Damn archers...

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Waylander918

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I used cheats and got 84 marksmen and went to completely own some river pirates. I entered the battle and hit follow me and they follow and when they see the enemy, only about 4 start shooting. The rest of them clump together and block eachothers view. This is very annoying, and I hope that archers can spread out a bit more in the next patch. Hold this ground, and charge didnt change the clumping togetherness either.

I wanna see all my archers shooting at once, it would be pretty pwnage :smile:
 
Yeah, no matter how many archers you have, you only really get about 4 or 5 to fire at the most. And at least once every other battle one of your own archers will team kill. Archers were however, greatly improved with the last patch, but have only gone from completely useless to near worthless. Better AI could easily fix this, but armagan seems quite busy with the mod tools, so i'd be very surprised to see any improvements in the AI included with the next patch. But until its fixed, i'm sticking with knights :grin:
 
I prefer corssbowman over archers, however once I was forced to hire Vaegirs because band of Black Knights destroyed my army. And I must say my archers and maksmen perform pretty good. It's question how you use them. I would advice not to charge toward enemy but to find nice slope and wait there. Works like charm.
 
Having all your archers able to shoot their arrows without so much danger of friendly fire damage would be a great boost to the game and would make me more likely to use larger numbers of archers.

It appears to be difficult for the AI to handle large numbers of archers well enough to avoid shooting a nearby friend "blocking" his line of fire and they often tend to stand much too close together.

It might be a simpler thing to allow us to have the much asked for separate commands for cavalry, infantry, and archers so that we could try to deploy them better. Say with the infantry holding the center, archers on a hill to the rear, and cavalry on the wings, we might get a better result.

It would help if we actually had on occasion the time to deploy them. I know these aren't armies and we're not generals but what if we had the time to get those archers in a line on the ridge, the infantry at the base of the hill, the cavalry behind ready to charge from either left or right? No plan survives contact with the enemy, they say, but we have no time for any real plan now. Right now we hurriedly get them to follow and hope for the best.
 
If the whole players party is made out of archers, why not line them up, and have some kind of command like "hold" and "fire". That could be really good actually, expessially against foot soldiers. Against knights there will be a problem, just as in real life combat. So it's the players desicsion to have an army of just archers, foot soldiers or horsemen, and they will make it against some enemies and some not, or mix an army and make well against all but not super-duper-good against one.
 
Try posting them on a slope. The incline often helps to put some distance between them by sheer elevation difference.

That is also good protection against cav. Skirmishers are generally happier the higher up they go (safe from cav).

If you solo as a knight or horse archer against the enemy just below, you can keep the enemy milling under an umbrella of death. Real fun until you get shot by your own xbows.
 
Try posting them on a slope. The incline often helps to put some distance between them by sheer elevation difference.

Yeah, i try that, and it works ok sometimes. But most of the time, when i give them the order to follow me, they either stand there looking dumb, or head off toward the enemy. About 1 out of every 10 fights, archers perform beautifully, and an enemy doesn't even make it to my front line. But the others....eh. If they'd just space out a bit more.
 
Soloing below them as a knight and distracting the enemy allows them more time. The odd one who heads for them instead of you will be shot down by massed missile or simply mobbed.

If I stand in line and shoot with them, the casualties are far higher.
 
Soloing as a knight and drawing the enemy after you is a fairly standard tactic taking much pressure off missile troops true enough. Probably most experience players use it from time to time.

It's a useful technique but a tiresome one.

You end up doing if not most of the work, way more than your fair share. Instead of having adept archers who will take a step to the side, spread out, and find targets, too many of them are not getting off more than a couple of arrows. Hell, sometimes I've watched and some don't fire more than one arrow - despite having the enemy across the river! Then next battle, they're shooting everyone in nearly the same terrain. Now, I usually have only a few archers and they work well enough.

It's lucky M&B is so engagingly fun in most respects anyway. Not perfect, needs tweaking, but it remains compelling.
 
That's true. I tend to score around 80% of the kills that way. The missiles still don't kill much while my knight kills tons.

Currently playing Mag 7 and absolutely loving the champion courser and rune war blade.
 
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