Great Cannon vs Mortar

[BladeofSharpness]

I'm trying very hard to find a justification for me keeping cannons in my armies versus having more mortars, and really after 15 turns of usage and several battles, in the open field or in assaults or being besieged, I can only come to this conclusion.

At best, they will be as useful as a mortar, and most of the time they won't.

On the paper I like the idea of having cannons, but really, the combination of direct fire and slow repositioning just kill the unit in effectiveness. Situationally and from time to time, they might perform correctly, but that's it, nothing great.

[Teh_Diplomat]

Mortars for the slow guys, Cannons for the armoured and/or large guys; then a Luminark at the side to shoot across (and into) their main line.

[DecayWolf]

Escrito originalmente por Cacomistle:

Escrito originalmente por DecayWolf:

Savage Orcs, Big uns, Ghouls, Cairn Wraiths, Gors, Slayers, Saurus Warriors, Bleak Swords, Witch Elvens, Plague Monks, Death Runners, Syreens, Nehekara Warriors, Beserkers, Eternal Guards, Dryads.

All these units can pretty much kick the ass of the empire spearmans/swordsmans on 1v1 with ease.

Some units like goblins, clan rats and such could also outnumber empire.

How exactly monsters is a problem for empire? Let me see.
Spearman, Halberdier, Free company, Crossbowman, Handgunners, Outriders, Demis with halberdiers and Reikguards cycling charge from the rear.

Monsters are literally one of the easiest picks to counter from empire.
Their cheapest inf can do this job by default.

If you put a halberdier up against a mammoth, it loses. Decisively. They're cost effective ofc, but cost effective sucks in campaign cause of upkeep increases.

The thing is, same is not true for units like savage orcs and clanrats. You can beat them with just your lord. That's actually how I start my fey campaigns. Against skaven and the greenskins, fey, 2 lords, a few peasant bowmen, and the grail guardiand treb and her starting infantry. It's like 11 units, but in siege battles I don't even use the infantry. If you fight 2 stacks of clanrats yoi literally lose nothing.

I mean you can tell me all you want about how empire infantry lose to those units. But reiksguard are tier 3 too. You can't tell me any of those save maybe slayers don't get annihilated by reiksguard, and every other unit in the dwarf roster is armored so mortars are not a dwarf counter).

I'm telling you, what the empire id good and bad against doesn't matter. Skeleton warriors aren't good against wood elves (or anything) but it doesn't mean I can't get 900 kills with wind of death and run wood elves over. I'm telling you, there's like 500 ways to annihilate a full stack of light infantry. There's no golden bullet vs stuff like mammoths. There's a lot of cost effective stuff ofc, but you can't do stuff like run Fey into a stack of 20 of them and expect her to come out at full hp.

Countering monsters and high tier units is better for a very simple reason. They're stronger. A mammoth is a more powerful unit than a clanrat. If the ai can't afford better than clanrats, you win with legit anything.

Also don't bring up swordsmen vs savage orcs. Cannons are a tier 4 unit. You will never sell me on low tier units being a threat after I've got reiksguard when I'm winning 20 vs 40 battles vs units like savage orcs with swordsmen free company and archers.

If you want raw power, pick a luminark, if you want something more reasonable, flexible while also can outperform in damage, take a handgunner vs a great cannon put both to the test, against your Mammoth example.

Meh. I won't consider cheesing the AI as anywhere to be called as a viable tactic, it's just sort of pathetic IMO. If you can 'beat' the AI by blobing them with a lord, and letting them die from ranged fire, it doesn't reflect into army synergy, quite the opposite, since it clearly portraits that you are neglecting a very important part of your army, because you're explotiing an AI weakness. It's not a real resolution.

Instead of having your pricey reiksguard wasting their time picking low armored inf, they could very well be busy winning the battle, by either killing the enemy missiles, artillery or flanking charge on lines already engaged, that would contribute a lot more for the battle overall.
Even engaging the enemy cav, in order to stop the enemy to reach your own missiles would be better.
As I said in previous post. Morters base explosion damage is too high. It will kill even armored units. You can either test it yourself or do the math.
They're much more effective against low armored, but they also work against amored, just fine, in fact better than reikguards.

Also what game is that you're playing, that the AI doesn't bring anti cav?
You named low armored units, I mentioned all low armored that could easily wreck the emp standard inf. For that reason I didn't named neither armored units that can eat reiksguard such as choosen with helberdiers or other pesky units like skeleton spearman, that can be a nuinsense, between other units that could make another list of it's own.

Skeleton warriors with tech, skill tree, staff of damnation and vanhel's danse macabre, ain't the same thing that you're used to see.

Empire counter monster on their daily basis.

Then we'll have to ask for these savage orcs from early game turn 6, to wait until we build our great swords, I am sure they'll understand.
Yeah, also winning a 20v40 by exploting the AI and having a superior army, is something that only reikguard could've achieve and mortars won't never ever have performed much better.

[Fendelphi]

Escrito originalmente por DecayWolf:

Escrito originalmente por Cacomistle:

If you put a halberdier up against a mammoth, it loses. Decisively. They're cost effective ofc, but cost effective sucks in campaign cause of upkeep increases.

The thing is, same is not true for units like savage orcs and clanrats. You can beat them with just your lord. That's actually how I start my fey campaigns. Against skaven and the greenskins, fey, 2 lords, a few peasant bowmen, and the grail guardiand treb and her starting infantry. It's like 11 units, but in siege battles I don't even use the infantry. If you fight 2 stacks of clanrats yoi literally lose nothing.

I mean you can tell me all you want about how empire infantry lose to those units. But reiksguard are tier 3 too. You can't tell me any of those save maybe slayers don't get annihilated by reiksguard, and every other unit in the dwarf roster is armored so mortars are not a dwarf counter).

I'm telling you, what the empire id good and bad against doesn't matter. Skeleton warriors aren't good against wood elves (or anything) but it doesn't mean I can't get 900 kills with wind of death and run wood elves over. I'm telling you, there's like 500 ways to annihilate a full stack of light infantry. There's no golden bullet vs stuff like mammoths. There's a lot of cost effective stuff ofc, but you can't do stuff like run Fey into a stack of 20 of them and expect her to come out at full hp.

