So first off dealing with mass artillery is easy on an open field (mass cav), but behind walls or team games (behind walls of other units) I find my self lacking when playing China and trying to mass hand mortar to TRY and counter mass artillery and no I’m not talking about mass field guns thats easy and feels right to counter even horse artillery feels fine to a lesser extent, more so if your USA with the age 4 card that gives 20% more health to them and heavy cannons then it becomes a struggle “cuddle”<-( I’ll explain later)
I’m talking about every other artillery mainly being 1#organ gun, 2#gatling, 3# light cannon/flaming arrow, 4# elephant cannon and I’m not sure if i would add them as they are meant to counter artillery but they do take extra damage from hand mortars just not very effectively and this is Humbaraci the otto grenadier ( THEY JUST STRAIT UP MASSACRE HAND MORTRS). I list these specifically as they are the most common to mass then others (less so for elephants). At best hand mortar are decent for defending a position in Bombard mode already if artillery is approaching (LIMBER mode) from organ gun/ gatling guns but not if both are approaching each other ( even more so with upgrade cards that speed up limber to bombard mode) even with the extra range they have on them its still a struggle cuddle.
What i mean by struggle cuddle is that more then any other artillery unit (this does happen to a degree to all art just less so) the hand mortars stack so much more tighter like pancakes some times that i desperately try to micro them apart and they just end up stacking on another unit. With this stacking effect they just become juicy targets for these art units.
Are they just meant to take down walls and buildings cheaply; with an added bonus of being able to do some damage to art? I guess they are the strongest age 3 anti fort unit in them game but there are cards now that can give you mortars in age 3 for other civs. I think if this stacking effect or a spread command like infantry get would round them off better with out making them OP. Also give there attack faster animation as most moving units ( even slow ones) can avoid the center of the 1 area damage that they do, meaning they aren’t doing there full damage to the target unless its stationary because the further away from the impact area the less damage it does. Or just give it a 1.5 area damage to compensate for the movement. These are just my experience with china so far would like to hear others opinions about this.
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Yes true. I am a China main I have been only playing China for a month. Hand mortar struggle vs tanky heavy artillery, like heavy and G bombard. So vs those civs you want to rush them, play age2, instead of allowing them to get to that spam. (Revolting or ottoman mosque stuff can be annoying so really need to force fight earlier. Against regular artillery with range 26 or below (falc, horse arti, gatling, organs) they should not have much problem. In my opinion the most difficult to counter cannon is light cannons which works like a culverin it self, has incredible range and easy to mass and also destroy infantry. Luckily not a lot of players pick Haudenosaunee even if some people pick they are nost likely rushing, so we very very rarely see light cannon mass.
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I have had a few games where i tried to do a pure hand mortar counter to a organ gun mass (was a team game) both of us in age 4 at the time and upgraded and mostly 1v1 on our side of the map and i only ever manage to take out 25-35% of his art mass with my 80+ hand mortars getting destroyed with me microing them my best to spread out some. Now gatlings i do better against as they have shorter range then most like around 50-70% before getting wiped out. My question is that hand mortars are/should/maybe be a (good?) counter to mass artillery as would mass culv would and is. OR are there roles different and shouldn’t be viewed the same; like the reply stated up and should prevent them from getting to that mass. Bombard i don’t struggle to much with as they are big and slow and hard to mass in number; mostly that crazy otto rush with the church card bombard rush and even then just 20+ hand mortars and cav are generally enough to beat it as they mostly have a hand full of anti cav and a few spahi to deal with and i don’t even need to out right kill all the units just the bombards.
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F4om my POV they spread too much, they should kepp in 2-3 lines somehow
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yeah, hand mortars suck. Even flaming arrows suck against heavy artillery, both Japan and China need a rework of their anti artillery units.
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Also forgot that cannons have a bounce effect even culverins ( fired rounds that travels pass the impact area and still do some damage on its bounce/skip). Thankfully organ guns/gatling guns dont have this or at least i dont notice it (smaller caliber rounds dont bounce i guess). Then again none does the Chinese hand mortar because its a mortar, but i was just pointing this out as the faster projectile speed of culverins and bounce/skip effect really make up for its 1 area effect damage and really acts more like haveing 2+ area if your shooting into thick or long lines of units. Ive been watching top teir players make some crazy snipe/ trick shots almost like watching pool game/ Billiards.
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The more military units there are, the less useful hand mortar is. Large and slow to move, it is not effective against enemy artillery. I recommend that in the Imperial Era upgrade, while giving it 0.5 movement speed.
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