Making cannons

Australia Kawapasaka
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Making cannons

Post by Kawapasaka »

As we are all aware, china brooken. Trying to kite and micro their infamous deathball can be a real nightmare, so the thought occurred to me: wouldn't it be much nicer to just stand still and blast them to shreds?
On that train of thought, I realised that this sort of composition (musk-cannon particularly) often seems to be something cobbled together on the fly due to mis-macro or just a general lack of food but abundance of coin. Sometimes as an adaptation, but very rarely as a composition planned from more or less the beginning of the game.
So my question to everyone is: When do you actually build cannons? Are there MUs where it's a good plan, such as against the aforementioned China, or Iroquois? Is it ever in your head from the start of a game that you may want to use a substantial amount of artillery outside the 2 falcs shipment? For instance I have lost handily in the past as Japan to a very cleanly executed dutch FF straight into Ruyt + Falc build.
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France [Armag] diarouga
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Re: Making cannons

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

"As we are all aware, china brooken."
Not sure it is, that's a personal opinion.

" Trying to kite and micro their infamous deathball can be a real nightmare"
This is a fact however.

Against China making canons is an awful decision.
China has so many ways to counter canons. The crows kill falcs in one hit, the mortars are very good against artillery, and they even have meteor hammers to counter artillery so don't do that.

Making canons in some MU is viable however.
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Great Britain Riotcoke
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Re: Making cannons

Post by Riotcoke »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:"As we are all aware, china brooken."
Not sure it is, that's a personal opinion.

" Trying to kite and micro their infamous deathball can be a real nightmare"
This is a fact however.

Against China making canons is an awful decision.
China has so many ways to counter canons. The crows kill falcs in one hit, the mortars are very good against artillery, and they even have meteor hammers to counter artillery so don't do that.

Making canons in some MU is viable however.

Crows lose to falcs age 3 though.
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Australia Hazza54321
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Re: Making cannons

Post by Hazza54321 »

Riotcoke wrote:
[Armag] diarouga wrote:"As we are all aware, china brooken."
Not sure it is, that's a personal opinion.

" Trying to kite and micro their infamous deathball can be a real nightmare"
This is a fact however.

Against China making canons is an awful decision.
China has so many ways to counter canons. The crows kill falcs in one hit, the mortars are very good against artillery, and they even have meteor hammers to counter artillery so don't do that.

Making canons in some MU is viable however.

Crows lose to falcs age 3 though.

You say that because of the range but gl with that whilst being snares by meteor hammers. Falcs take alot of shots to kill a crow
Australia Kawapasaka
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Re: Making cannons

Post by Kawapasaka »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:Against China making canons is an awful decision.
China has so many ways to counter canons. The crows kill falcs in one hit, the mortars are very good against artillery, and they even have meteor hammers to counter artillery so don't do that.

Making canons in some MU is viable however.


Yeah, it's not something I'd ever try in early fortress (learned that the hard way), but later when you have a substantial blocking mass you can nullify most cav. Beyond that, China can't really mass crows so they can't be relied on as anti-art vs even just 3-4 falcs. Hadn't considered hand mortars though. Is the shipment particularly common in Chinese decks? I always thought they lost kinda hard to culvs.
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Canada dansil92
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Re: Making cannons

Post by dansil92 »

If you check the deck and there are hand mortars and meteor hammers then dont train falcs. Its that simple

In my experience cannons are useful more or less inverse to the skill level of your opponent eg. The better your opponent the worse cannons are. Vs infantry spam civs such as Russia, iro, some aztec players, some brit players etc. You could probably get away with it but its not usually all that cost effectove when compared to the efficiency of shipping artillery. 1000 coin is a good way to mass if you do wish to do so (but not every civ has 1000 coin)
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Re: Making cannons

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Post by Hazza54321 »

Who makes cannons, idiot @lordraphael @stanleywinston
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Re: Making cannons

Post by Superfly47 »

dansil92 wrote:If you check the deck and there are hand mortars and meteor hammers then dont train falcs. Its that simple

In my experience cannons are useful more or less inverse to the skill level of your opponent eg. The better your opponent the worse cannons are. Vs infantry spam civs such as Russia, iro, some aztec players, some brit players etc. You could probably get away with it but its not usually all that cost effectove when compared to the efficiency of shipping artillery. 1000 coin is a good way to mass if you do wish to do so (but not every civ has 1000 coin)


There are always meteor hammers in China's deck.
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Canada dansil92
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Re: Making cannons

Post by dansil92 »

Superfly47 wrote:
There are always meteor hammers in China's deck.


Exactly
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Brazil Luciofrancosi
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Re: Making cannons

Post by Luciofrancosi »

I love making cannons against Japan!! It works really against them cuz they have a bad anti-artillery and their army is mainly infantry!!
Against other civs it's quite hard though, it might do well vs India, it worked for me once!! But apart from that I can't really tell
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United States of America randerzbobanderz
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Re: Making cannons

Post by randerzbobanderz »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:"As we are all aware, china brooken."
Not sure it is, that's a personal opinion.

" Trying to kite and micro their infamous deathball can be a real nightmare"
This is a fact however.

Against China making canons is an awful decision.
China has so many ways to counter canons. The crows kill falcs in one hit, the mortars are very good against artillery, and they even have meteor hammers to counter artillery so don't do that.

Making canons in some MU is viable however.


What about making culverins to snipe the Flying Crows? Especially as Russia Flying Crows are a huge threat to inf mass.
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Brazil Luciofrancosi
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Re: Making cannons

Post by Luciofrancosi »

randerzbobanderz wrote:
[Armag] diarouga wrote:"As we are all aware, china brooken."
Not sure it is, that's a personal opinion.

" Trying to kite and micro their infamous deathball can be a real nightmare"
This is a fact however.

Against China making canons is an awful decision.
China has so many ways to counter canons. The crows kill falcs in one hit, the mortars are very good against artillery, and they even have meteor hammers to counter artillery so don't do that.

Making canons in some MU is viable however.


What about making culverins to snipe the Flying Crows? Especially as Russia Flying Crows are a huge threat to inf mass.



The issue is that it is a big investment on an unit that it's only good at killing one thing and China gets it for free!! As soon as the flying crow is killed the culvs are completely useless and you will have a whole ball of units charging at you while you will have 500 to 1k less resources to spend on military
"Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting"

Sun Tzu - The art of war
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Re: Making cannons

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Post by Papist »

Including cannons in your composition makes you immobile, and mobility (i.e. being able to kite) is very important when you're playing against China in my experience. Standing still and letting them z-move on your army is something you should generally avoid unless you have a huge numerical or compositional advantage.
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