Countering monsters and high tier units is better for a very simple reason. They're stronger. A mammoth is a more powerful unit than a clanrat. If the ai can't afford better than clanrats, you win with legit anything.

Also don't bring up swordsmen vs savage orcs. Cannons are a tier 4 unit. You will never sell me on low tier units being a threat after I've got reiksguard when I'm winning 20 vs 40 battles vs units like savage orcs with swordsmen free company and archers.

If you want raw power, pick a luminark, if you want something more reasonable, flexible while also can outperform in damage, take a handgunner vs a great cannon put both to the test, against your Mammoth example.

Meh. I won't consider cheesing the AI as anywhere to be called as a viable tactic, it's just sort of pathetic IMO. If you can 'beat' the AI by blobing them with a lord, and letting them die from ranged fire, it doesn't reflect into army synergy, quite the opposite, since it clearly portraits that you are neglecting a very important part of your army, because you're explotiing an AI weakness. It's not a real resolution.

Instead of having your pricey reiksguard wasting their time picking low armored inf, they could very well be busy winning the battle, by either killing the enemy missiles, artillery or flanking charge on lines already engaged, that would contribute a lot more for the battle overall.
Even engaging the enemy cav, in order to stop the enemy to reach your own missiles would be better.
As I said in previous post. Morters base explosion damage is too high. It will kill even armored units. You can either test it yourself or do the math.
They're much more effective against low armored, but they also work against amored, just fine, in fact better than reikguards.

Also what game is that you're playing, that the AI doesn't bring anti cav?
You named low armored units, I mentioned all low armored that could easily wreck the emp standard inf. For that reason I didn't named neither armored units that can eat reiksguard such as choosen with helberdiers or other pesky units like skeleton spearman, that can be a nuinsense, between other units that could make another list of it's own.

Skeleton warriors with tech, skill tree, staff of damnation and vanhel's danse macabre, ain't the same thing that you're used to see.

Empire counter monster on their daily basis.

Then we'll have to ask for these savage orcs from early game turn 6, to wait until we build our great swords, I am sure they'll understand.
Yeah, also winning a 20v40 by exploting the AI and having a superior army, is something that only reikguard could've achieve and mortars won't never ever have performed much better.

Cannon wins because the mammoth flees before getting into Handgunner range. :)
About 1000 damage per salvo, and at least 3 salvos before getting into Handgunner range(more like 4 or 5), + the artillery debuff, means that the mammoth runs away before it has a chance to do anything. Which leaves your handgunners to focus on other threats.
This is further compounded by having additional groups of artillery that can speed up the process, then select new targets. Works against infantry too.
Basically, you force the threats to break off before they can have any impact on the fight. This reduces the amount of "active units" available for the enemy, making it easier for you to flank what ever is engaged on your frontline(so now your handgunners have flanking fire a whole minute earlier).

No matter how much you buff up a group of skeletons, they still die easily to stuff like HRB or AoE magic as they approach. Mortars will ofc add to this, but so would HRB(and even cannons). And for every buff on them, you should consider a buff for those they fight(swordsmen with Warrior priest buffs, for instance).
And since we are talking about bringing cannons or not, you already have access to Greatswords, which wreck all light armoured infantry no problem.

Basically, if your frontline consist of some greatswords, it does not matter what cheap infantry horde the enemy bring(in campaign). They can deal with it. What they cant deal with is fast and hard hitting units, like monstrous infantry and cavalry. Even Handgunners only have 1-2 salvos to fire on a flanking unit before they are engaged in melee. A group of cannons can make sure that nothing is allowed to flank, by killing/drive it off before it has the chance.

What does Mortar add to this equation? It is cheaper than Helstorm Rocket Battery. That is it.

[Cacomistle]

Escrito originalmente por DecayWolf:

Escrito originalmente por Cacomistle:

If you put a halberdier up against a mammoth, it loses. Decisively. They're cost effective ofc, but cost effective sucks in campaign cause of upkeep increases.

The thing is, same is not true for units like savage orcs and clanrats. You can beat them with just your lord. That's actually how I start my fey campaigns. Against skaven and the greenskins, fey, 2 lords, a few peasant bowmen, and the grail guardiand treb and her starting infantry. It's like 11 units, but in siege battles I don't even use the infantry. If you fight 2 stacks of clanrats yoi literally lose nothing.

I mean you can tell me all you want about how empire infantry lose to those units. But reiksguard are tier 3 too. You can't tell me any of those save maybe slayers don't get annihilated by reiksguard, and every other unit in the dwarf roster is armored so mortars are not a dwarf counter).

I'm telling you, what the empire id good and bad against doesn't matter. Skeleton warriors aren't good against wood elves (or anything) but it doesn't mean I can't get 900 kills with wind of death and run wood elves over. I'm telling you, there's like 500 ways to annihilate a full stack of light infantry. There's no golden bullet vs stuff like mammoths. There's a lot of cost effective stuff ofc, but you can't do stuff like run Fey into a stack of 20 of them and expect her to come out at full hp.

Countering monsters and high tier units is better for a very simple reason. They're stronger. A mammoth is a more powerful unit than a clanrat. If the ai can't afford better than clanrats, you win with legit anything.

Also don't bring up swordsmen vs savage orcs. Cannons are a tier 4 unit. You will never sell me on low tier units being a threat after I've got reiksguard when I'm winning 20 vs 40 battles vs units like savage orcs with swordsmen free company and archers.

If you want raw power, pick a luminark, if you want something more reasonable, flexible while also can outperform in damage, take a handgunner vs a great cannon put both to the test, against your Mammoth example.

Meh. I won't consider cheesing the AI as anywhere to be called as a viable tactic, it's just sort of pathetic IMO. If you can 'beat' the AI by blobing them with a lord, and letting them die from ranged fire, it doesn't reflect into army synergy, quite the opposite, since it clearly portraits that you are neglecting a very important part of your army, because you're explotiing an AI weakness. It's not a real resolution.

