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[Girlinhat]

I've had an urge to play some type of game with hefty artillery, reasonably heavy battleships, or even just chunky rifles.  Any suggestions or commentary?

[werty892]

Ultimate General:Gettysburg has some pretty neat artillery mechanics for a ported mobile game.

[TheBronzePickle]

The cannons kind of suck in Empire, though, unless you use their specialty ammo, and even then they're a bit meh.

If you want cannons that are legitimately terrifying, get Shogun: Total War. There's only a few actual cannons, though, pretty much exclusively on ships, but they really are terrifying. The cannon ships eat everything else for breakfast.

In fact, except for Empire, most artillery in pretty much every Total War game is absolutely terrifying. Very little of it is cannons, of course, but ballistae, onagers, catapults, trebuchets, and rockets are all devastating pieces of equipment that can tear gouges in enemy formations if they're used correctly.

[sambojin]

DoomRL. All the fun of Doom's weaponry and explosions, in a roguelike. Making a VBFG might be pointless, but it is satisfying. As are most things that go kaboom in the game. Play it in ascii mode though. Somehow it makes the explosions better.

If you don't mind the wait, Totalwar: Warhammer is promising to scratch that itch too. Helblasters and Organ Guns are essentially cannons, strapped to more cannons, in a totalwar game.

Dawn of War 1 also has some pretty satisfying artillery. 4 Basilisks surrounded by grenade launcher Guardsmen are a beautiful thing to behold.

I don't know just how good it turned out, but Planetary Annihilation was promising meteor level kabooms in the early stages. I've always found the sound a little lacking though.

Even though it got scrapped, and had heaps of broken mechanics, Star Drive 1 was actually pretty satisfying in many ways. I liked it anyway.

[Graknorke]

Strategy games are good for that kind of thing. Kind of posting to watch so that I can watch other people's suggestions and maybe think of some later.

[Girlinhat]

DoomRL. All the fun of Doom's weaponry and explosions, in a roguelike. Making a VBFG might be pointless, but it is satisfying. As are most things that go kaboom in the game.

If you don't mind the wait, Totalwar: Warhammer is promising to scratch that itch too. Helblasters and Organ Guns are essentially cannons, strapped to more cannons, in a totalwar game.

Dawn of War 1 also has some pretty satisfying artillery. 4 Basilisks surrounded by grenade launcher Guardsmen are a beautiful thing to behold.

I don't know just how good it turned out, but Planetary Annihilation was promising meteor level kabooms in the early stages. I've always found the sound a little lacking though.

Even though it got scrapped, and had heaps of broken mechanics, Star Drive 1 was actually pretty satisfying in many ways. I liked it anyway.

Dawn of War I had trouble with because it tries to make factions equal.  Space Marines SHOULD trump the field with Orks.  But they have to make it balanced...

Stardrive 1 at least produced hefty cannons.  Most games just make you add more small cannons and that's just half-assed...  But pretty much ALL strategy games just reduce artillery and heavy tanks to a sort of 'thump' and maybe a jolt of the unit, sometimes even comical recoil effects in the way a tank bounces about.  World of Tanks is one of the few games I know that really helps you feel the weight of the gun.  World of Warships is good too, of course.  Planetside 2 is also halfway decent, though they can't make the guns too big for balance reasons.

Curiously, the Terraria sniper rifle or last prism are also decently high on my list, as they give you some feeling of large power.  What I'd love though would be like Aurora with graphics, as the guns can be as large as your tech allows.

[JimboM12]

Hmmmm....the sounds of thunder and flashing of the cannons. Not many games that evoke that feel.

I could suggest the Sword of the Stars series of 4X games. Focus your research on ballistic weapons and watch the ordinance fly and thunder (somehow in vacuum).
There's Empire Total War that has been mentioned.
Company of Heroes, grab anti-tank guns for this feel, and call in the tanks. Also the Wehrmacht get a nice rocket artillery piece.

[sambojin]

It's pretty old, but Red Alert had some nicish stuff going on. Battleships, Mammoth Tanks, nukes, V2s, Mig swarms, rocket groups and Tanya armies all had varying levels of awesome attached to them.

Is openRA a thing? I think I remember it being a thing at one point. There might even be some good mods about too.

edit: Yep, it's a thing. Even seems to have a smallish MP community still going.
http://www.openra.net/download/

[Robsoie]

I remember the old Cossacks Back to War RTS that had some really strong artillery, musquets and canons and massive casualties rate on each battle as hundred could die in seconds ... and those insanely powerful multi-barreled cannons.

[nenjin]

Company of Heroes, an RTS, is my go to when I want thunderous 'splosions. When you mass up 3+ Howitzers as the Americans and a line of anti-tank guns, the noise is glorious.

[sambojin]

Not nearly of the same scale, but grenade launchers in Running with Rifles can fulfill the 1-man mortar team urge. Nicer when there's 5, one-man teams pinning enemies down in a choke-point as well. I think they nerfed the range on them pretty extensively, but they used to be great.

Send in the NPC grunts while you and your MP buddies do a slow, rolling barrage of OP pwndness against everything.

Tanks were pretty amusing too.

[Flying Carcass]

The cannons kind of suck in Empire, though, unless you use their specialty ammo, and even then they're a bit meh.

If you want cannons that are legitimately terrifying, get Shogun: Total War. There's only a few actual cannons, though, pretty much exclusively on ships, but they really are terrifying. The cannon ships eat everything else for breakfast.

In fact, except for Empire, most artillery in pretty much every Total War game is absolutely terrifying. Very little of it is cannons, of course, but ballistae, onagers, catapults, trebuchets, and rockets are all devastating pieces of equipment that can tear gouges in enemy formations if they're used correctly.

Cannons pack a punch in Empire's Darth Mod.

[Nick K]

The best TW game for artillery is the standalone expansion Fall of the Samurai for Shogun Total War 2. The artillery in that one is utterly devastating - you can often wipe out half an enemy army with 3 or 4 units of Parrott or Armstrong guns, leaving the battlefield strewn with craters and piles of bodies.

[sambojin]

Not exactly cannonfire, but openXcom does have a useful level of explodium in it. All the rockets and autocannons. And grenades. Blaster bombs later, for different levels of kaboom.

Turn spherical explosions on and level every city.

Because, tactics.

[Flying Dice]

AssCreed 4's sailing gameplay has pretty good literal cannonfire. The best part is that you can basically ignore the whole assassin-parkour thing and just sail around being a pirate if you want.