Slitherine

Guns in this game are a waste of points. Not only do they cost MUCH more than the average missile unit but they cannot fire worth crap.

Classic point - I fire my gun at Medium infantry and score .... ONE point of damage. Wow. Frame that image and send it to the cannon factory.

Why build a unit that cannot move, fires like crap and thus is a waste of anyone's time to build?

Here is how I would have guns portrayed in the game:

Medium and Heavy guns can turn to face a new direction but cannot fire in the same turn. Light guns can.

Light guns can move ONE hex in a turn.

Heavy guns hit with NO LESS than 5 points of damage.

Medium guns hit with NO LESS than 4 points of damage.

And yes, you guessed it LIGHT guns hit with NO LESS than 3 points of damage. None of this 1 hit crap. I don't care what the armor was. Ever see a Knight get hit with a cannon ball? Or even one that was rolling along the ground? It bowls them right over.

Armor should not matter at all where artillery is concerned. And the older Bolt artillery could penetrate ANY armor.

Guns are too expensive to want to build, cannot move, are meant for static situations. There also should be fortifications available to MOST armies that had them on a ONE of One basis. The fortification should come with the gun as a extra expenditure similar to Stakes for Longbow.

I would say this also about artillery accuracy - Light, skirmisher targets should have fewer losses while the dense targets should have MORE. Fire your Heavy guns on a dense Heavy Infantry formation? Enjoy seeing TWENTY (20) losses!

Another way to fix the problem is to LOWER THE COST but keep the rarity factor (meaning you cannot buy a lot of them). Face it - a gun will fire less than the average missile unit, cause less losses so it only goes to prove my point that they should cost less too.

Have them in the game but just make them a cheap purchase.

Due to how FOG ranged mechanics work, you can't really do fixed damage, since doing 0% represents missing, since doing damage and hitting are the same thing. If your cannons hit for 0, it just means their aim is off.
Given how inaccurate battlefield cannons were at the time, I think this is pretty fair. Personally, I'd like to see cannons either being able to shoot more than once per round, or at multiple targets, or cause more fear(negative cohesion modifier). As they are now, there's little reason to use siege engines, especially if you have handguns available.
Your points are pretty much valid otherwise, guns are useless, and hopefully FOG 2.0 will fix this.

This is a case where range should matter. At close range cannons shouldn't miss (do 0 damage) as much as at long range. I think the range needs to be extended too, especially for heavy artillery which can't move.

Old_Warrior wrote:There also should be fortifications available to MOST armies that had them on a ONE of One basis. The fortification should come with the gun as a extra expenditure similar to Stakes for Longbow.

I think this idea is definitely worth considering. For example, the Ottomans often deployed with their artillery in the centre surrounded by fortifications - and the cavalry were on the flanks in separate Balkan and Anatolian contingents. I also think that armies with significant artillery components need to be able to deploy them further forward than is currently possible. Otherwise the initiative is surrendered completely to the opponent.

The heavy artillery in the game really represent siege guns, I would say - and they were fairly useless on the medieval battlefield. It is a shame that we don't have more varied artwork to depict the lighter field guns and mortars at the moment.

Some of the problems with guns have to do with the battles themselves. Like the time limit. At best, you'll get less than 30 rounds of gameplay per match. Half of that time goes to rolling your cannon forward(if it's light artillery). This wouldn't be bad if there weren't a time limit. Artillery moving half-speed compared to HF is fine, but it's not fine when they're so slow comparatively that the game is over before you get more than 4 shots in(which is likely since with poor mobility, comes poor ability to choose targets). And with 4 shots, it's 3 points per shot if LA costs 12 a pop, not worth it.

As is, light artillery does have some value, but only in very specific situations, like enemies sitting on a hill. With greater range than archers, you can shoot past your own archers so you get more units shooting, and the cohesion loss is nice if an enemy is bunched up on a hill, so it routing can have a big effect. Problematically, there aren't many foes that are more vulnerable to cannons than to bows, mainly HA infantry or horses, I think.