Tip: 24 Pound Howitzer

[diam0ndice9]

Holy crap. By far the best weapon in the game. I didn't put too much stock into artillery my first few playthroughs beyond the 10 pound ordinance but on whim I bought a few of the 24's. Total game changer. I'm talking 2k+ kills per battle, and near insta-route of the enemy if they get anywhere near my batteries. Well worth the cost.

[diam0ndice9]

On the other hand, the 20 lbs. Parrot does NOT have the same effect. Not worth the cost.

[CrashToDesktop]

Originally posted by diam0ndice9:

On the other hand, the 20 lbs. Parrot does NOT have the same effect. Not worth the cost.

They said they "fixed" the 20lb Parrott Gun's damage, but something tells me they didn't. The 20lb Parrotts does nearly the same damage as the 24lb Howitzer, but they significantly lag behind it (even after the patch) in every way conceivable. Hell, I think they're still worse than the 10lb Ordnance Rifles in terms of how many kills they can get.

[GeneralPITA]

Agree with soldier, the 20pd parrot is only slightly more effective in this patch. It's also highly prevalent for the AI. I captured 29 x 20pdr parrots at Antietam, no other types.

[clench]

All the canons are good.

Get as many as you can. 24LBer are the best in terms of killing, but that isn't the most important thing a cannon does.

Cannons really affect the morale of the enemy. Just being fired at is enough. The more units firing on the enemy, the faster the unit will route and you can really put a hurting on them without any danger while they flee.

It's much easier to increase the number of units firing on a unit because cannons do not have the same pathing or LOS issues that infantry has. So you can have 2-4 infantry firing on another unit, but an infinite number of cannons.

[The King of Spades]

They really could buff the 20 pdr's. It's really sad that they arent effective for really anything except for counter battery fire, even then the whitworths and tredegars do a similar if not better job at it. It would be something to see it rightfully buffed. These cannons were monsters and aren't represented the way they should be.

[GeneralPITA]

Originally posted by The King of Spades:

They really could buff the 20 pdr's. It's really sad that they arent effective for really anything except for counter battery fire, even then the whitworths and tredegars do a similar if not better job at it. It would be something to see it rightfully buffed. These cannons were monsters and aren't represented the way they should be.

Counter battery fire is a waste of ammo in this game. Accuracy is too poor across the board, even with these big rifled beasts.

[The King of Spades]

Originally posted by GeneralPITA:

Originally posted by The King of Spades:

They really could buff the 20 pdr's. It's really sad that they arent effective for really anything except for counter battery fire, even then the whitworths and tredegars do a similar if not better job at it. It would be something to see it rightfully buffed. These cannons were monsters and aren't represented the way they should be.

Counter battery fire is a waste of ammo in this game. Accuracy is too poor across the board, even with these big rifled beasts.

Agreed GeneralPita. I wonder if there is a way Darth can increase arty vs arty accuracy while leaving arty vs infantry accuracy alone?

[The King of Spades]

Agreed but the 20 pdr parrots need a little love. This I can't deny

[RobWheat61]

Originally posted by The King of Spades:

Originally posted by GeneralPITA:

Counter battery fire is a waste of ammo in this game. Accuracy is too poor across the board, even with these big rifled beasts.

Agreed GeneralPita. I wonder if there is a way Darth can increase arty vs arty accuracy while leaving arty vs infantry accuracy alone?

I'm not sure about that. At Chancellorsville, after taking the VP at the 3rd day, the Union army retreated into the wooded area east of the VP and I concentrated 7 of my 8 batteries (16 guns per batt. minus losses; one Tredegar, rest Napoleon and Ordnance) on the union artillery and they destroyed 3 of 5 Union batteries (about 300 men each) until the battle ended. I think, counter-battery fire can already be pretty effective. In the end it comes down to unit experience, fire distance, type of guns and number of guns engaged.

Maybe they could buff the 20pd Parrot, but they should likewise decrease movement speed of 24pd Howitzers and 20pd Parrots. They not only required more horses (and men) but were a pain in the ass to move around on the battlefield. There is a reason, the Union field armies replaced almost all of the 24pd Howitzer with 12pd Napoleons.

