Archers

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Stormcloud

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Hey, I have a question about my crossbowmen and archer units...

How do I use them effectively?, they seem to like to stand in front of my main infantry line only to be mowed down by advancing enemy calvalry, is there any way to get them to occupy a high ground behind my main line so they can rain down arrows and bolts on the advancing enemy?
 
Only thing I have to say is, make htem hold position, and make sure your other units don't stand in front of them. If you want them really effective make an army consistent of only archers. The alternative is of course removing the melee weapons with the editor, wich makes them very effective.
 
Yeah, but is there a way to make your mainline infantry guard them, I mean it gets kinda aggrivating when I order them to hold a position and they keep insisting on running forward right into the oncoming enemy and get surrounded and slaughtered.
 
Not at the moment. There is no way to give orders to specific groups of units, however i believe this option will be added in the future. My advice, don't go for archers, the AI can't handle them properly at the moment.
 
*sigh* I was afraid of that response but in honesty it was what I was expecting. Ahh, well this is a beta after all so I can't complain.
 
Yup, just keep pressing the hold here button (1). Some of them will charge, but a bunch will fall back and make porkeypies of the rest.
actually, the sharpshooters are really effective, especially for taking out mounted units. My advice is, DO go for archers, they get better at aiming and stuff at higher levels.
 
What I've noticed so far is that you can't be too disappointed by a few needless AI deaths. This happens more to me with my cav than with archers. I'll tell them to hold and dismount, but one or two of them always seems to wait too long to obey my orders and gets himself surrounded and killed. I've been having good luck with archers, though. What is your troop composition? Right now, I am only working with a band of 10 (still fairly new) and I use only 4 archers and 6 melee, including me. Those 4 archers seem to get a lot of kills. Maybe your problem is you are using too many? A few archers seem to go a long way in this game; don't try to have a whole archer party. Also, my orders tend to always be Hold for infantry. Let the enemy approach them. This way, the archers get the long distance shots easiest. Once the archers are engaged in ranged combat, I tell them to Charge, and all the melee guys run out in front, and the archers will move around to get better shots if they have to. I and my hero friends are always on horseback, but we dismount about half the time.

=$= Big J Money =$=
 
Thanks, I'll give that a shot, I usually do the same thing BUT ordering my infantry to charge once they get within melee range of my archers so my infantry will cover them is new to me, and sounds like a good idea.
 
Hrm. I'm sure you understood me correctly, but what you just said is not the same thing I said, lol. I don't order a Charge when they are in melee range. I order the charge while the enemy is still at long range, and right after my archers have begun shooting at them. I should add that this strategy only works well when you can see the enemy from a ways off. You can't do it from behind a hill, for example.

This is also infantry vs. infantry tactics. If I were fighting cavalry, things would be a bit different. Instead, I would try to get on top of a hill and leave them there. The archers would fire from the hill, and the infantry would be there to (sort of) defend them if the cavalry try to storm the hill. Sorry I didn't clarify that, either. It's pretty important, Storm.

Finally, remember that archers just aren't going to be good against some opponents. Learn who they are.

Good luck.

=$=
 
Big J Money said:
I and my hero friends are always on horseback, but we dismount about half the time.

=$= Big J Money =$=

you mean marnid and borcha? they never dismount when i order them... i have to shoot their horses out from under them to get them on foot.
 
In vanilla game, archers tend to use melee weapons in first opportunity. If you command charge, or if their line of fire is blocked or enemy is relatively close. They even dont wait for enemy to be very close to draw the melee weapons. They made me crazy. And you can do nothing about this. So, I strongly advice to remove their melee weapons using the editor. They wont become perfect but much much better. There is a fundamantel problem in both cases. Archers in behind (blocked) step forward to find clear line of fire but this time they block other archers by doing it. Sometimes they repeat this annoying act approaching the enemy step by step without firing a single arrow. But some other times they manage to spread and form a perfect line. Result -> enjoy the massacre :twisted:
 
allthesedamnnamesaretaken said:
you mean marnid and borcha? they never dismount when i order them... i have to shoot their horses out from under them to get them on foot.

That's hilarious but true. :lol:
I have to shoot them period. They keep geting in my los when I'm about to bag a bandit. :evil:
 
I just keep hitting the button until I see them do it. "1, 5, 1, 5, 1, 5..."

Just takes a little non-violent pursuasion.

=$=
 
barbaros: "approaching the enemy step by step without firing a single arrow"

I have the opposite problem with my troops... from the second the enemy is spotted they start running backwards, never firing a shot, until the enemy is upon them. Doesn't happen often, but whenever I look back and see all my troops backpeddling, I know the battle just got a hundred times harder.
 
Marnid & Borcha dismount after a while. You should just keep pressing 5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5 and after some time they will stop and dismount. Usually while 10 knights are charging toward them or when they're in the middle of a mob of crossbowman, but that's another matter.
If you keep pressing 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 even when they're half a map away, they will keep running and circling enemies and behaving like idiots as usual, until they suddenly retreat back to the desired location. At this point they will obey your orders ad litteram afterwise.
 
from the second the enemy is spotted they start running backwards
Yes, sometimes archers do this also. They just dont fire even if they have a perfectly clear line of fire. Sometimes If you command "charge" when the enemy is very far, they just stand there while the melee troops are running to enemy. In a few cases I find a few of my archers in a far corner of the map standing. Do they afraid of the battle? :smile: They tend to fire a single arrow just the battle starts, possibly killing my own man. Why?. Archer AI seems to be very chaotic in this game. I wonder the rules governing their behaviour. Designing AI must be a very diffcult job but also very interesting and funny.

Finally an advice if I may, combining archers with melee troops is not a good idea. Melee troops are constantly blocking the archers' line of fire since there is no separate command to tell the infantry to fall back.
 
Not all melee. Just not infantry. Using a 1/2 heavy cav, 1/2 high end archer combo is very effective.
 
The AI can be kinda stupid with ranged troops, but they are still probably the most effective and deadly kind of troop when controled by the AI.

And I also noticed that Marnid and Borcha are rebels, they like to ignore my orders and just do what they want. Give then horses and those crazy bastards are often going to charge at the enemy alone, even if you press "1" until you crack your keyboard.
 
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