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I had a weird issue with my artillery firing on a column of French infantry a few hexes away.

The French infantry were in the open, and my guns were on a hill. Every time I fired I would inflict 3 or 4 casualties and sustain 60-100!!

This doesnt make much sense to me... are the numbers getting reversed due to a bug or something? This circumstance has happened on several occasions. It's strange that artillery would be taking return fire from 3 hexes away in the first place, but sustaining 20x damage inflicted?

I made note also of the people complaining that sometimes cavalry would take massive casualties charging an infantry unit even from flank or rear. Could this be a similar bug, with the damage being apportioned to the wrong units? That situation also seems backwards to me.

Artillary firing from a hill has a MAJOR reduction to their damage. The rationale is that this is before the days of high explosive shells - they are firing iron balls. When you fire at the same level, the iron balls can skip like a rock across a pond and take out numerous defenders. When you fire from a height, it just arches up and sinks straight into the ground. Unless someone happened to be standing in that exact spot, it wouldn't accomplish very much. That is why many of us like to put our artillary directly on the front line flanked by infantry to prevent a charge.

I brought this up before and I was told that it has to do with the artillery ball bouncing or something. But I agree with you it is very strange. And it makes artillery useless on a hill. And also I think it would be harder to hit something on a hill because it would be hard to tell were the rounds are falling.

BTW.. I think the musket range is something like 3 or 4 hexes. One time I shoot at a infantry unit 6 hexes away with artillery and I still suffered casualties. lol

ORIGINAL: GreenDestiny

I brought this up before and I was told that it has to do with the artillery ball bouncing or something. But I agree with you it is very strange. And it makes artillery useless on a hill. And also I think it would be harder to hit something on a hill because it would be hard to tell were the rounds are falling.

Let's see if we can come up with an example that help this make sense. Imagine a ten year old is harrassing the neighbor's cat with marbles. He can throw them side arm and have them skid across the driveway trying to hit the cat. Doing that, he has a pretty good chance to get him. Or, he can throw the marble way up in the air and hope that it lands on the cat. In that case, the cat is probably pretty safe.

Artillary fires iron balls not unlike those marbles. When you fire straight ahead, it is like skipping that marble into a crowd - you pretty much know you're going to hit something. However, once you get up on the hill, canons of the day don't have the ability to aim down (the canonball would roll out). You can't just aim straight ahead because you'd just fire over the enemy. So the only way to hit them it to aim up at an arch - the higher you aim, the closer in it will land. Again, as with the marble thrown high into the air, it is hard to hit anything with any reasonable level of accuracy when you are firing at such a trajectory. If anything, it is worse with canonballs than with marbles because they are heavy and are therefore pretty much guanteed to sink straight into the ground wherever they lands.

Hopefully that makes some sense to you. But the short version is that the damage you are seeing is intentional. [;)]

ORIGINAL: GreenDestiny

I brought this up before and I was told that it has to do with the artillery ball bouncing or something. But I agree with you it is very strange. And it makes artillery useless on a hill. And also I think it would be harder to hit something on a hill because it would be hard to tell were the rounds are falling.

BTW.. I think the musket range is something like 3 or 4 hexes. One time I shoot at a infantry unit 6 hexes away with artillery and I still suffered casualties. lol

If the volleys are prone to deviation from the intended course or trajectory (bouncing included), they may well fall on anywhere adjacent to (e.g. one hex away from) the target unit. So if the designers did allow for such inaccuracy and account for it in the casualties sustained by guns every time they fire, they had better let the off-the-mark units (friendly or enemy) suffer as well.

I'm really more concerned that MY artillery takes waaaay more damage than the target when I fire it. The actually amount of damage I do isn't such a big concern...

Seems like a bug to me.

The game handles artillery on hills a bit abstract, but the general concept is correct. The problem is, artillery ussuly was placed on slight elevations, enough to allow clearing their own troops but not enough to cause the bounce to be lost.
Problem in the game is, they dont have slight elevations, only hills and flat, so cannot simulate this very well.

Forget what you have learned about holding the high ground, really not a big factor in the game. Find the most open area flanked by mountain or lakes, then place your troops in a nice line across that. If you do it fast enoug, the enemy will send you his cav first for you to chew up, then once the cav is routed or disrupted and pulls back the Infantry will arrive, not in mass, but one at a time. Your artillery ussuly will disorder most enemy inf at range 6 or so with one shoot, the second should route it. Follow up with your cav and charge each disrupted infantry unit for ussuly 500 to 5000 cassulties to them. Pull back your disordred cav behind the artillery and blast anybody that is still standing in any rank.

By now you will get the enemy is routing message, rush all forward and try to suround as many flag units as you can, dont worry about using disrupted or supply for this. Any unit you have left charge at disordered units.

Also artillery is prime target, as each one captured adds to your artillery train. After that cav, since its much more usefull for routes.

