taking one archer and saying that therefor all archers where useless makes no sense, they had no longbows for example.During the crusades, the Arabs did not manage to pierce the European armor (mail+gambeson) with their curved bows.
Only hit in arms and legs were the armor was thinner have a CHANCE to pierce at CLOSE (less than 100m) range.
further more, the crusaders did not just stand there and absorb arrows, they held their shields up in a wall, why would they do this if they could not be hit by them?
there were low losses to archer fire on the crusaders side indeed, because of a combination of propper armor AND TACTICS.
arrows did pierce the armor because not all plate armor was made with high grade materials. also not everyone had plate armor at the time. propper made armor made of high quality metal was expensive. the archers did a lot of damage before the melee lines clashed, and even after that.Agincourt is about the terrain and weather. Arrows were still not able to pierce the armor.
that is more of an ai issue.@Neat on the comment that one type will always be the best - the problem is that currently ranged weapons are absurdly powerful. Just try a custom battle 100 archer vs 100 infantry. Usually the infantry does not even reach the line, just runs away after losing 50-60 men. The worst thing is that the only infantry which performs OK in that situation is the Khuzait, but not because of their melee prowess, but because they have javis , which they start throwing from 70 yard...
give 2 player those same groups of units and i assure you the human player with the shields will win, he will just tells his men to go into shieldwall untill the archers run out of ammo. sure he will take losses but not that many.
the ai does not use the formations needed.
Last edited: