've been trying to justify my investment sometimes

[Silverheart]

Silverheart: That would probably cause my troops to be hit too. Usefull, but not optimal for the cost (I want to take everything out of the 4 shots they have for their huge cost).

You might be right. As I said, I haven´t yet tried this strategy with rocket launchers.
However, I believe that placing them on those hills would (at least) reduce the amount of friendly casualties, since they would mostly shoot Over your own troops.

Otherwise, you could try to change your main tactic for bridge defense. I have learned that you can effectively defend bridges even whitout hoarding all your troops right at the end, and placing them further back - for the specific purpose of making more room for artillery.
You could also try to simply use something else than rocket launchers, if they´re such a nuisance, and try out other artillery.
I´m just suggesting...

[Rakoua]

I just burned and sent into a rampage a whole horde of elephants (19 units + 21 units of spearmen) on a bridge, supported by some random infantry. Without rockets: Clear defeat. With rockets: Heroic victory. Lots of friendly fire tho. That's what I want to stop. I had them behind my infantry...

[homefry]

don't use rockets.

use catapults. I think catapults reload faster than trebuchets and can arch over your head unlike cannons.

[Silverheart]

Using catapults for bridge defense is also a good suggestion, homefry. ^::^
When the enemy troops gets clogged up on the bridge, they have a chance of blowing up enormous holes with their flaming ammunition.
But catapults lack range. And if the enemy has elephant artillery, the catapults would be blown apart before they had a chance to fire, unless the AI is stupid... Anyway, while capable and qualitative, I wouldn´t rely on catapults in bridge defenses.

[The Moor]

My tactic is this: If there are hills I place the rockets there, if there aren't I place them a little bit far away from the bridge (in parallel with it) so that the enemy don't reach them, but in order to be effective I don't place the infantry in front of it rather of that I place them on the sides of the bridge entrance, some units at the right and some others at left, like a welcoming committee I also put two units or three behind the rockets to protect it, if the enemy approach too much I send quikly the infantry to the front, so when the enemy is in the middle of the bridge more or less the rockets launcher starts to fire, maybe you get some friendly fire, but it's minimal. Same thing for canons.