Guide to Artillery

Good stuff here, GN. I will add to this that generals that can devote a bit of time to the game management can benefit from a "shoot 'n' scoot" tactic when countering enemy arty. You get your enemy to shoot arty at your large stack of troops, absorbing the damage, then blast his arty with your own, then retreat your arty out of range of his until he fires again.

Eminem2891 wrote:

Good stuff here, GN. I will add to this that generals that can devote a bit of time to the game management can benefit from a "shoot 'n' scoot" tactic when countering enemy arty. You get your enemy to shoot arty at your large stack of troops, absorbing the damage, then blast his arty with your own, then retreat your arty out of range of his until he fires again.

In general, the only way to achieve this is if (and only if) you are fighting in a province you own and there is enough distance in order to catch the enemy units while they retreat.

Great explination, i have nothing to add and that is odd

Great job

I would add just two small notes:

1. SP Arty, although generally much better, is armor and as such doesnt perform at all well in cities. Inside cities you better put regular artillery.

2. RR Gun has great range but, exactly due to that range, is blind (unless the enemy advances into your territories). Consequently, it must be combined with patrolling planes to provide targets for it.

They detect troops within their range and attack automatically when at war.

Thanks for the replies! I will tweak a few things according to what I've heard so far.

The next guide is on Nuclear Bombers and Rockets

General Nightman wrote:

Thanks for the replies! I will tweak a few things according to what I've heard so far.

The next guide is on Nuclear Bombers and Rockets

There are never too many artillery, too many planes, or too much oil in this game...

atreas1 wrote:

There are never too many artillery, too many planes, or too much oil in this game...

Artillery is useful, to a certain extent, but if you build too much you'll end up with a huge, very hungry army of artillery with the rest of your forces suffering.

Artillery is my second favorite ground unit (up to 20% of total), following tanks ... AA is perhaps third favorite (up to 10% of total) ...(-:

General Nightman wrote:

Artillery is useful, to a certain extent, but if you build too much you'll end up with a huge, very hungry army of artillery with the rest of your forces suffering.

RYANWEN wrote:

General Nightman wrote:

Artillery is useful, to a certain extent, but if you build too much you'll end up with a huge, very hungry army of artillery with the rest of your forces suffering.

True, they take all your oil and you cannot build your army until your artillery are all destroyed. But some artillery, eg. RR GUN can only attack when there is a unit in front, because their range is so large, they do not know what is in front of them.

I mean SP arty for oil and arty for food.

I think I would like to simplify it a bit (more like oversimplifying) with my touches and views:

Normal arty - slow, cheap, manpower instead of oil consumption. Use: combine with inf and AT, AA stacks or put them behind stacks with AA. Level 3 arty extends its range

SP arty - fast, bit expensive, oil consumption. Use: combine with mobile stacks (tanks, SPAA, TD, etc) or put them behind stacks with SPAA. Basically a fast arty with 70km range, nothing more, so don't use it with slow stacks. Good for blitzkrieg.

Railgun - slowest, expensive, largest range. Use: defensive or heated battles. Like a movable bunker. Extremely slow, so it's good for initial attacks or a defense line. Put them with AA and AT and you're pretty good. Useless if you have no coast and/or a highly mobile force. Useful if vice versa.

General Nightman wrote:

I hope you all have found this guide useful, if I have made some mistakes, please let me know.

If you compare the three, I would not call regular artillery cheap since in manpower, they are twice as expensice as SP artillery is. They compare like this;

The most excessive resources spent of their kind are in bold and underscore

---------------------------------------Artillery-------------SP artillery-----------Railroadgun

Goods--------------------------------750------------------1000-------------------2000

Manpower---------------------------1000-----------------500--------------------1500

Metal---------------------------------500------------------1250-------------------3500

Oil-----------------------------------------------------------250

Money--------------------------------1500-----------------2000-------------------5000

Power gain per level

vs inf/armor------------------------0.5/0.5--------------0.5/0.5-----------------/

Attack vs inf/armor first lvl------1.5/1----------------2.5/2.5-----------------3.5/3.5

--------------------------last lvl------3.5/3----------------3.5/3.5-----------------3.5/3.5

When you compare the amount of units you get for the resources spent, the comparison looks like this. I used the materials spent on 2 railroadguns as the standard.

