Cannon Crews Shouldn't Be Glued To Their Cannons

[marceror]

It is quite bothersome that there is no longer an option to "drop cannons" as there was in Empire/Nap. I mean, routing cannon crews walk off slowly with their cannons. Not good, not realistic. And when, let's say my gatlin gun crew is getting targetted by several units of line infantry... I might just want to have them run out of the line of fire so the small crew doesn't get obliterated!!

But for reasons unknown cannon crews seem to be super glued to their equipment. I sure would love to see this fixed.

Of course, I'm speaking of Parrot, Armstrong and Gatlin crews (those that have their gear pulled by horses) only. Wooden Cannon crews don't have this problem - thought I would clarify.

[Dynamo11]

If you select the cannon, press melee mode and target an enemy unit the artillery's crew will abandon it and march to engage the enemy with their swords. All you need to do after targeting the enemy is tell the crew to move somewhere.

[IGdood]

At least when they're glued to the cannons, the crew enters into a collective health mode where it takes multiple volleys to kill them all, and if pursued by melee units they can fight back.

[marceror]

@Dynamo

I used to do that in Empire, but the last time I tried to do this in FotS I found that the "melee" button was grayed out!! I'll check again during my next battle, but I'm pretty sure that has been consistent in my games.

@IGdood

That's not a good thing! That's extraordinarily bad!!! I guess that was probably a bit of sarcasm on your part though, no? I'ts easy enough to run up some revolver cav with melee mode off to take care of that problem but still... cannon crews are super buggy at the moment. Hope to see them patched up right quick!

[IGdood]

Doubt it. Empire and Napoleon had similar behavior problems and those were never changed.

[marceror]

In Empire and Napoleon if your cannon crew started getting attacked eventually the horses and their riders would take off the battle map, leaving the cannons and their operators. Or, if you clicked to go into melee mode the horses would again run off and your gun crew would separate from the cannons. I haven't seen a similar ability in FotS. I'd just at least like cannon crews to be as flexible as they were in Empire and Napoleon.

[Humble Warrior]

In Empire and Napoleon if your cannon crew started getting attacked eventually the horses and their riders would take off the battle map, leaving the cannons and their operators. Or, if you clicked to go into melee mode the horses would again run off and your gun crew would separate from the cannons. I haven't seen a similar ability in FotS. I'd just at least like cannon crews to be as flexible as they were in Empire and Napoleon.

I`ve seen cannon crews start walking off when they get attacked in FOTS, definitely.

Still, cannon crews and guns are defintely bugged up. It`s so obvious to see the the coder basically copied and pasted the artillerry mechanic from Empire except now they have ammo limits (which is at least one positive). They do several silly things.

1. Sometimes, when they are advancing, they can`t stop to deploy when in range and advanced forever until their army is destroyed.
2. They pathetically walk away when shattered, refusing to leave their guns. Normal weapons often won`t kill them either, you have to attack them usually in melee.

Come on guys, you have Empire and Nappy to get it right, how many more years and versions of TW will it take?


I hope CA seriously fix this because it`s not good enough to see this still existing from horrible Empire. Please fix this CA.

Pleeeeaaaaassee!

Pretty please with sugar on top.

And if you ignore my nice appeal I`ll just be annoying again.

[hochmeister devin]

Well these are Japanese soldiers, it might hurt there honor if they abandoned the guns. Or there threatened with death if they abandon them.

[marceror]

Well, in my clan we are a little more practical than that... trained soldiers are not to be thrown away like so much refuse. The idea is that they run just out of the line of fire while the line infantry pick up the fight. That way, when the next battle occurs the general still has a full regiment of trained gatlin gunners. The guns aren't abandoned longterm or anything. No honor lost here... at least, not when you fight for the Republic of Jozai, Marceror style!

[hochmeister devin]

My soldiers obey they rules of (insert name of martial code here( haven't come up wih the name yet)) they fight to the death, if there wounded they pull out there side arm and charge the on coming enemy and if you give up your position you get to be the first wave of the forlorn hope when the next siege happens (10% death rate). Any man who runs from the battle field is then put in to military reformatory to get fix them of the problem of running away, if they have to run run towards the enemy. Finally soldiers are to fight with the upmost aggression and there only though should be achieving there objective. That's how the republic of saga do it anyways...

[Dynamo11]

Really? the melee button isn't greyed out for me

[marceror]

Interesting. I triple checked this during a campaign battle I played this morning, and sure enough, the toggle melee button is grayed out for me Gatling, Parrot and Armstrong units. It functions properly for my infantry and cavalry units. I'm playing a fully vanilla, unmodded game.

[DeValiere]

Yeah, whenever I look out over my gun crews, all I see is ETW/NTW models reworked for FoTS. They still fire at the flanks of enemy units too, and there's been no acknowledgement that a gun crew is going to up it's fire rate as the enemy draws near for self defense reasons if nothing else. I'd liked to have seen that as a special ability mostly, which would have been an easy enough fix surely?

[Dynamo11]

They still fire at the flanks of enemy units too

Yeah this does my head in, to get any decent arty down on the enemy I need to micro it and target land in front of the unit I wanna hit. Otherwise they barely do anything on the flanks

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Hell it was a special ability in NTW, wasn't it?

[hochmeister devin]

No it was not, or did the TGW team get rid of it? Damn it need to play vanilla Napoleon to find out, but TGW mod is too fun nooooo!!!!!!

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Wait, you may be right.

It may have been in a mod.

[hochmeister devin]

Arty would be too realistic if they targeted the center of a unit though.

[Dynamo11]

Arty would be too realistic if they targeted the center of a unit though.

Too realistic? Are you being sarcastic or are you calling for less realism?

[hochmeister devin]

Too realistic? Are you being sarcastic or are you calling for less realism?

I was being sarcastic, and I was trying to gt into CAs reasoning behinds making arty target the left flank of a unit.