Actuly, I have been making only Cav and Horse Artillery armys as of late. Why have infantry, they serve absolutly no purpose currently other then make big targets that route at the slightest. Horse artillery is fast to set up, does damn good damage and your cav ussuly fires back at enemy infantry with them taking more casulties then you.

Against a Human player it may differe, but the AI in tactical currently is a pushover, unless you go in only with militia.

Artillery on a hill still damage the enemy formation and do morale damage

Infantry are more effective from up on a hill (presumably because they ain for individual people), and more flexible since they have improved line of sight.

So I tend to put inf on the hill, and arty on the flats.

ORIGINAL: jchastain

Artillary fires iron balls not unlike those marbles. When you fire straight ahead, it is like skipping that marble into a crowd - you pretty much know you're going to hit something. However, once you get up on the hill, canons of the day don't have the ability to aim down (the canonball would roll out). You can't just aim straight ahead because you'd just fire over the enemy. So the only way to hit them it to aim up at an arch - the higher you aim, the closer in it will land. Again, as with the marble thrown high into the air, it is hard to hit anything with any reasonable level of accuracy when you are firing at such a trajectory. If anything, it is worse with canonballs than with marbles because they are heavy and are therefore pretty much guanteed to sink straight into the ground wherever they lands.

Thank you for the example. But it sounds like your talking more about Howitzers than the 12,8,and 4 pounder to me. The only time that I know about hard shot buried themselves into the ground are when they are fired into marshes or on battlefields with alot of rain or snow, Waterloo for an example. Artillery hard shot fired from a higher elevation will still bounce when hitting the ground sending up fragments of rock and stone. Also if they want good range they would elevate the gun barrel anyways.

Seems like you all missed the point.

Why would the ARTILLERY unit take a ton of damage when firing at an infantry unit 3 hexes distant?

ORIGINAL: Soapy Frog

Seems like you all missed the point.

Why would the ARTILLERY unit take a ton of damage when firing at an infantry unit 3 hexes distant?

Because the unit fires back at it?

Infantry divisions are considered to have some intrinsic combined arms (some divisional artillery in this case) which justifies giving them some attack value at a longer range.

It's all right here.
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The problem with divisional level is just that. Mapping the power of smaller combat units into the overall combat unit.

Normaly a Division was made up of Brigades, with the majority of the base troop type determening what type of division it is.

Example.

Division = 2 to 4 Brigades = 2 to 4 Regiments of Infantry or 2 to 4 Squadrons of Cav or 2 to 6 Batteries of Artillery (each battery 2 to 8 guns)

A Inf Division may well look like this

1st Division
1st Brigade (4500 men)
1st Regiment = 1500 men Line Infantry
2nd Regiment = 1800 men Line Infantry
3rd Regiment = 1200 Light Infantry
2nd Brigade (3700 men)
1st Regiment = 2000 Line Infantry
2nd Regiment = 800 Line Infantry
3rd Regiment = 900 Light Infantry
3rd Brigade (2400 Cav)
1st Dragoon = 600 Cav
2nd Dragoon = 800 Cav
3rd Curas = 1000 Cav
4th Dragoon = 600 Cav
4th Brigade (attached Artillery, normaly Corp or Army level, 2 to 24 guns)
1 to 3 Batteries of 2 to 8 guns

Regiments had at one time galloper guns attached to them in many different countries, but the guns proved a hinderance and eventualy regimental guns where pretty much phased out as more of a liability then an advantages.

As you can see in the above Division there is about 8200 Inf, 2400 Cav and probl 6 to 12 guns.

Now a Cav Division would be made up almost entierly of Cav, but ussuly would never come close to 10000 men exept perhaps on paper. They ussuly where about 5000 to 7000 cav with probl about 8 to 16 horse cav guns.

Artillery Divisions would have about 2 to 3 battalions of 5 to 10 batteries with 2 to 8 guns for an avearage of about 30 to 40 guns. They where a combinations of 6 to 12 pounders with some howitzers.

This means that a Infantry division could have around 10 to 20 percent of the artillery power of a Artillery Brigade and anywhere from none to 30% cavalry when compared to a Cav Division.

This is why divisional level napoleanic games are so hard to balance. Most napoleanic games are played on Brigade or Regimental level.
But of course to play battles with 100k troops on each side, with the unit size being about 1000 would mean you have to move 100 units each turn. If you played it on a Brigade level, you would have around 30 units to play with each turn, and on a divisional level of course you have 10 units or so.

On a Regimental level, tactics such as forming square, being charged in the flank, withering an artillery thumping are handled ussualy in much more detail, a Brigade level game can also be played similar to regimental level games as in general brigades where not mixed, but did contain mostly the same type of base troops, cav, art or inf. On a division level this cannot be handled as often a division could just as well be a Cav division versus a Inf Division, the differents only being the tittle the division holds possibly.

Also for instance such things as Jager Divisions are really not existand. Jager/Schutzen whre ussulay one regiment in a brigade, that means only about 1200 or so in 10000 men of a division where Jaeger. I will assume that it means that it is a Infantry Divsion with a regiment of Jager attached. Same goes for Light Infantry, thought they where more commen then Jager/Schutzen.

