How to protect artillery

[UTSpawn]

I almost always win the battles but lose my artillery anyway. Enemy infantry can charge in through grape shot and overun the battery except on the rare occastion there is a nice hill to put them on. I tried putting them behind infantry or skirmishers, they just shot my own people to pieces. I tried putting infantry behind them which would move up when they are threatened; they still usually overun before the infantry begin moving; when they don't, the artillery shoots my guys in the back even if I turn off "fire at will." I tried putting the arty back behind the line leaving a gap for them; they would shoot the ends of the lines in the back. (At the same time, if I charge enemy artillery from the front with infantry, they break.) Any suggestions?

[HacaPotato]

If you manually give your artillery the order to fire, you need to press the hold fire button, not the fire at will button.

[Windrider]

After you unlimber your artillery, click on the "fire at will" button to turn it off and decide the target yourself. With that done, pressing the stop button will make them stop firing.

Now, about protecting/using artillery in singleplayer, what I do is to place it on a hill or something and put my infantry down the slope. This won't always prevent your artillery from killing some of your men but you can easily notice if that happens and fix the problem.

If you're on a flat terrain, you can put the cannons in front of the formation and quickly move the infantry forward when you have to (after you make them stop shooting).

Any formation where artillery is part of the front line will create all the problems you're having (and you have to change tactic).

[pgeerkens]

If you have any, missile cavalry right behind the guns works great. Next best is lancers.

The presence of cavalry slows down "human wave attacks"; and provides the ability to counter-charge units that get in too close. The 'charge bonus' of lancers works great at routing infantry that is already at low morale due to being under canister artillery fire.

Finally, if the human wave attack reaches the guns retire the artillerists so that most of them will survive. When in "melee mode" and unlimbered orders are for relocation of the artillerists (alone(. It took me a while to figure that out.

I also (almost) always pair up my direct-fire batteries.

[[6thAL.I] Pfc Emperror steve]

put the art in a unit of line but make sure the cannons are sticking out of the line unit and turn fire at will off and manually fire cannons that way u can protect art and gave ur frontline more firepower
another way u can use art in frontline is to make room for art between line inf units and have a unit of cav or something behind art to protect art and if they do reach ur cannon with cav ur inf can form square and fire and u can retreat cannon crew or u can counter charge with cav
or with whatever u have there
only problem is they reach cannons ur horses will run away making ur cannons unable to move
personally i bring horse art as it can keep up with my army and it can be moved to a more suitable location much faster when u advance on the enemy giving u more time to maneuver ur men to attack and also the can start firing at enemy much faster to support ur attack if u decide to attack
ps when cav charge cannons sticking out of line unit form square and stop ur cannons from firing as it will hit ur line inf in and break up square if it is line inf coming to charge line inf and cannon just put canister shot on and let ur inf fire the enemy will have no chance
hopefully this solves ur problem :)
these tactics can be used for single player and mulitiplayer

[[6thAL.I] Pfc Emperror steve]

also if u want to charge enemy art do it from the side the reason ur units are breaking when do a frontal charge is because the enemy art is using canister shot on ur men

[vicentlazar]

What I do is to put an artillery unit between two infantry regiments in the same line. The adiacent musket fire helps a lot in combination with the double canister. Of course this is not enough if the enemy uses more infantry regiments to melee attack your artillery at once. To avoid that I usually put a grenadier regiment on "NO FIRE" behind the arty.As soon as they get too close I throw the grenadiers between the battery and the enemy. That is all I basically use the grenadiers for in this game. Very important is to stop your arty from firing at will once the grenadiers get in front of it. You know why... :)

[ProjectCaddyGuy]

I tend to create a slight V setup myself, and have since Empire. Line infantry \ / shaped gently. 1 artillery unit as the _ at the back. \ _ /. Or as a \_-_/ (That - is a set of grenadiers or line infantry sandwiched between artillery.) There will also be a spare set of infantry for each flank. So overall -\_-_/- The AI tends to head towards the artillery to shut them down. But my flank - - guys as the enemy approaches, especially if they do it tightly wrap around and begin shooting into the sides, breaking enemy formations morale very quickly.

Now, to prevent flanking? I keep usually 1 or 2 units of cavalry, and ideally 1 unit of light infantry (longer range) or a spare line infantry along with my general parked behind my artillery to cover either flank as needed. Or the cavalry can charge through the artillery (who get told to hold fire) to deal with charging enemies. Overall, it's a strong plan that can adapt a bit too and rarely fails. (Unless I see overwhelming odds, though I just took a 2100 vs 1200, disadvantage and walked away having lose 450 to their 1700 losses. All artillery units survived.

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

I typically bunch my arty together and place them on the best looking hill, behind all my infantry. Ill move them as the battle changes.

In the SP vs AI, they dont seem to attack them to much, unless you dork it up, or allow them to get close. Also, your first target for your arty in SP should be the enemy cavalry, as they are your biggest threat to your flanks and infantry.

Another thing to look for, is get down low and check the terrain to see if your cannons can fire over your infantry. Check your sightlines helps with putting arty in a useful position.

Alternately, a setup I used to use, that was hit or miss, was id put my Arty in my line, dead center, with half of my infantry on either side in a huge line, trying to drive the enemy into the guns, and giving them a clear line of fire. That method, I guess it kinda worked, but yeah, I lost a good deal of arty.

OVerall though, my Artillery is the only units that ever get any veterancy, as I dont lose them.