[C3C] cannon unit

[patinthedesert]

Is there some reason that the cannon seems so ineffective? It misses like 50% of the time. And when I really need it, seems like the hit is 1 out of 4. Very frustrating.
Artillery unit does not have the same problem.

 

[justanick]

Artillery has bombard value 12 and frequency 2 for 80 shields. Cannons have bombard value 8 and frequency 1 for 40 shields. So artillery is three times as effective and 1.5 times as effective relative to the invested shield. Also artillery has twice the range, which increases convenience a lot. Artillery simply is a lot better. But even cannons are great, just not a great as artillery.

 

[md4]

Depends on what you're shooting at. Cannons are fine against pikes and muskets, in the same way artillery is fine against rifles but less so against infantry & mechanised units.

 

[justanick]

Catapults are for spearmen, trebuchets for pikes, cannons for muskets, artillery for rifleman or infantry and against mechanized infantry radar artillery would be the means, that is if you ever get that far in the tech tree. Radar artillery is really strong with 16 bombard and frequency 3. It can take down 3 HP in one shot.

 

[r16]

and masses of "artillery" . When ı reach 500 or so units in the scenario ı play a quarter or a third of that will be fire support . Miss with 10 ? Probably got a hit with 90 .

 

[vorlon_mi]

Is there some reason that the cannon seems so ineffective? It misses like 50% of the time. And when I really need it, seems like the hit is 1 out of 4. Very frustrating.
Artillery unit does not have the same problem.

As others have noted, the stats for the cannon unit are lower than the artillery unit. While I never have quite the large stack as r16, you should make sure that you're bringing enough ranged units in your stack. Most AI cities that are not capitals tend to have 2 or 3 defenders. If you have 4-6 bombard units, you can knock HP off of the better defenders to soften them up for your knights or cavs. As the game goes on, your stack gets bigger and bigger. Guard your bombard units with pikes or muskets, and increase the number of bombards as you replace the offensive units that die in combat.

 

[r16]

artillery is a sound investment . Have many , redline enemy units down to one health bar each , kill them . More units of yours to elite status , and you can have more military leaders with more elite units . And having fire support in large numbers will allow you to use them in as many fights as possible . (Doesn't make much of a difference when you have railroads , but ı have been playing a single mod with random maps for years now and it is medieval at its height .)

 

[md4]

It is also so satisfying once you enable auto-bombard (requires disabling the preference to cancel unit orders due to enemy units to work properly), that is right up until the enemy vacates the tile you targeted, and you start shelling your own terrain improvements instead.

 

[tjs282]

It is also so satisfying once you enable auto-bombard (requires disabling the preference to cancel unit orders due to enemy units to work properly), that is right up until the enemy vacates the tile you targeted, and you start shelling your own terrain improvements instead.

I only ever use Auto-bombard on AI-towns, to soften up defenders (and keep the AI's people unhappy) while my Cavs heal behind my front lines, in preparation for their next assault. Sometimes my bombardments will destroy the AI's Barracks, which is sweet, because then their bombarded/ injured units don't heal (so fast) over the interturn.

 

[md4]

I do use it a bit more sensibly now, but I assumed they would stop bombardment when the enemy units vacated the tile under attack; not when there was still something left to destroy, even if it was my own infrastructure.

 

[patinthedesert]

Auto-bombard ??? Is this in the standard game?

 

[md4]

Yes. Press Shift+B to use it, although you have to check your Preferences and ensure that the setting "Cancel unit orders due to enemy units" is disabled. Otherwise your auto-bombard order is cancelled because of the enemy units you're firing at. It's most useful against cities, as @tjs282 points out. It works for air units too. If you can amass enough artillery units, each turn in the game becomes your very own WW1 simulator.

 

[tjs282]

Auto-bombard ??? Is this in the standard game?

Yes, as @md4 says, it is a standard function (and has been since at least PtW, AFAIK: can't remember if it was in Vanilla as well), but unless a player has read the manual in detail*, it is essentially hidden.

*Or downloaded the C3C-Data PDF from CFC — which unfortunately I can't find right now, because the XenForo conversion broke a whole bunch of links, and I can't remember the nickname of the CFC-user who prepared it: the name on the PDF is "Julian Egelstaff"

If you open the Game Preferences (Ctrl-P), and check the box marked "Show advanced unit actions", this will show you a whole bunch of extra unit-order buttons on the map-screen. Most of these buttons are for the various Worker-automation orders, but the Auto-bombardment button will also be made visible (along with the 'Rename unit' button, IIRC).

 

[Buttercup]

Ughhh, I find canon units to be one of the most boring and worthless units in the game. By the late middle ages you really should have some kind of horse units in number and, if you're attacking stuff, they will be doing fine without dying of boredom waiting for canons to arrive.

I only tend to build them if I want to prepare a stack in readiness for Replaceable Parts in the Industrial Era when railroads make artillery viable again.

 

[patinthedesert]

I have become a big fan of artillery in recent games. Pound the city or enemy stack, then kill off the wounded units. It's not elegant but a stack of at least 6 or 8 artillery can really make a difference. In larger games assume a bigger stack. The slow movement rate is the only problem. And making sure you don't accidentally leave them unguarded. The AI opponent will dash in and capture.
The trebuchet is also effective in the earlier era, until it goes obsolete.

 

[r16]

if the map allows it , use ships to land directly into action .

 

[MadMac]

I find any bombardment unit below an artillery a pain in the neck to use. Unless you have 5+ of them they simply don't do their job if you are hitting an enemy city near a mountain or on a hill. Not to mention they are slow as molasses and I don't have the patience to move them along with a rifleman or another defensive unit to get my knights/cavalry to escort them. The enemy just always beats me to their cities with their road systems before I can get into a good position to blast the city. I find they just slow down my attack more than anything. I just like to kill everyone and conquor with hoards of cavalry and not much else. lol!

 

[md4]

They are situational, though I tend to find myself in those situations frequently, so once I learn mathematics, I invariably have a lot of my non-barracks cities building them whenever they have nothing overly important to concentrate on. My current game saw me forced to go conquesting into neighbouring Germany with nothing but archers and spearmen against swordsmen and emergent pikemen/medieval infantry to take their iron. I don't think it would have been feasible without a dozen catapults & trebuchets.

While the same shields could have been put towards more archers, my intuition tells me (perhaps wrongly) it would have been a less efficient investment in terms of production spent versus cities captured, mainly because the softening of city garrisons allows you to reuse attackers because they aren't dying en masse against technologically superior defenders (that they are also promoting at the same time, compounding the problem).

 

[justanick]

The softening up helps with getting promotions to Elite and Elite*. A MGL allows you to create an army and armies are excellent at taking cities. Eventually you end up not using artillery to take cities, because you have enough fast and strong armies to do that job. Artillery just helps to gain armies and to preserve them. Any fighting except taking a city would still be done by regular units. Once you have artillery proper with firing range 2 the picture changes again.

 

[r16]

as always tech superiority helps . Catapults would loose effectiveness against pikemen ? You should have trebuchets and more ideally cannon against them . With fire support you lose less units in combat which means you don't have to replace them . Which tends mean perhaps a larger army or more science building back at home . Which then means better fire support .