cannons don't shoot

[JKZBORA]

when i order my artillery to shoot certaint unit they stop firing just walk towards the target. tried couple different cannons and all do that thing and basically they're useless. this never happened before and it's not because they're obstructed because this happens to mortars on flat maps for example. any solutions to that or it's a bug and can't do nothing with it?

[Triple G]

Originally posted by GoryRat:

if their firing arc is blocked not line of sight.

Yes - sure, too close to the wall and they wouldn´t fire - but here it wasn´t about walls - OP says flat map and the mortars wouldn´t fire. I just gave this as example.

[MadArtillery]

Originally posted by Triple G:

Originally posted by GoryRat:

if their firing arc is blocked not line of sight.

Yes - sure, too close to the wall and they wouldn´t fire - but here it wasn´t about walls - OP says flat map and the mortars wouldn´t fire. I just gave this as example.

Just a tall unit too close to a mortar can cause that. Run into it before.

[Triple G]

Originally posted by Zeek:

It's the friendly fire they are avoiding and this has been a thing since game 1

What? Friendly fire? If i have all the people in one corner of the siege map, in some big blob, and they have no line of sight to anything, they would fire indirectly behind the wall to hit the assigned target.

Heck - if i have flying units above it, they would hit them ( the own flying unit). I can delete all my units probably with my own artillery if i wanted to.

[Zeek]

Originally posted by Triple G:

Originally posted by Zeek:

It's the friendly fire they are avoiding and this has been a thing since game 1

What? Friendly fire? If i have all the people in one corner of the siege map, in some big blob, and they have no line of sight to anything, they would fire indirectly behind the wall to hit the assigned target.

Heck - if i have flying units above it, they would hit them ( the own flying unit). I can delete all my units probably with my own artillery if i wanted to.

It depends on the target and if the artillery had the arc to hit it without causing a lot of friendly fire.

Cannons won't fire hardly at all once lines clash unless the target is huge

Mortars will only sporadically fire once lines clash.

[Aleera]

Originally posted by Triple G:

Originally posted by Zeek:

It's the friendly fire they are avoiding and this has been a thing since game 1

What? Friendly fire? If i have all the people in one corner of the siege map, in some big blob, and they have no line of sight to anything, they would fire indirectly behind the wall to hit the assigned target.

Heck - if i have flying units above it, they would hit them ( the own flying unit). I can delete all my units probably with my own artillery if i wanted to.

You seem to misunderstand what Zeek is saying.

Zeek is saying mortars will tend to stop shooting at a enemy unit, if said enemy unit is engaging your unit's in melee.

Zeek is not saying that mortars require direct line of sight.

[Triple G]

Originally posted by Rianne:

Zeek is saying mortars will tend to stop shooting at a enemy unit, if said enemy unit is engaging your unit's in melee.

Zeek is not saying that mortars require direct line of sight.

If that was the case the AI would never be able to erase itself with their own artillery, when You only send a lord or hero to fight their blob. So even if that mechanic was in place - it doesn´t work consistently. It works so bad, that one doesn´t even notice that the mechanic exists.

And for cannons it´s most likely due to losing line of sight imho - in that scenario.

[Zeek]

Originally posted by Triple G:

If that was the case the AI would never be able to erase itself with their own artillery, when You only send a lord or hero to fight their blob. So even if that mechanic was in place - it doesn´t work consistently. It works so bad, that one doesn´t even notice that the mechanic exists.

And for cannons it´s most likely due to losing line of sight imho - in that scenario.

Single entities occupy much less space than, say, a regiment of swords men or other infantry.

The artillery isn't obstructed nearly as much. This is how you make cheese armies compromised of nothing but 4-5 single entities to get the AI to blob up around them and the rest of the army consisting of nothing but hand gunners, cannons, rockets, mortars, etc. to work.

The ranged units aren't obstructed by friendly units -> the enemy is blown up.

[Triple G]

Originally posted by Zeek:

The ranged units aren't obstructed by friendly units -> the enemy is blown up.

Like said - if i have a foot lord, and he´s surrounded by enemies, they would still fire at him with their indirect artillery, because nothing else has line of sight to him. And obviously they do more damage to themselves with it, and rather help the foot lord instead of their own army. Same would be true for certain aoe spells. So it sounds funny to say that the AI cares about friendly fire by default, because they would stop shooting...

Anyways: it seems that OP hasn´t got any problem any more, as he didn´t update the status of it.

I thought it could have been a new bug, as i have yet to see the CA patch which fixes more than three things - without introducing new issues. So it was not super unlikely - but it seems not to be a bug in the game.

[Zeek]

Originally posted by Triple G:

]Like said - if i have a foot lord, and he´s surrounded by enemies, they would still fire at him with their indirect artillery, because nothing else has line of sight to him. And obviously they do more damage to themselves with it, and rather help the foot lord instead of their own army. Same would be true for certain aoe spells. So it sounds funny to say that the AI cares about friendly fire by default, because they would stop shooting...

The friendly fire/blocked line of sight consideration only matters for targeting and firing purposes.

What happens after the shots are fired is fair game.

The artillery is only checking that there aren't friendly units between it and its target. If not, it fires. Otherwise, it won't.

If you have a cannon unit and a swordsmen unit vs orc boys, have the swordsmen engage the boys in melee. You'll notice your cannon won't fire, or will only fire occasionally, because the friendly swordsmen will be blocking the shots.

If you have a cannon unit and an empire general on foot vs orc boys, have the general engage the boys, and you'll find the cannon shoots more often because there's less friendly models to block the shots. Yes, some shots may hit the general due to shooting RNG, but that's beyond the scope of the argument.

So yes, the AI does care about friendly fire. It will avoid it by simply not firing if friendly units are in between it and the target.

[RomulanPraetor]

Na especially for single entities it often fires a volley in its own blob.

The targeting issue (with mortars as described by OP) was a thing in like 1.0 and was patched - I remeber when Wh3 was new and ranged units would just start to walk in like 50% of the cases where they should have had los

[Ubaldios]

It has to be an obstruction issue or a weird bug but shouldn't happen every time.