Controlling Artillery Aggressiveness

[fleischer]

Hi,

I have a few questions concerning artillery [:)]

Is it possible to control the "aggressiveness" of artillery bombardments without manually ordering bombardments?

Will the the Aggro or ROF settings of an attack affect artillery in any way?

I noticed that the AI sets the Aggro setting of a bombard task - usually to high. What effect does this have?

What I basically wish to achieve, is to have the AI control all my artillery pieces and have them blast away without any ammunition restraints, and at the same time allow my line units to attack at medium Aggro/ROF.

Thanks!

- Fleischer

[Marshal Villars]

Good question.

[MarkShot]

ORIGINAL: fleischer

Hi,

I have a few questions concerning artillery [:)]

Is it possible to control the "aggressiveness" of artillery bombardments without manually ordering bombardments?

Will the the Aggro or ROF settings of an attack affect artillery in any way?

I noticed that the AI sets the Aggro setting of a bombard task - usually to high. What effect does this have?

What I basically wish to achieve, is to have the AI control all my artillery pieces and have them blast away without any ammunition restraints, and at the same time allow my line units to attack at medium Aggro/ROF.

Thanks!

- Fleischer

I don't believe that the these settings for a task other than ROF for BOMBARD have any impact on heavy artillery units. I think AGGRO might have some impact on mortar, since they have a much higher degree of integration with line formations. Meaning that anything that impacts what line formations decide to do probably impacts mortars as well.

ROF, I believe, is automatically adjusted based on the target's range (from the arty unit). The closer the target gets, the higher the ROF.

Manual BOMBARD orders along with ROF can have many valuable uses. Some examples:

* Securing a bridge: You want to note garrison positions (despite fading out of intel reports) and plaster them hard prior to and during an attack. Remember just one slip up and you could lose the bridge (blown).

* The enemy is crossing a bridge: Even though you may not be able to interdict the enemy from crossing, you can establish a slow bombardment which will complicate and slow their crossing.

[Marshal Villars]

I have really been enjoying (evil cackle) interdicting highly trafficed roads and crossings with slow bombardments recently.

If they were real humans I would feel sick about it. But they're not! They're just electrons... so guns up! Muahuahuahua

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: fleischer

Hi,

I have a few questions concerning artillery [:)]

Is it possible to control the "aggressiveness" of artillery bombardments without manually ordering bombardments? ...

Is there a way to get artillery "on call" without having to manually aim and activate them?

[simovitch]

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

ORIGINAL: fleischer

Hi,

I have a few questions concerning artillery [:)]

Is it possible to control the "aggressiveness" of artillery bombardments without manually ordering bombardments? ...

Is there a way to get artillery "on call" without having to manually aim and activate them?

If you give the artillery's parent HQ the defend (in situ!) command, they should go on call. The first thing I do in any scenario is give the on-map boss the defend in-situ command. That will pass down the order to defend in place for every unit that I dont give a command to. When Artillery gets that command they should go on call and start firing at will.

[johndoesecond]

Also, have a look at "Rest After Bombard" in Options tab. If you uncheck it, the artillery units you manually control (i.e. under your direct control) will go "on call" after your bombardment orders, and will thus be used autonomously by your AI.

[MarkShot]

The first thing I do is take direct command of arty (big guns; not mortars) and start thinking of fire bases. Arty just represents too much fire power not to have your best strategist (me) in charge.

You can switch them to stand down or go on call by setting the OPTION and then just giving a one minute self bombard order. They will flip mode instantly. Most of the time, I let them fire on call, but I still tend to take some portion offline. Despite the supply system if you want to make sure that you can reign destruction when it is needed or will be most effective, it is best to do some rationing on your own. For example, there is nothing like when the Sun comes up in the middle of a fight to put your arty online. All of sudden, there will be a wealth of valuable and vulnerable targets ... a wonderful time to ruin someone's whole day.

[Fred98]

ORIGINAL: MarkShot

if you want to make sure that you can reign destruction

That should be "rain" destruction.

Have a nice day. [:)]

[MarkShot]

You are right. Of course, I could have said I was making a witty pun regarding arty being the "Queen of the battlefield". But I am not that clever.

[Marshal Villars]

lol

[fleischer]

If you give the artillery's parent HQ the defend (in situ!) command, they should go on call. The first thing I do in any scenario is give the on-map boss the defend in-situ command. That will pass down the order to defend in place for every unit that I dont give a command to. When Artillery gets that command they should go on call and start firing at will.

Yeah, this is what I usually do too. That's why it would be nice to have that in-situ order's settings determine the behaviour of the AI-controlled arty - i.e. an in-situ order with ROF set to max would ensure artillery fired at max ROF.

One thing to remember when using this method is to give similar defend orders to all subordinate HQs with arty you want on-call support from(i.e. division and regiment HQs). If you don't do this, they won't be able to support units directly under your on-map boss(i.e. units you have given orders to).