Archers don't shoot!

[Captain_Octavius]

I'm currently trying to siege a castle where the enemy sallies out, most of my army consists of archers. Within the first 10 seconds like 80% of my Sarleon archers all switch to sword+shield even though the enemy is still at a large distance. Thus barely any arrows are fired at the enemy and my men get slaughtered every time! This is annoying me greatly because I know that if my men would actually fire I could win the battle.

I tried ordering a Charge and then a Hold again because sometimes that helps, but it doesn't, really. Any suggestions to fix this?

What about implementing PBOD-like features, like the weapon orders so I can actually order my men to use their bows?

 

[Marche]

I'm not 100% sure on this as I've not been part of sallies very often, but I believe Archers have very limited ammo when the defenders sally out (I guess being caught unaware?). Your archers are probably switching to sword and shield because they ran out of arrows. Sallies only happen when you're very outnumbered though, so bringing more men to the Siege would 'fix' this problem.

 

[Captain_Octavius]

No, definitely not the case. It literally happens after 10 seconds, most of them haven't even fired 3 shots yet.

 

[MitchyMatt]

Well you must of had a very large army based on archers.

When that happens the enemy sallies forth and catches you off guard and when that happens your archres only have 1 or a few arrows.

When that happens they switch to their secondary weapon.

 

[Marche]

I searched through the Forum for you (Sally defenders ammo), and here is a reply on the same issue from Treebeard (Original topic: Siege Bug?):

This is not a bug. It's a feature.

If you come to a siege and the defender thinks that it would be best to sally forth because the attacker has too many ranged troops (or the attacker is too outnumbered), then they will sally forth and the player's units will all get a random number of arrows between 0 to 5 for each unit. This means that some of your units will be lucky and have more than 3 arrows/bolts and some will be unlucky and have fewer arrows (even 0 if they are very unlucky). This includes companions and the player.

In a regular siege the defender has unlimited arrows and the attacker (player) has a full quiver. In Sally Forth the computer defender will have a full quiver and the player troops will have between 0 to 5.

Why is this?
Because the player will need to think more strategically and tactically when he risks a sally forth if he brings too many ranged troops to a siege. Sally forth battles become more tactical too if you only have a limited amount of ammo and they become a bit more favorable for the AI.

If you defeat the AI decisively in the sally forth, then the AI won't try another sally forth in the whole siege, but if you don't defeat the AI decisively then the AI might sally forth again.

Getting 2-3 shots sounds about right. [Note, I don't have any actual experience with this myself, only what I read from others]. From reading the topic, it seems you'll need a bigger unit or make sure your army is less heavily focused on Archers to avoid the sally or the defenders will take advantage of it.

 

[MitchyMatt]

Beat you too it.

 

[Marche]

There goes my moment of glory

 

[Captain_Octavius]

Ah, I see... Still a bit odd though, because I actually expected them to sally out because the castle has a garrison of over 300 and I only have 90 men. So my character/army wouldn't be surprised by this because them sallying out is part of the plan.

I like the idea of them sallying when you bring tons of archers to the siege, but only giving those archers just a few arrows in every sally is just weird and also unbalanced in my opinion. Your archers will already face melee combat within a minute during a sally, no need to make them completely useless and sheep ready for slaughter.

 

[noosers]

So why would they need that many arrows anyways if they faced melee within the minute? They´d be able to loose 2-3 shafts at all, and that´s about the average they got.

It isn´t imbalanced. It´s a precaution to save the dumb AI from slaughter. Call it an unspesptected surprise. But hey, thats usually the whole point about a sallyout. You charge your opponent when he´s not ready to cause severe grief and hit his morale. Just like anyone who´s surprised by an ambush and has the lower fire readyness is dead meat. And that´s the very situation.

And it prevents the player from easy siege wins by simply bringing a 100% archers army, empty the quivers, retreat, repeat. You know, quite a lot of the development team have spent months of real time on playing this game. We know the cheesy tactics as well as any other creative player. The more obvious were closed, others kept because you can´t do much about them (like parking on the battlemap edge).

Lightly armoured archers facing heavy infantry at point blank range are useless and sheep ready for slaughter. Which is the reason why a seasoned commander has some infantry to cover their sorry arses and keep their skins alive instead of tanned.

 

[Crosby 4HyG]

Why would you bring 90 Sarleon archers to seige a garrison of 300 in the first place? At least use RR's or EAC's, Sarleon bows won't help you against those odds.

 

[Fulkram]

I run into that problem frequently. Usually with a different number, I usually have 400-500, and they have 1100-1200. I see two differences, none of your troops are honor troops, all of mine are. Mine will be 150ish silvermist, 150ish EB, some immortals, and the rest other knight orders.

You have a few of challenges, 1. You will be outnumbered during the fight, significantly. 2. The troops you have chosen, are only "ok" at melee. 3. You seem to have no melee.

Here is what I do, order a full charge then order my companions to follow me. I skirt around the edges to the enemy archer line. This does two things that you need done. 1. It stops the enemy archers from shooting your guys (eventually). 2. it splits the enemy charge line giving your archers a better numerical equation. I find you generally don't even have to get allot of kills when using this tactic, you just have to survive and attract the attention of about half of their melees (which my companions seem to be able to dispatch), and the archers (who like to shoot at my shield).

I don't know if it will work for you. You have top tier archers and that's good, the enemy only has a pool of 300 troops, that likely means most of them are not high tier and that's good. You only have Sarleon Armored Bowmen that's bad. The decider is going to be how much of the enemy melee line you can get to divert I think. WHO you are fighting could also be a factor, Empire and Fierd both have infantry with throwing weapons that can make your day very sad. I often get to lose my first sally against the empire and fierd. Then I get to wait a day or two to heal up and go again. The advantage coming over to my side through medic skills. Most of my guys didn't die during the first sally, most of his did.