Instead of having your pricey reiksguard wasting their time picking low armored inf, they could very well be busy winning the battle, by either killing the enemy missiles, artillery or flanking charge on lines already engaged, that would contribute a lot more for the battle overall.
Even engaging the enemy cav, in order to stop the enemy to reach your own missiles would be better.
As I said in previous post. Morters base explosion damage is too high. It will kill even armored units. You can either test it yourself or do the math.
They're much more effective against low armored, but they also work against amored, just fine, in fact better than reikguards.

Also what game is that you're playing, that the AI doesn't bring anti cav?
You named low armored units, I mentioned all low armored that could easily wreck the emp standard inf. For that reason I didn't named neither armored units that can eat reiksguard such as choosen with helberdiers or other pesky units like skeleton spearman, that can be a nuinsense, between other units that could make another list of it's own.

Skeleton warriors with tech, skill tree, staff of damnation and vanhel's danse macabre, ain't the same thing that you're used to see.

Empire counter monster on their daily basis.

Then we'll have to ask for these savage orcs from early game turn 6, to wait until we build our great swords, I am sure they'll understand.
Yeah, also winning a 20v40 by exploting the AI and having a superior army, is something that only reikguard could've achieve and mortars won't never ever have performed much better.

Ok you can say cheesing tbe ai isn't viable, but everything is cheesing the ai. If I plave my infantry in a line, ai will clump on them. If ai brings anti cav, I run past them. They'll brace their spears while I run for their archers, and then unbrace them when I'm actually ready to charge.

Why are you talking about turn 6? You don't get cannons until tier 4. Turn 6 is irrelevant, you literally don't have the choice.

I think this is the issue I'm seeing in your line of thought. You're talking about mortars vs all these low tier troops. Which they're good at. I'm talking about which one to build when you actually have the choice for both. When I have the choice for both, I'm not worried about savage orcs. The ai is either building better stuff or I run them over.

To be clear I don't win 20 v 40 by cheesing them to clump around my lord on empire. If I've got reiksguard vs savage orcs, or norscan marauders, I probably straight up just front charge them. They're that easy to beat. Lets say the ai has like some trolls or something threatening though. I shoot monsters with handgunners, have buffed up halberdiers as the line, and rear charge with reiksguard. Like how long do you think it takes then to kill missles? It's like 1 charge, and none of the infantry you listed will route my line before reiksguard kill an archer. You know what will though? Monsters and heavy cav charges.

That's more than enough to beat a stack of trash, and you can't say I cheesed them cause the ai is too stupid to walk around my halberds to get to my handguns, or leave a few anti cav in reserve to stop reiksguard rear charging. Hell when I play vampires, I get 300 kills with dire wolves?

How do you expect me to not cheese infantry? I can't run a lord with high md in, the ai will clump around them. Can't rear charge with cav, ai is too dumb to leave units in reserve. Can't make a line with my infantry, ai will clump on it. Can't build range units, they'll get to free shoot cause the ai doesn't pressure. There is fundamentally no way to not cheese them cause you cheese them with regular play. And infantry get abused the hardest by "cheese".

That's why I think mortars aren't a unit you'd want to recruit many of in the stage of the game where you have cannons (and to your point, yes I prefer handgunners, but cannons can snipe artillery and are more useful in sieges).

For a short version of my point, we're looking at a point in the game where you've got tier 4. I think its incredibly safe to assume that you can beat any of those units listed other than maybe big uns (sort of cairn wraiths but ai doesn't spam those). Build mortars before then. After that point, I'd build mostly handgunners but a couple of cannons is still good for enemy artillery and sniping monsters.

[rlee87]

Just test out how effective mortars and cannons are vs heavy infantry, cav, and lower model units including lords and heroes. Trust me theres a huge difference. It does seem like mortars perform better because they are easy to handle (parabellic rather than direct line of sight) and you are dealing with low armor stacks early on.

[DecayWolf]

Escrito originalmente por Fendelphi:

Escrito originalmente por DecayWolf:

If you want raw power, pick a luminark, if you want something more reasonable, flexible while also can outperform in damage, take a handgunner vs a great cannon put both to the test, against your Mammoth example.

Meh. I won't consider cheesing the AI as anywhere to be called as a viable tactic, it's just sort of pathetic IMO. If you can 'beat' the AI by blobing them with a lord, and letting them die from ranged fire, it doesn't reflect into army synergy, quite the opposite, since it clearly portraits that you are neglecting a very important part of your army, because you're explotiing an AI weakness. It's not a real resolution.

Instead of having your pricey reiksguard wasting their time picking low armored inf, they could very well be busy winning the battle, by either killing the enemy missiles, artillery or flanking charge on lines already engaged, that would contribute a lot more for the battle overall.
Even engaging the enemy cav, in order to stop the enemy to reach your own missiles would be better.
As I said in previous post. Morters base explosion damage is too high. It will kill even armored units. You can either test it yourself or do the math.
They're much more effective against low armored, but they also work against amored, just fine, in fact better than reikguards.

Also what game is that you're playing, that the AI doesn't bring anti cav?
You named low armored units, I mentioned all low armored that could easily wreck the emp standard inf. For that reason I didn't named neither armored units that can eat reiksguard such as choosen with helberdiers or other pesky units like skeleton spearman, that can be a nuinsense, between other units that could make another list of it's own.

Skeleton warriors with tech, skill tree, staff of damnation and vanhel's danse macabre, ain't the same thing that you're used to see.

Empire counter monster on their daily basis.

Then we'll have to ask for these savage orcs from early game turn 6, to wait until we build our great swords, I am sure they'll understand.
Yeah, also winning a 20v40 by exploting the AI and having a superior army, is something that only reikguard could've achieve and mortars won't never ever have performed much better.

Cannon wins because the mammoth flees before getting into Handgunner range. :)
About 1000 damage per salvo, and at least 3 salvos before getting into Handgunner range(more like 4 or 5), + the artillery debuff, means that the mammoth runs away before it has a chance to do anything. Which leaves your handgunners to focus on other threats.
This is further compounded by having additional groups of artillery that can speed up the process, then select new targets. Works against infantry too.
Basically, you force the threats to break off before they can have any impact on the fight. This reduces the amount of "active units" available for the enemy, making it easier for you to flank what ever is engaged on your frontline(so now your handgunners have flanking fire a whole minute earlier).

