Howitzer

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"Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm,
Great Gun towering towards Heaven, about to curse;
..."

— Wilfred Owen,
Sonnet: "On Seeing A Piece Of Our Heavy Artillery Brought Into Action"

In game[edit | edit source]

Haubitz.png
Howitzer — Vital statistics
Howitzer

Siege unit shared between Poland, Burgundy, Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire that has a lower range than the Trebuchet, but is faster to build and deals lots of splash damage.

  • Strong versus infantry.
  • Weak versus siege weapons, melee units.
Prereq: Build time HP LOS Attack Attack speed Movement
speed

Upgrade of

Bombardment Fortification
16.9s
(200t)
100 14 40 3.3s
(50t)
17

Trebuchet tap ico.png

Cost Created from Armour Weapon range Specialty
Base Ramp Pop
Wealth.jpg: 150;
Timber: 50
Wealth.jpg: 6;
Timber: 6;
Knowledge: 6
2

Castle

None 2–16
  • Decent attack bonus versus buildings.
  • Added attack bonus versus units, especially infantry.

Poland Burgundy Holy Roman Empire Hungary

Overall strategy[edit | edit source]

While neither as powerful nor as accurate as most other artillery weapons, the Howitzer is however cheaper, and also has another special ability: it has the largest and highest level of splash damage, making it highly destructive and marking it as a general-piece artillery unit, although when fielded against Culverins or Bombards its defects will be easily seen. Still, if you need to bring up an anti-personnel, anti–fortification unit up front and cheaply, the Howitzer is your best bet, making it a worthy upgrade to the Trebuchet. Note, however, that Howitzers can only fire at a specific angle, and so have a great deal of minimum range, making them highly vulnerable if units marching towards them can survive the first salvos fired at them.

Unit summary[edit | edit source]

  • Quantity over Quality — Being cheaper than normal Trebuchets, Howitzers can be amassed in substantial quantity, making them the weapon of choice as long as they are not outranged.
  • Fire Control — Howitzers can only fire at a specific angle and have a great deal of minimum range, making them highly vulnerable if units marching towards them can survive the first salvos fired at them.

History[edit | edit source]

Although most artillery tends to be referred to as "Howitzers" today, in pre-industrial conflicts the distinction between Howitzers and other firearms — especially large-calibre guns — was rather substantial. All modern Howitzers could trace their descent back to a single gun type introduced by the Hussites, a group of religious radicals in Central Europe, called the Houfnice or "heap gun". This weapon had a short but deep barrel, and was meant to fire at plunging angles over obstacles, which suited the defensive tactics employed by the Hussites. The Hussites soon fell amongst themselves and were eventually dispersed, but the new gun they introduced soon spread to Europe and later on to the rest of the world.