Shogun 2: How to shoot cannons YOURSELF in First Person

How to use cannons before you get in range like a boss!

Cannons

Anyone that has played the Total War series would know that cannons have range. But what if you wanted to shoot the enemy before they shot you? This question shall be answered in this guide. Go on, read the next section.

The Basics

To enter the cannon view, click on your unit and enter first person mode (default button is H). Then this will appear:

Now you will be able to control one of the cannons in your cannon unit. You can turn left and right freely. To fire in first person mode, simply use the left mouse button. Remember, the cannon WILL NOT fire if the cursor is red.

How to Master Targeting

Enough of all those easy tactics. Here is the harder part.
So, when we go into first person mode, we get a white reticle above our cannon.
Aiming the cannon is pretty hard when you are not in range yet. Pointing it up will abviously help.
1) For accuracy try putting the white reticle on top/in line with the enemy standard. The game will show you where the cannon ball lands. If you miss, try shooting in a different way.
2) If you need to rapid-fire (not actually but you get the idea) shoot in the general direction of the enemy.
3) If you want to kill the enemy cavalry, try to shoot in front/the sides to have the most kills.


4) If the enemy has a huge army, just fire and get the feel of it!
5) Try getting on some elevated terrain! This will give you a more precise location of the enemy unit and make a huge difference in accuracy. Of course, fire lower now.

Common Problems:

• You fire too low

If they are close:

• Use your shooter gaming skills and aim like if it was an AK-47.

Other Types of Shots

Round shot is best for destroying cavalry, ships, and walls, but if you want to kill troops, other types of shots will be usefull.

Shrapnel
This shot is great against infantry. As one of the comments has stated, it is glitchy and buggy when used in First Person. To use it, you can try to either do the aiming and let the computer fire the shot, or just use it as a different type of shot. :P



UNDER DEVELOPMENT

Gatling Guns, the Machine Guns of the Game

"Sir our enemy has gatling guns!"- and all that stuff.
Well, this explanation will be short and sweet.
To fire a gatling gun in first person mode use your left mouse key to fire. It will NOT fire if the reticle is red. So then your gatling gun starts firing like a machine gun. Remember to conserve ammuntion, though! Using a gatling gun in first person mode is useful when you want your men to target the enemy general but they, instead, kill everyone exept the general himself. In FPM you can simply target him/his horse. Gratulor, princeps, iam mortuum!
Also, this has a second use that I would not recommend:
Assasinating annoying soldiers. Just target that soldier and fire for about 2 seconds and he falls down, dead.

Tactics

Why should you use the first person mode in the first place? Using FPM usually gives you a tactical advantage against the enemy who might not know this. Here are some tactics to use while using FPM:

• Fire the cannon in FPM, and while it is reloading, check on the rest of the battlefield. Repeat until the enemy comes near your own troops. Now you have to do some micro managing, not FPM.
  
• Kill the enemy general.

Siege Battles

First person mode on cannons during a siege battle is semi-usefull. Targeting walls and buildings could be a waste of time as the computer can do that for you but shooting the enemy general or troops in the back or out of range is something that will give you a huge advantage.

Sea Battles

In sea battles, first person mode allows you to reload quicker. This gives you an advantage against your enemy but it should not be used all the time, since it is a battle, not target practice :P. Credit to Silshryk for the part about reloading!
Also, when you are repairing your ship, you can use FPM to fire while without FPM it won't shoot.
Your enemy will be baffled!

Do you play Ship VS Ship battles?
In Ship VS Ship battles, FPM gives you a clear advantage, as this will just be aformentioned target practice for you. And that target is slow and big.

Afterwards

I know this guide is not helpful right now, but I'll try to make it better. (The tactics are so basic you probably knew them before.) If you have some suggestions, please tell me.

P.S. I accidently once put this guide on Napoleon Total War just saying xD

[Jixxor]

Any way to shoot more than just one of the cannons? On Ultra unit size you have 4 per unit but first person always puts you behind the same one so only 1/4th of the unit is used.

[SPAMRAAM]

Funny thing is, we can shoot armstrong cannons like a modern howitzer. When the elevation angle is taken to the limit, the range becomes many times the normal limit, and the shell is actually lethal unlike that of NTW. I use this trick in FotS histrical battle and earned all gold quite easily.

[Chinaman]

Boss how to release the shrapnel in first person? It seems they broke first person somehow as I can't adjust trajectory mid flight either (used to be able to in 2018)

[Fake]

step 1 buy FOTS step 2 play shogun 2 step 3 go singleplayer or custom and go FOTS step4 research imported guns step 5 attack some clan step 6 deploy step 7 press h step 8 shoot step 9 wait for reload

[Sir_Lukasz]

@Shobhya☯maeng Thanks!

[Maeng]

Ah I see that now, useful guide nonetheless, happy new year :D

[Sir_Lukasz]

@☯Akshobhya maeng thanks, I know that now. :) I wrote this guide way back when

[Maeng]

White line thing = Reticle. Thats the word youre looking for

[Sir_Lukasz]

@Bou Luk'Diran Thank you!

[Bou! ☑]

would definitely like to see this article more fleshed out, i've played many hours of TW but even i learned something new from the article related to being able to fire while under repair in FP mode, i never even bothered to try! thanks for keeping your post so well organized and thought out as well, its not majorly important, but if a guide is a sloppy mess i don't generally reach the bottom of it. keep up the good work Lukasz~