No matter how much you buff up a group of skeletons, they still die easily to stuff like HRB or AoE magic as they approach. Mortars will ofc add to this, but so would HRB(and even cannons). And for every buff on them, you should consider a buff for those they fight(swordsmen with Warrior priest buffs, for instance).
And since we are talking about bringing cannons or not, you already have access to Greatswords, which wreck all light armoured infantry no problem.

Basically, if your frontline consist of some greatswords, it does not matter what cheap infantry horde the enemy bring(in campaign). They can deal with it. What they cant deal with is fast and hard hitting units, like monstrous infantry and cavalry. Even Handgunners only have 1-2 salvos to fire on a flanking unit before they are engaged in melee. A group of cannons can make sure that nothing is allowed to flank, by killing/drive it off before it has the chance.

What does Mortar add to this equation? It is cheaper than Helstorm Rocket Battery. That is it.

Well... I never seen any great cannon make a mammoth flee before they engage. It simply doesn't do enough damage.
It's sort of decent to kill small monsters/cav, but it can barely scratch single entity. Honestly, not even luminark (which is a lot of times better against a single entity), can pull it off reliably, before it engage, some times it does that ,when the AI decides to walk all the way.

Sure, if you gonna bring great swords to the equation, then also let's bring, choosen, bestigors, black orcs, grave guards, varghulf, executioners, etc.
Now, let's see how those great swords will hold the line.

Ps: VC has many tools to delete artillery.

[DecayWolf]

Escrito originalmente por Cacomistle:

Escrito originalmente por DecayWolf:

If you want raw power, pick a luminark, if you want something more reasonable, flexible while also can outperform in damage, take a handgunner vs a great cannon put both to the test, against your Mammoth example.

Meh. I won't consider cheesing the AI as anywhere to be called as a viable tactic, it's just sort of pathetic IMO. If you can 'beat' the AI by blobing them with a lord, and letting them die from ranged fire, it doesn't reflect into army synergy, quite the opposite, since it clearly portraits that you are neglecting a very important part of your army, because you're explotiing an AI weakness. It's not a real resolution.

Instead of having your pricey reiksguard wasting their time picking low armored inf, they could very well be busy winning the battle, by either killing the enemy missiles, artillery or flanking charge on lines already engaged, that would contribute a lot more for the battle overall.
Even engaging the enemy cav, in order to stop the enemy to reach your own missiles would be better.
As I said in previous post. Morters base explosion damage is too high. It will kill even armored units. You can either test it yourself or do the math.
They're much more effective against low armored, but they also work against amored, just fine, in fact better than reikguards.

Also what game is that you're playing, that the AI doesn't bring anti cav?
You named low armored units, I mentioned all low armored that could easily wreck the emp standard inf. For that reason I didn't named neither armored units that can eat reiksguard such as choosen with helberdiers or other pesky units like skeleton spearman, that can be a nuinsense, between other units that could make another list of it's own.

Skeleton warriors with tech, skill tree, staff of damnation and vanhel's danse macabre, ain't the same thing that you're used to see.

Empire counter monster on their daily basis.

Then we'll have to ask for these savage orcs from early game turn 6, to wait until we build our great swords, I am sure they'll understand.
Yeah, also winning a 20v40 by exploting the AI and having a superior army, is something that only reikguard could've achieve and mortars won't never ever have performed much better.

Ok you can say cheesing tbe ai isn't viable, but everything is cheesing the ai. If I plave my infantry in a line, ai will clump on them. If ai brings anti cav, I run past them. They'll brace their spears while I run for their archers, and then unbrace them when I'm actually ready to charge.

Why are you talking about turn 6? You don't get cannons until tier 4. Turn 6 is irrelevant, you literally don't have the choice.

I think this is the issue I'm seeing in your line of thought. You're talking about mortars vs all these low tier troops. Which they're good at. I'm talking about which one to build when you actually have the choice for both. When I have the choice for both, I'm not worried about savage orcs. The ai is either building better stuff or I run them over.

To be clear I don't win 20 v 40 by cheesing them to clump around my lord on empire. If I've got reiksguard vs savage orcs, or norscan marauders, I probably straight up just front charge them. They're that easy to beat. Lets say the ai has like some trolls or something threatening though. I shoot monsters with handgunners, have buffed up halberdiers as the line, and rear charge with reiksguard. Like how long do you think it takes then to kill missles? It's like 1 charge, and none of the infantry you listed will route my line before reiksguard kill an archer. You know what will though? Monsters and heavy cav charges.

That's more than enough to beat a stack of trash, and you can't say I cheesed them cause the ai is too stupid to walk around my halberds to get to my handguns, or leave a few anti cav in reserve to stop reiksguard rear charging. Hell when I play vampires, I get 300 kills with dire wolves?

How do you expect me to not cheese infantry? I can't run a lord with high md in, the ai will clump around them. Can't rear charge with cav, ai is too dumb to leave units in reserve. Can't make a line with my infantry, ai will clump on it. Can't build range units, they'll get to free shoot cause the ai doesn't pressure. There is fundamentally no way to not cheese them cause you cheese them with regular play. And infantry get abused the hardest by "cheese".

That's why I think mortars aren't a unit you'd want to recruit many of in the stage of the game where you have cannons (and to your point, yes I prefer handgunners, but cannons can snipe artillery and are more useful in sieges).

For a short version of my point, we're looking at a point in the game where you've got tier 4. I think its incredibly safe to assume that you can beat any of those units listed other than maybe big uns (sort of cairn wraiths but ai doesn't spam those). Build mortars before then. After that point, I'd build mostly handgunners but a couple of cannons is still good for enemy artillery and sniping monsters.

I didn't said it was not viable, I said it doesn't reflect the army synergy and is pathetic to rely on this sort of exploits.
One thing has absolutely nothing with the other. OFC exploiting the AI is viable.

You said you didn't need mortars, because you had Reikguards to kill light inf. (somehow like reiksguards are a replacement of mortars), if you're going to send reikguards against enemy inf, the AI will send their anti cav against your reiksguard.
In fact the AI tries to defend (poorly) their missiles with anti cav, it doesn't work well, because the AI almost always leave them out positioned, which they can only pull off in 40v40+ battles due bad micro from the player's part, due large battle.

So your claim, that you can send reiksguard to kill light inf, simply doesn't apply.
Reiksguard would still take damage (even if they aren't engaged by anti cav), they would take more time to kill than a mortar and the AI would send anti cav units, which would be nearby, because you aren't targeting missiles which are behind unprotected, you're targeting blobs, with anti cav mixed on them.

IDK, you said empire SHOULDN'T use swordsmen and spearmans against savage orcs.
So what will he use then? Empire can pretty much start killing GS at turn 8*
Besides, great cannons against GS would be such a bad idea in most situations, there are so many better and more efficient options... Including mortars... Honestly, I won't even consider great cannon vs GS, unless it's versus a very specific army comp.

Literally, Empire has better missile, artillery and cav. They'll get wrecked on inf, therefore they'll need something to kill it. GC can't do that.

You said yourself, your handgunners will kill the incoming trolls. Furthermore you can also use demis, crowssbowmen, hunters, halberdiers, spearmans.
You don't need great cannon, it's 100% situational. They'll only worthy the pick, only if the enemy has a exaggerate number of monsters and/or cav, then great cannons would be a solid pick, otherwise your dafault army comp, will be able to handle it.
You're preaching on a weakness that the Empire doesn't have. Empire eats monsters for breakfast.

Bro, in your previous post, you said "I don't need a big front line, because I can send my lord to tank the incoming enemy"
In a normal case scenario, your Great cannons won't have such a great LOS.
If said you don't cheese, then I suppose you don't also send your lord to tank the incoming enemy while you snipe it off as well, because you have claimed to do this?

Cannons are situational. Against specific armies or factions they can be totally worthy it, but definitely NOT as something that should be present at every army. They just don't add anything, that Empire can't already have by default.
I am not saying cannons are terrible without use, I am saying they're situational. If you're looking for something more flexible, try Steam Tanks, they do everything that a Great Cannons does, but they also can tank, flank(for awesome damage), harass enemy missiles, cause mass terror route, block/defend flanks.

I mean, whatever fits your preference.

[pin]

I like both. Mortars in early game and sieges but cannons are by no means less useful. Vs monstrous infantry such as trolls and calv is one area where its good, and before you come in with getting your own calv etc well 3-4 rounds of shots from cannons before your calv even engage can help your calv overcome their calv very fast and move on to better roles in the whole battle.

Cannons can also do great against infantry lines. If you actually move your cannons and infantry around you can easily setup flanking shots where 1 cannon ball can easily wipe 10+ models off enemy infantry units. I've successfully used free comany + hand gunner + 3 crossbow +3 cannon armies against end game chaos and liz armies and my cannons can regularly get 200+ kills easily when i actually bothered to spend a little bit of effort to setup effective situations for them. Also, ALT+ ground click can do wonders in close range blob shots even without setup. I've done alt click shots on ground behind my infantry line that went on to kill 2-3x more enemy than friendly fire.

Just pointing out some things you can do with cannons that seems to be missing from this discussion..

[DecayWolf]

Also, if you guys please. run the following test.

tons of unshielded spearman.
1x luminark
1x steam tank
1x great cannon
1x handgunner

vs

4 war mammoth.

1st place will go to luminark (no suprise), it will kill A LOT faster than the 2nd place.
2nd place will go to the hangunner. no suprise either, a lot faster than 3rd place.
3rd place goes to great cannon. Worth to mention that by the time the great cannon will kill the mammoth, it would already have wipped your entire army and the great cannon itself. Overall almost as fast as 4th place.
4rd for steam tank. pretty much same as above, however differently than GC, they are more flexible.

Now, I have no clue how can someone claim that great cannons can kill a mammoth before it engage, since it can't even take 5% of it's health pool...

Now, if you're still feeling like running tests.

Bring a lot unshilded spearman with great cannons and mortars.
vs light armored inf and actually look the health bar.
Even if the great cannons kill comparably than a mortar, it will deal HELL LOT LESS DAMAGE, because it do not has splash damage. in fact if you run this test once only with mortars and once with only great cannons, the great cannons variant will get overunned and actually lose the battle, their LOS will also get blocked.

Now do the same but against armored units. Mortars will still outpeform great cannons.

Just test it by yourself.

[rlee87]

Escrito originalmente por DecayWolf:

Also, if you guys please. run the following test.

tons of unshielded spearman.
1x luminark
1x steam tank
1x great cannon
1x handgunner

vs

4 war mammoth.

1st place will go to luminark (no suprise), it will kill A LOT faster than the 2nd place.
2nd place will go to the hangunner. no suprise either.
3rd place goes to great cannon. Worth to mention that by the time the great cannon will kill the mammoth, it would already have wipped your entire army and the great cannon itself.
4rd for steam tank.

Now, I have no clue how can someone claim that great cannons can kill a mammoth before it engage, since it can't even take 5% of it's health pool, but please, test before...

the person who said a great cannon can kill a mammoth 1v1 before it closes in on your army is obviously full of sheet. I didnt bother reading all of the wall of messages but I thought this discussion was about mortars vs great cannons. in that scenario great cannons would outperform mortars, plus mortars will end up damaging your own units when engaged with a mammoth.

[DecayWolf]

Escrito originalmente por rlee87:

Escrito originalmente por DecayWolf:

Also, if you guys please. run the following test.

tons of unshielded spearman.
1x luminark
1x steam tank
1x great cannon
1x handgunner

vs

4 war mammoth.

1st place will go to luminark (no suprise), it will kill A LOT faster than the 2nd place.
2nd place will go to the hangunner. no suprise either.
3rd place goes to great cannon. Worth to mention that by the time the great cannon will kill the mammoth, it would already have wipped your entire army and the great cannon itself.
4rd for steam tank.

