Artillery Cannon

The Drumfire Cannons (often called "artillery cannons" or simply "artillery") are the most expensive fortifications in the game. Unlike other units, artillery cannons attack in volleys firing out a cannonball every .4 second, 5 times, before waiting another 3 second to start the next volley. The artillery cannon is tied with ferrets for the longest attack range in the game at 8 tiles. However, artillery cannons cannot move, have more than twice as much health than ferrets and deal AoE damage in a 3x3 tile range.

Strategy
"Strategy is largely dependent on your own unit composition, your opponent's unit composition, as well as map layout and other factors. Please take these suggestions with a grain of salt."Artillery Canons are the fortification equivalent of a Tier 3 unit. At a whopping 180 food build cost and 40 second build time, placing one down is a rather big investment, but a full volley deals 20 damage over 2 seconds in a 3x3 area, which puts your enemy at a large disadvantage when fighting in its range. It is a zoning tool, capable of locking down an area, forcing your opponent to use another path to reach you or to face great losses.

Playing with artillery cannons
Artillery cannons are a very map-dependent fortification, meaning they will be stronger on some maps than others. Specifically, they are most effective on high ground and around chokepoints. They can completely lock down your opponent's access to an area. You can then use the artillery's range as a line of scrimmage daring your opponent to come into the cannon fire. However, watch out for flying units, as artillery cannons cannot target them, making them very vulnerable to falcons or owls.

Playing against artillery cannons
Part of playing against artillery cannons is to not play against them at all. To elaborate, if you can scout the map and realize that you could possibly be contained, you can act on the fact and prevent such things from happening. Artillery cannons are the most vulnerable when they are building. If you spot one building, you should either try to destroy it if you can, or start planning around it. In the case you do get contained, you have some options though they are fairly limited. One option is to try to discretely claim a mill on the outside of the contain and then burrowing to travel back and forth between mills, leading your opponent to believe you are still contained and neglect scouting other places on the map. If you want to tackle the cannon head on, try to take one on when your opponent's army is not around. Falcons are ideal to take out cannons, but if you don't have one, chameleons are also a good option.

Changelog

 * Release 1.0.3:
 * Damage to single target now 12, damage to surrounding tiles now 2 (was 4 on all tiles)
 * Pre-Alpha 28:
 * The bonus single target damage for artillery has been removed
 * Will no longer do bonus damage to units in the center of the impact
 * Is now 4 damage, down from 8
 * Pre-Alpha 23:
 * Now have a 1 second bullet travel time, down from 1.5
 * Will now shoot 5 bullets, up from 3.
 * Pre-Alpha 22:
 * Now has 8 ATK and 70 DEF, down from 12 ATK and 100 DEF
 * Build cost has been reduced to 180 to reflect Tier 3 changes