Cavalry Divisions where the same, they often had what you may consider Heavy Brigades and Light Brigades, but to see a Division of 10000 Curass would be highly unlikley. Most likley you would have about 30% Curas, 30% Drags, and the rest Hussars, Lancers and other Light Cav.

Anyway, I hope this explains to you why to some degree a Cav or Inf Division would have the capability to fire back at and Artillery division.

When you play Brigade or Regimentatl level games this of course would not happen, and that is what is throwing you off.

Oh, Also little bit of extra info to confuse, If I remember correct the Prussians did not have Divisions, they called their divisions Brigades, and then had Brigade and Battallions.

This often throws of people when they look up order of battles with Prussian versus French for instance.

Alright fair enough, however it seems crazy to me that an infantry division conducting return-fire on an artillery division would be able to inflict 10-20 times more casualties than it received.

I really beleive there is a bug in effect here, and you are also seeing it with the cavalry suffering immense casualties when charging a non-square infantry formation in flank or rear.

Found a good quote in another forum concerning exactly this issiue.

From du Teil's work The New Use of Artillery in Field Wars
'The artillery should, whenever possible, open fire at a distance of 1050 yards or less, where its effectiveness starts. A ridge that rises only slightly above the field is preferable to those that are greater; because the line of fire of the guns is always horizontal. If the position is any more elevated the fire becomes too plunging, and in that case it buries itself into the ground on the first impact, and the effect of the ricochet is lost, both for ball and for canister, so that the enemy has much less to fear as he approaches the battery
'It is necessary to observe that one can arrive at thirteen or fourteen hundred yards from the enemy without fearing much the effects from their artillery, because it is too distant and also because one is moving. From that distance one would then be able to prolonge even close, if one finds some shelter

This, quote from actuly somebody that was there and invovled in building tactics for Artillery. He clearly states that a slight elevation is the perfect spot, and warns explisit against the deployment on heights for artillery as the ball will lose its potency in the ground. Of course if you where fighting on very rocky terrain it could still bounce, but most of europe is made up of soft earth farmland, perfect for gobbling up those nasty balls that come in to high an angle. Also consider the most commen weather condition of europe (am german and can tell you it rains allot in europe) the ground is more often relative soft as the earth retains moisture, only in the Spanish and Italian souther areas would the ground be of more rocky soil.

Indeed… very good ahauschild. I just think needs some tweaking. [;)]

ORIGINAL: Soapy Frog

Alright fair enough, however it seems crazy to me that an infantry division conducting return-fire on an artillery division would be able to inflict 10-20 times more casualties than it received.

I really beleive there is a bug in effect here, and you are also seeing it with the cavalry suffering immense casualties when charging a non-square infantry formation in flank or rear.

I'd be curious to know if that artillery unit was out of supply when it fired. From my experiences, it appears that it had 2 penalties, out of supply and on top of a hill when firing and thus producing the low casualty figures.

I think the reduction is 80%, so if you did in fact do 20 guys, it would have been 100, or if you did 100 it would have been 500. at times you do get a perfect fresh unit with frontal shoot against a unit flanked and you know, this should be a good one, but ding, just a few. That is called the luck of the dice. I have had other times where my art hit somebody in the rear fresh and nailed them for almost 5000. Seems you cant get more then 5000 cassulties at the moment.

Nice sourcework. Thanks.

ORIGINAL: ahauschild

Found a good quote in another forum concerning exactly this issiue.

From du Teil's work The New Use of Artillery in Field Wars
'The artillery should, whenever possible, open fire at a distance of 1050 yards or less, where its effectiveness starts. A ridge that rises only slightly above the field is preferable to those that are greater; because the line of fire of the guns is always horizontal. If the position is any more elevated the fire becomes too plunging, and in that case it buries itself into the ground on the first impact, and the effect of the ricochet is lost, both for ball and for canister, so that the enemy has much less to fear as he approaches the battery
'It is necessary to observe that one can arrive at thirteen or fourteen hundred yards from the enemy without fearing much the effects from their artillery, because it is too distant and also because one is moving. From that distance one would then be able to prolonge even close, if one finds some shelter

This, quote from actuly somebody that was there and invovled in building tactics for Artillery. He clearly states that a slight elevation is the perfect spot, and warns explisit against the deployment on heights for artillery as the ball will lose its potency in the ground. Of course if you where fighting on very rocky terrain it could still bounce, but most of europe is made up of soft earth farmland, perfect for gobbling up those nasty balls that come in to high an angle. Also consider the most commen weather condition of europe (am german and can tell you it rains allot in europe) the ground is more often relative soft as the earth retains moisture, only in the Spanish and Italian souther areas would the ground be of more rocky soil.

BTW guys, don't forget to make artillery amaxing, you need to take the upgrades - its not just that 9000 artillery are much better than 3000 - after some battles, if the unit has lost 2000 men - 7000 is alot more than 1000.