Now, I have no clue how can someone claim that great cannons can kill a mammoth before it engage, since it can't even take 5% of it's health pool, but please, test before...

the person who said a great cannon can kill a mammoth 1v1 before it closes in on your army is obviously full of sheet. I didnt bother reading all of the wall of messages but I thought this discussion was about mortars vs great cannons. in that scenario great cannons would outperform mortars, plus mortars will end up damaging your own units when engaged with a mammoth.

Well, I wouldn't advice anyone trying to use a mortar against a mammoth neither.
Yeah, it outperforms, but a single handgunner will outperform a great cannon.

[Cacomistle]

Escrito originalmente por DecayWolf:

Escrito originalmente por Cacomistle:

Ok you can say cheesing tbe ai isn't viable, but everything is cheesing the ai. If I plave my infantry in a line, ai will clump on them. If ai brings anti cav, I run past them. They'll brace their spears while I run for their archers, and then unbrace them when I'm actually ready to charge.

Why are you talking about turn 6? You don't get cannons until tier 4. Turn 6 is irrelevant, you literally don't have the choice.

I think this is the issue I'm seeing in your line of thought. You're talking about mortars vs all these low tier troops. Which they're good at. I'm talking about which one to build when you actually have the choice for both. When I have the choice for both, I'm not worried about savage orcs. The ai is either building better stuff or I run them over.

To be clear I don't win 20 v 40 by cheesing them to clump around my lord on empire. If I've got reiksguard vs savage orcs, or norscan marauders, I probably straight up just front charge them. They're that easy to beat. Lets say the ai has like some trolls or something threatening though. I shoot monsters with handgunners, have buffed up halberdiers as the line, and rear charge with reiksguard. Like how long do you think it takes then to kill missles? It's like 1 charge, and none of the infantry you listed will route my line before reiksguard kill an archer. You know what will though? Monsters and heavy cav charges.

That's more than enough to beat a stack of trash, and you can't say I cheesed them cause the ai is too stupid to walk around my halberds to get to my handguns, or leave a few anti cav in reserve to stop reiksguard rear charging. Hell when I play vampires, I get 300 kills with dire wolves?

How do you expect me to not cheese infantry? I can't run a lord with high md in, the ai will clump around them. Can't rear charge with cav, ai is too dumb to leave units in reserve. Can't make a line with my infantry, ai will clump on it. Can't build range units, they'll get to free shoot cause the ai doesn't pressure. There is fundamentally no way to not cheese them cause you cheese them with regular play. And infantry get abused the hardest by "cheese".

That's why I think mortars aren't a unit you'd want to recruit many of in the stage of the game where you have cannons (and to your point, yes I prefer handgunners, but cannons can snipe artillery and are more useful in sieges).

For a short version of my point, we're looking at a point in the game where you've got tier 4. I think its incredibly safe to assume that you can beat any of those units listed other than maybe big uns (sort of cairn wraiths but ai doesn't spam those). Build mortars before then. After that point, I'd build mostly handgunners but a couple of cannons is still good for enemy artillery and sniping monsters.

I didn't said it was not viable, I said it doesn't reflect the army synergy and is pathetic to rely on this sort of exploits.
One thing has absolutely nothing with the other. OFC exploiting the AI is viable.

You said you didn't need mortars, because you had Reikguards to kill light inf. (somehow like reiksguards are a replacement of mortars), if you're going to send reikguards against enemy inf, the AI will send their anti cav against your reiksguard.
In fact the AI tries to defend (poorly) their missiles with anti cav, it doesn't work well, because the AI almost always leave them out positioned, which they can only pull off in 40v40+ battles due bad micro from the player's part, due large battle.

So your claim, that you can send reiksguard to kill light inf, simply doesn't apply.
Reiksguard would still take damage (even if they aren't engaged by anti cav), they would take more time to kill than a mortar and the AI would send anti cav units, which would be nearby, because you aren't targeting missiles which are behind unprotected, you're targeting blobs, with anti cav mixed on them.

IDK, you said empire SHOULDN'T use swordsmen and spearmans against savage orcs.
So what will he use then? Empire can pretty much start killing GS at turn 8*
Besides, great cannons against GS would be such a bad idea in most situations, there are so many better and more efficient options... Including mortars... Honestly, I won't even consider great cannon vs GS, unless it's versus a very specific army comp.

Literally, Empire has better missile, artillery and cav. They'll get wrecked on inf, therefore they'll need something to kill it. GC can't do that.

You said yourself, your handgunners will kill the incoming trolls. Furthermore you can also use demis, crowssbowmen, hunters, halberdiers, spearmans.
You don't need great cannon, it's 100% situational. They'll only worthy the pick, only if the enemy has a exaggerate number of monsters and/or cav, then great cannons would be a solid pick, otherwise your dafault army comp, will be able to handle it.
You're preaching on a weakness that the Empire doesn't have. Empire eats monsters for breakfast.

Bro, in your previous post, you said "I don't need a big front line, because I can send my lord to tank the incoming enemy"
In a normal case scenario, your Great cannons won't have such a great LOS.
If said you don't cheese, then I suppose you don't also send your lord to tank the incoming enemy while you snipe it off as well, because you have claimed to do this?

Cannons are situational. Against specific armies or factions they can be totally worthy it, but definitely NOT as something that should be present at every army. They just don't add anything, that Empire can't already have by default.
I am not saying cannons are terrible without use, I am saying they're situational. If you're looking for something more flexible, try Steam Tanks, they do everything that a Great Cannons does, but they also can tank, flank(for awesome damage), harass enemy missiles, cause mass terror route, block/defend flanks.

I mean, whatever fits your preference.

Ok I think you're still missing 2 key points. One, empire wouldn't use swordsmen vs savage orcs, because we're talking about the point in the game they have cannons. You don't have access to cannons on turn 8. Stop talking about turn 8.

And the other, well less of a key point cause its not that important. I said not cheesing the ai isn't viable. I mean its technically viable, but you have to literally try to not cheese the ai. If you play normally, you'll end up cheesing them just because they can't really even handle normal play.