-----------------------------------------Artillery-------------SP artillery------------Railroadgun

Goods----------------------------------5.3-------------------4------------------------2

Manpower-----------------------------3----------------------6------------------------2

Metal-----------------------------------14--------------------5.6----------------------2

Oil ------------------------------------------------------------1500 oil spent on 6

Money----------------------------------6.6-------------------5-------------------------2

Power output first lvl--------------4.5/3-----------------10/10 | 15/15----------7/7

compared to lowest last lvl-------11.5/9----------------14/14 | 21/21----------/

number of resources-------------------------------------------------+50%

spent---------------------------------------------------------------------field bonus

HP total for amount

of units (lowest unit number)------15HP-----------------40HP-------------------40HP

Meaning that for the amount of resources you spend on 2 railroadgun, you get the number of artillery or SP artillery units standing under their respective headers. Their power output is the minimal number of units times the damage they do. In short you end up with 3 artillery, 4 SP artillery and 2 railroadguns. I had to cut out the oil entirely or else I could not make the comparison.

Things to take note of:

- that the SP artillery is actually the best amount of resources spent in terms of unit count. AND you get most speed, power output plus the best armor class with it. Without even applying their 50% open field bonus. Apart from spending 1500 oil spent on 6 SP artillery. Which, if you think about 1 tactical bomber costing 1250 in oil and almost 3 times as much in upkeep when comparing 1 on 1 is actually not all that much.

- Another thing to take not of is that although railroadguns to not cost oil in purchase, their oil upkeep is 75 a day, SP artillery only costs 50. So you could make the case that after enough time, railroadguns cost more in oil than SP artillery does, when compared 1 on 1.

- Also, the power of the railroadgun becomes more underwhelming when you compare the railroadgun (cost) to higher level artillery and SP artillery.

- Goods decide how many SP artillery you can build when compared to the railroadgun, but at the time the SP artillery can be built, this should hardly still be an issue

- I did do the power output calculation based on the minimum of 4 SP artillery units when comparing the same amount of goods spent on either of the 3 units. (You could also make a case for oil being a BIG factor and thus SP artillery would compare differently than is stated above. But at their cost of only 250 oil in initial purchase, I honestly think oil is not that big a factor. Though opinions might differentiate on this. Truth remains, if you have 0 oil, you will not be building any SP arty)

- Which type of artillery best suits your needs depends A LOT on which resource you have a lot of.

Since the game is a resource gathering army building game I think this comparison is important.

Also, you did not really mention the open field bonus SP arty gets.

Of course (complimentary to the numbers, that are very important) there are at least two important considerations:

1. Availability in the field.

Here the regular artillery excels (available practically since Day 2, requires only infra Lvl1 which practically you can have everywhere, and also is going to "amortize" the investment because it will be used heavily for many days, before planes become dominant.

RR Guns have the worse performance, because of the requirement for Infra Lvl3. This (in a practical game) almost certainly restricts their creation in the cores. Also, due to other practical considerations effectively it is very difficult to start producing them before Day 12 (and this is quite fast even, more usual is somewhere around Day 14). Their slow speed makes it very difficult to really transfer them in the field, so their role is quite limited.

SP Arty are somewhere in between, They are usually prioritized when they become available, so I guess it is normal to expect starting their production around Day 18-20. They can be produced near the field (only Infra Lvl1 is required). Being armor they have this marvelous +50% bonus on plains, which is the killer. Their disadvantage in cities is less important, because usually you can position them nearby.

2. Resource importance at that time

Manpower is a very difficult to estimate parameter, because it can either be a huge problem, or not a problem at all (it mainly depends on whether your first expansion required a costly war or not). Oil, on the other hand, is almost certainly an issue as days progress.

Extremely important is also the difference in hitpoints, and also the ability of RR Guns to really damage ships (at a range that ships cannot fight).

Thank you for the comments.

I have edited my post, adding build charts and simplifying the general explanations.

While I tried to include everything, I can't include everything in one explanation. It would be about three times as long for every single tactic to be in this guide.

I still hold that regular artillery is cheap, in comparison to the other units, both artillery and other units.

Who ever used railroad gun and regretted it.

I have used them to success, but rarely. It's a big commitment to build, move and get them ready for fights.

One of the best uses, oddly enough, is controlling the Strait of Gibraltar and the mountainous region between France and Spain.