Scourge of War Boards

Ive only had this game for a few weeks and Ive found.
As a lot of my battle I like to play are corps level I notice the Artillery hold back on operational orders when giving Division.
I notice the artillery seem to like to sit back behind friendly formations and fire indirect. This happens a lot going on the offensive, and less so on the defensive.
The only way Ive been able the artillery to fire on squares is to physically intervene.

Yes some micromanagement is required for artillery, even TC them.

TC ? Im not familiar with the shortened term mate sorry

Is the flag icon at page 63 of manual, it deactivates the battery commander AI and permits to move the full battery freely, because battery commander reaction distance is always at the gun distance from the target after the unlimbering.

i've found that it always helps to micro-manage artillery. the way to do that
as mitra76 said is to click on the flag on the upper left off the command buttons.
you take complete control over the artillery and place it wherever you want.

you can do this for all formations, infantry, cavalry, etc.
i have found that commanders who tend to be good make an excellent job in managing their
formations.

How does this micromanagement work with HITS then?

The same way, obviously a player will be able to command less troops with HITS that with Normal or other difficulty levels.

Its difficult if you are operating more than 2 divisions at a time, to spend the time micromanaging artillery

That's right. The artillery AI / doctrine needs some work. There needs to be at least some kind of process of artillery attack (aka artillery charge) for the French, if no-one else.

As to other nations apart from late-war Prussians I don't think any others handled their artillery so aggressively.

Changing the Commander's Stance from (Hold to the end) to (defend) helps coax the guns to fire more.