Its like, say the ai is trying to flank me with cav. The obvious solution to flanking cav is to put spearmen braced on the flanks. If I do this, the ai charges head first into the spearmen. I've actually just cheesed the ai by doing nothing. I've exploited them into doing a stupid charge with absolutely no effort. So my only option to not cheese the ai is to basically pretend I don't see their cav. Not to mention, if you get techs and red tree buffs, your units end up naturally stronger than the ai. When I play dwarves, a dwarf warrior can take down a big un. When I play wurzhag, a savage orc can kill a longbeard.

Thus, units that specialize in killing weak units are only good early on in the game. Mortars are perfectly fine on turn 8 (although the only way you have a mortar on turn 8 is if you started as one, or maybe wulfhart gets one in imperial supplies).

To be perfectly clear, I don't think cannons are particularly amazing either, I think handgunners are the cost effective option and hellblasters if you're just rich. And then probably rockets but I haven't used them since the change. Mortars are pretty good when you first get them but I'd start replacing them later and if there weren't better options than cannons that would be my replacement.

As a side note, mortars don't outkill reiksguard unless the ai clumps like 10 infantry squads (or if you mismicro the reiksguard), and I've never come even remotely close to losing a battle where that happened.

[Cacomistle]

Escrito originalmente por DecayWolf:

Also, if you guys please. run the following test.

tons of unshielded spearman.
1x luminark
1x steam tank
1x great cannon
1x handgunner

vs

4 war mammoth.

1st place will go to luminark (no suprise), it will kill A LOT faster than the 2nd place.
2nd place will go to the hangunner. no suprise either, a lot faster than 3rd place.
3rd place goes to great cannon. Worth to mention that by the time the great cannon will kill the mammoth, it would already have wipped your entire army and the great cannon itself. Overall almost as fast as 4th place.
4rd for steam tank. pretty much same as above, however differently than GC, they are more flexible.

Now, I have no clue how can someone claim that great cannons can kill a mammoth before it engage, since it can't even take 5% of it's health pool...

Now, if you're still feeling like running tests.

Ok, obvously a cannon does not kill a mammoth before it engages. But this is hyperbole in the other direction. I just tested it to make sure.

I put a cannon, a spearmen, and a generic lord up against wulfrik in a custom battle. Wulfrik engaged the spearmen (about 30 range in front of my cannon) at about 9000 hp, which is like 85%. By the time he killed the spearmen, he was at about 50% (obviously the spearmen did some damage, but also the cannon wasn't shooting half the time cause wulfrik was moving around too much at close range). Wulfrik then chased down my lord who was standing off to the side so he wouldn't contribute damage, and by the time he killed my lord (who basically didn't get the chance to attack back), he was at 30%. Wulfrik then obviously ran the cannon over.

If I get some campaign buffed cannons, they do actually probably about double the dps. So if you fight a cannon and a halberdier, depending on the terrain, your placement, and whether the mammoth decides to actually get intelligent and go kill your cannon, you'll win. If we assume a cannon that's not level 7 with tech and red tree bonuses, then a cannon and a halberdier probably lose, but they also cost less than a mammoth by a decent amount.

The claim a cannon cannot take 5% of a mammoths health pool is blatantly false. Why did you even post that before you thought for 2 seconds and realized your cannon was clearly having line of sight issues.

[Cacomistle]

Escrito originalmente por DecayWolf:

Escrito originalmente por rlee87:

the person who said a great cannon can kill a mammoth 1v1 before it closes in on your army is obviously full of sheet. I didnt bother reading all of the wall of messages but I thought this discussion was about mortars vs great cannons. in that scenario great cannons would outperform mortars, plus mortars will end up damaging your own units when engaged with a mammoth.

Well, I wouldn't advice anyone trying to use a mortar against a mammoth neither.
Yeah, it outperforms, but a single handgunner will outperform a great cannon.

Cannons aren't that much more expensive, are far more useful in siege battles, and have an easier time hitting enemy ranged (which are usually more threatening than infantry cause campaign buffs don't give missle resist unless you run flagellants). And cannons have an easier time picking their targets. It is quite unsurprising handgunners have the edge in dps.

[DecayWolf]

Escrito originalmente por Cacomistle:

Escrito originalmente por DecayWolf:

I didn't said it was not viable, I said it doesn't reflect the army synergy and is pathetic to rely on this sort of exploits.
One thing has absolutely nothing with the other. OFC exploiting the AI is viable.

You said you didn't need mortars, because you had Reikguards to kill light inf. (somehow like reiksguards are a replacement of mortars), if you're going to send reikguards against enemy inf, the AI will send their anti cav against your reiksguard.
In fact the AI tries to defend (poorly) their missiles with anti cav, it doesn't work well, because the AI almost always leave them out positioned, which they can only pull off in 40v40+ battles due bad micro from the player's part, due large battle.

So your claim, that you can send reiksguard to kill light inf, simply doesn't apply.
Reiksguard would still take damage (even if they aren't engaged by anti cav), they would take more time to kill than a mortar and the AI would send anti cav units, which would be nearby, because you aren't targeting missiles which are behind unprotected, you're targeting blobs, with anti cav mixed on them.

IDK, you said empire SHOULDN'T use swordsmen and spearmans against savage orcs.
So what will he use then? Empire can pretty much start killing GS at turn 8*
Besides, great cannons against GS would be such a bad idea in most situations, there are so many better and more efficient options... Including mortars... Honestly, I won't even consider great cannon vs GS, unless it's versus a very specific army comp.

Literally, Empire has better missile, artillery and cav. They'll get wrecked on inf, therefore they'll need something to kill it. GC can't do that.

You said yourself, your handgunners will kill the incoming trolls. Furthermore you can also use demis, crowssbowmen, hunters, halberdiers, spearmans.
You don't need great cannon, it's 100% situational. They'll only worthy the pick, only if the enemy has a exaggerate number of monsters and/or cav, then great cannons would be a solid pick, otherwise your dafault army comp, will be able to handle it.
You're preaching on a weakness that the Empire doesn't have. Empire eats monsters for breakfast.

Bro, in your previous post, you said "I don't need a big front line, because I can send my lord to tank the incoming enemy"
In a normal case scenario, your Great cannons won't have such a great LOS.
If said you don't cheese, then I suppose you don't also send your lord to tank the incoming enemy while you snipe it off as well, because you have claimed to do this?