[CrashToDesktop]

@RobWhat61
That's 7, SEVEN batteries of guns with 16 guns each focusing down one battery. No wonder you're able to destroy enemy batteries - that's 112 guns, more guns than I usually field in a single Corps. Yours is a pretty extreme example of counter-battery fire. In more average gameplay, counter-battery fire is useless because you HAVE to kill 25 men to destroy a gun, while in real life all you had to do was put a ball or bolt through the carriage and it'd be out for the battle, let alone trying to kill the crew.

[RobWheat61]

Originally posted by The Soldier:

@RobWhat61
That's 7, SEVEN batteries of guns with 16 guns each focusing down one battery. No wonder you're able to destroy enemy batteries - that's 112 guns, more guns than I usually field in a single Corps. Yours is a pretty extreme example of counter-battery fire. In more average gameplay, counter-battery fire is useless because you HAVE to kill 25 men to destroy a gun, while in real life all you had to do was put a ball or bolt through the carriage and it'd be out for the battle, let alone trying to kill the crew.

I don't consider that example excessive for one of the bigger battles. Of course you can't bring so many artillery pieces in the minor battles but neither can the AI armies.I looked at one of my Screenshots: This was actually from my first playthrough of the Chancellorsville battle. I brought actually 134 artillery pieces to the battle (8 batteries, 8 divisions, 2 Corps; almost 61000 men Infantry, no Cavalry) and lost 32 artillery pieces. The Union had 421 guns and lost 220.

Actually, I destroyed once a supply waggon (120 men) at 2nd Bull Run with one artillery battery (12x 12pd Ordnance) in about 10 minutes. And again, I don't think, counter-battery fire is as useless as some try to portray it.

[CrashToDesktop]

@RobWheat61
No offense, but I don't think you understand the sheer amount of guns that you just described is. For the Confederates, that's nearly 90% of all your artillery batteries firing on a SINGLE enemy battery in an attempt to destroy it in a timely fashion. For the Union on a good day, that's a third of your batteries trying to destroy a SINGLE enemy battery.

The Supply Wagon is hardly a sizable "battery" - in artillery terms, that's a 5-gun battery. The AI consistently fields full, 24-gun batteries in Normal and Hard difficulties.

You said it yourself - counter-battery fire is useless because you have to divery a massive majortity of your batteries in order to destroy a single enemy battery. It's just not worth the time or the ammo (both important commodities) to focus down an enemy battery.

Counter-battery fire, in it's current form (which is just artillery shooting at other artillery with no other bonuses) is useless.

[clench]

Originally posted by The Soldier:

@RobWhat61
That's 7, SEVEN batteries of guns with 16 guns each focusing down one battery. No wonder you're able to destroy enemy batteries - that's 112 guns, more guns than I usually field in a single Corps. Yours is a pretty extreme example of counter-battery fire. In more average gameplay, counter-battery fire is useless because you HAVE to kill 25 men to destroy a gun, while in real life all you had to do was put a ball or bolt through the carriage and it'd be out for the battle, let alone trying to kill the crew.

I bring a whole Corps of artillery to the major battles ;)

[CrashToDesktop]

Originally posted by Chief clench:

I bring a whole Corps of artillery to the major battles ;)

Which isn't much different than providing a Division of Artillery in each Corps, like I do. Not very impressive. :P

[clench]

Originally posted by The Soldier:

Originally posted by Chief clench:

I bring a whole Corps of artillery to the major battles ;)

Which isn't much different than providing a Division of Artillery in each Corps, like I do. Not very impressive. :P

It's a bit different because you're missing out on the bonus provided by having a specialized officer to lead artillery.

And you're also missing out on multiple divisions of infantry with infantry specific bonuses.

You can also have 5 divisions of artillery in one corps, as opposed to 4 divisions split into 4 corps so you can bring more this way. It's unlikely in most campaigns at least currently that you'd be able to fully equip 4 corps with 4 divisions each of infantry anyway, so using one corps for artillery doesn't effect your ability to put bodies on the field.

The only issue is that sometimes the positon is not opitmal for them at the start and they can take some time to mass.