Muskets on sieges

[elbasto]

Hi.

In my current campaign as Spain I'm only building cities and garrisoning all of them with:
- 5 sword militia (pretty decent for a militia)
- 3 pike militia
- 3 musketeers

Is there any point in using muskets as a "wall unit" in stead of crossbows or even archers? They don't seem to do much damage when firing from a high position. Or it is just me?

Regards,

[Marechal Ney]

I am going to test this later today, but first thought: That seems like a bit much for a city garrison, unless the cities are near the frontier. Maybe it is to get the most possible taxes out of the people, but if so maybe calculate whether the per-turn gain of the tax increase is worth the upkeep of the units needed to keep the people from rioting.

Onto musketeers, again, I will text it to see, but they seem to do rather well. Hand gunners and arquebusiers are really on morale shock troops, but musketeers have much more use. I have, however, noticed that sometimes only a few of them fire (I think its due to there being limited space to aim with the parapet blocking the shots of about half the troops)...

[elbasto]

Yup, that's a lot of garrison, but I only have a couple of field armies, so it is to have city defense off my mind. With that garrison I could beat up a Mongol stack.

As for the random fire, they don't seem to fire when there is something in between them and their target, whether that's a friendly unit, an object or terrain.

[MJDreamWalker13]

I'd probably get rid of 1 unit of pike militia and musketeers each and replace them with 2 spear militia units. After armour upgrades they are quite decent.

[elbasto]

I'd probably get rid of 1 unit of pike militia and musketeers each and replace them with 2 spear militia units. After armour upgrades they are quite decent.

Thanks on the feedback regarding garrison composition, but I am more concerned in the utility of muskets as a wall-missle unit.

Also, when defending a city with cannon emplacements and muskets in the walls I noticed that the cannons fire flamming ammo (as if those towers had catapults). Is this the case for all the walls with cannons or this only happens while defending with muskets?

[Shasqua]

Musketeers take up space on the walls. They can't arc their shots, so almost never fire when on walls. Cannon towers fire flaming shot at siege equipment and are unaffected by the presence of musketeers.

[Rakoua]

Just get archer militia or something. Muskets suck in sieges, and crossbows let me down a few times too.

[Silverheart]

I checked the list with casualties and such after a battle where I defended with Cossack Musketeers on the walls.
It showed that the Musketeers killed a lot more than the archers - almost twice as many, actually.
2 units of Cossack Musketeers took out about 400 enemies on their own - I think angle might have affected this, they were firing from a position where they hit mostly the sides of the enemy.

Of course, they were worthless once the enemy were inside the city, so you still need archers or preferably upgraded towers to halt the enemys´ siege weapons.

[Old Geezer]

Firearms on a very hard battle setting against high moral troops are just about worthless, unless the enemy just sits there and fires back at you. There effect is probably good against units with level 5 morale. Last, I heard, several years ago, was that the musketeers couldn't defend walls properly because of the line of sight or the balls rolling out of their guns and they just about never hit anyone up close. The Timurid elephant artillery has some glitch in it also, apparently; I have had several of them come close to my gates and shoot at the gates or the towers on the walls next to the gate (I am not certain which) for many minutes and never do any damage. I think that they can't depress their cannons at very close range or they are targeting an area that is not able to receive damage.

[The Source]

by muskets are we talkin about short range-morale damaging arquebus's and hand gunners, or proper ones like muskateers

[elbasto]

by muskets are we talkin about short range-morale damaging arquebus's and hand gunners, or proper ones like muskateers

Muskets from musketmen.

But probably this glitch affects all the gun units.

[Antimatkiller]

I've tried this with janassiry muskateers,both attacker and defender,nothing damaged.A good strategy would be,putting the muskets at the doors so when they break through,they rout instantly.

[MooseUpNorth]

First predict the marching path the AI will use to get to the plaza. Place your muskets safely past each corner, T so that they're shooting down the entire lane during the approach. If the enemy must corner past the gates to get to you, place muskets on the safe side of the gates, so that they're shooting into the backs of enemy troops marching through. Archers can go on the walls (move them to the inner edge once you're done shooting at the siege towers and rams.) so that the enemy is getting shot in the face as they march by.

Place pikes (or good holding infantry like DFKs) just around the corners from where you've set up your muskets, to hold the enemy in the fire lane longer.

This tends to work better in cities or fortresses where you don't have a direct marching route from the gates.

Note: cannon or catapults can be used instead of muskets. Just so the fire lane is long.