Cannons are situational. Against specific armies or factions they can be totally worthy it, but definitely NOT as something that should be present at every army. They just don't add anything, that Empire can't already have by default.
I am not saying cannons are terrible without use, I am saying they're situational. If you're looking for something more flexible, try Steam Tanks, they do everything that a Great Cannons does, but they also can tank, flank(for awesome damage), harass enemy missiles, cause mass terror route, block/defend flanks.

I mean, whatever fits your preference.

Ok I think you're still missing 2 key points. One, empire wouldn't use swordsmen vs savage orcs, because we're talking about the point in the game they have cannons. You don't have access to cannons on turn 8. Stop talking about turn 8.

And the other, well less of a key point cause its not that important. I said not cheesing the ai isn't viable. I mean its technically viable, but you have to literally try to not cheese the ai. If you play normally, you'll end up cheesing them just because they can't really even handle normal play.

Its like, say the ai is trying to flank me with cav. The obvious solution to flanking cav is to put spearmen braced on the flanks. If I do this, the ai charges head first into the spearmen. I've actually just cheesed the ai by doing nothing. I've exploited them into doing a stupid charge with absolutely no effort. So my only option to not cheese the ai is to basically pretend I don't see their cav. Not to mention, if you get techs and red tree buffs, your units end up naturally stronger than the ai. When I play dwarves, a dwarf warrior can take down a big un. When I play wurzhag, a savage orc can kill a longbeard.

Thus, units that specialize in killing weak units are only good early on in the game. Mortars are perfectly fine on turn 8 (although the only way you have a mortar on turn 8 is if you started as one, or maybe wulfhart gets one in imperial supplies).

To be perfectly clear, I don't think cannons are particularly amazing either, I think handgunners are the cost effective option and hellblasters if you're just rich. And then probably rockets but I haven't used them since the change. Mortars are pretty good when you first get them but I'd start replacing them later and if there weren't better options than cannons that would be my replacement.

As a side note, mortars don't outkill reiksguard unless the ai clumps like 10 infantry squads (or if you mismicro the reiksguard), and I've never come even remotely close to losing a battle where that happened.

Alright, let's leave AI cheeses tactics aside, it's off the topic anyways.
Well, if we are talking about mid-late game, then we have to take in consideration, the dangerous infantry from the enemy. Even with buffs Great Swords would still struggle against say Choosen, Black orcs, etc.

That's what I am trying to say. Great cannons are good at their very specific niche, the problem is, the default composition from empire, already cover their role.
They'll only be viable, either if the AI is spamming a lot of monsters/cav and you have already recruited the maximal amount of more efficient units, such as handgunners where they still have LOS.
Once your extra handgunners no longer has LOS, then great cannons comes into play, as extra damage potential.

Try it yourself, mortars against armored units. If you manage to make them use their ammo, they'll perform very nicely even against armored units. Simply put, their explosive base damage is too high, and the radius area is too big. Better than great cannons in fact.

Escrito originalmente por Cacomistle:

Escrito originalmente por DecayWolf:

Also, if you guys please. run the following test.

tons of unshielded spearman.
1x luminark
1x steam tank
1x great cannon
1x handgunner

vs

4 war mammoth.

1st place will go to luminark (no suprise), it will kill A LOT faster than the 2nd place.
2nd place will go to the hangunner. no suprise either, a lot faster than 3rd place.
3rd place goes to great cannon. Worth to mention that by the time the great cannon will kill the mammoth, it would already have wipped your entire army and the great cannon itself. Overall almost as fast as 4th place.
4rd for steam tank. pretty much same as above, however differently than GC, they are more flexible.

Now, I have no clue how can someone claim that great cannons can kill a mammoth before it engage, since it can't even take 5% of it's health pool...

Now, if you're still feeling like running tests.

Ok, obvously a cannon does not kill a mammoth before it engages. But this is hyperbole in the other direction. I just tested it to make sure.

I put a cannon, a spearmen, and a generic lord up against wulfrik in a custom battle. Wulfrik engaged the spearmen (about 30 range in front of my cannon) at about 9000 hp, which is like 85%. By the time he killed the spearmen, he was at about 50% (obviously the spearmen did some damage, but also the cannon wasn't shooting half the time cause wulfrik was moving around too much at close range). Wulfrik then chased down my lord who was standing off to the side so he wouldn't contribute damage, and by the time he killed my lord (who basically didn't get the chance to attack back), he was at 30%. Wulfrik then obviously ran the cannon over.

If I get some campaign buffed cannons, they do actually probably about double the dps. So if you fight a cannon and a halberdier, depending on the terrain, your placement, and whether the mammoth decides to actually get intelligent and go kill your cannon, you'll win. If we assume a cannon that's not level 7 with tech and red tree bonuses, then a cannon and a halberdier probably lose, but they also cost less than a mammoth by a decent amount.

The claim a cannon cannot take 5% of a mammoths health pool is blatantly false. Why did you even post that before you thought for 2 seconds and realized your cannon was clearly having line of sight issues.

We can also use the same logic of tech, skill tree, terrain missile damage bonus and handgunners would still outperform an great cannons vs a war mammoth.

Escrito originalmente por Cacomistle:

Escrito originalmente por DecayWolf:

Well, I wouldn't advice anyone trying to use a mortar against a mammoth neither.
Yeah, it outperforms, but a single handgunner will outperform a great cannon.

Cannons aren't that much more expensive, are far more useful in siege battles, and have an easier time hitting enemy ranged (which are usually more threatening than infantry cause campaign buffs don't give missle resist unless you run flagellants). And cannons have an easier time picking their targets. It is quite unsurprising handgunners have the edge in dps.

Correct. However the default empire army composition, already covers what great cannons supposed to offer. Therefore great cannons does not bring anything meaningful to the table, in the vast majority of situations.

If you can effort a great cannons, you can also effort a Helstorm Rocket, they however will be able to massacre masses of infantry, the biggest weakness from the empire.
They are also better at destroying towers (faster) and they will perform more kills and overall damage on units on top of walls as well.

They basically outperform great cannons in siege in pretty much every way.