I'm not sure if talked before: have u ever led an army of pure archers?

[Zealotz]

Suddenly feel that it could be great fun. Just like a group of musketee confronting cavalries after mid age. You stand beside them and shout: "hold!...ready!....FIRE!!"

 

[ArabArcher35]

It's all I do in the Last Days mod. I try to upgrade them to Tower Guard archers, so they stand a chance in melee.

 

[Zealotz]

Can they just shoot all the enemies down before melee?

 

[jagger]

Can they just shoot all the enemies down before melee?

Depends on the opposition, and how many soldiers have shields.

 

[Cataphract]

When i have closer to a hundred archers on the field, i usually can see them shoot three or four times and then go to melee. I really want new ai in 0.900

 

[Zealotz]

And more options in changing tactics, like "using throwing weapons only", oh it would be power overwhelming to let 20 soldiers throw axes together.

 

[Ingolifs]

I don't get the archer AI in this game. Sometimes they can be devastatingly powerful, other times completely useless.

I tend to have lots of archers while playing as Gondor in TLD. One battle I was in, I had 30 or so archers all lined up along a ridgeline, pumping out arrows as fast as they were able, with another twenty mixed archers and infantry hanging around me shooting off occasional shots as well. We were attacking a mordor orc force of about 40, and two thirds were killed before the battle turned to melee.

I come across another orc scouting party of 40. All the troops are dismounted and holding position. I get killed because I recklessly charge the orcs with my heroes. Instead of letting the battle go into autocalc, I decide to press ctrl + E to go into edit mode and watch my guys. All melee orcs are killed, leaving orc archers. My archers are set on hold position, and so don't follow the remaining orc archers. There are like 6 orc archers standing there, pumping out arrows into my archer army of 100, and not a single one of them is firing back. They seem content just to pace backwards and forwards. Every now and then, one of them does decide to shoot, and eventually the orcs are killed.

It's like that. You occasionally get a breathtaking situation where archers will just annihilate everything else, or infuriating situations where they do sod all.

I have a hunch it's got something to do with the hold position or follow me commands. If you give them either of those two commands, they tend to not shoot much, apart from a couple daring archers. Also, if you let infantry or anyone else go in front, that also seems to stop them from shooting.

 

[Grocat]

How I handle the situation is by having them wait in a position, riding ahead and engaging the enemy, then order my men to charge.  The enemy then chases me while being picked off by my massive army of archers.  I've also discovered that having a single character without long range weaponry can ruin ones entire plan.  He'll start charging forward, and the AI is too scared to shoot past him.

-Grocat

 

[Volkier]

Yes.... MANY times.... I even made a little comic strip about it... (you will have to scroll down to the "Archer Fun"

EDIT: Just noticed half the comic strips are down... guess my webhost is down - will see if I can fix them onto another one :

 

[Zealotz]

Yes.... MANY times.... I even made a little comic strip about it... (you will have to scroll down to the "Archer Fun"

EDIT: Just noticed half the comic strips are down... guess my webhost is down - will see if I can fix them onto another one :

hahaha~~~~~can't stop laughing

 

[thesneakster]

Now, once you all get off your high horses after you battle involvingn 20 thousand archers!!!11one, you should try just a small battle (good 'ol 15v15 perhaps)

in small battles, with about 10 melee supported by 5 archers, the archers really start to shine (as long as you have everyone set to charge)

 

[Volkier]

That's true... Having about 7 melee, 7 archers and 7-8 cavalry (including yourself) can have nice tactical battles.. (Infantry / Archers hold position - cavalry follow me - circle back.. Infantry would naturally move forward towards the enemies once they come close while archers stay at range, and if you time your cavalry perfectly you would flank them right at that moment..) But as far as archers 100% go..... well yeah if it's a small brawl, but try finding small decent parties after level 15 ::\

 

[acutedeath]

I am wary of having too many archers behind me when I charge into a mass of enemies, because they shoot me as indiscriminately as I shoot them. It seems worse on horseback because I'm more likely to ride into an arrow's path. I think my army building strategy is a little different than most, because I can only handle 20-30 size battles on my hardware; it's not much use to have really huge armies (except, I believe, for tactics modifier).

 

[mfberg]

On tiny battle size archers are great. When I play large battle size they are a little more questionable.

mfberg

 

[acutedeath]

That makes a lot of sense. I bought a video card to try to run this game correctly, but I ended up with a graphics card only marginally better than my built-in hardware, so my battles are now slightly larger, and Dynamically Lit. Conclusion: I should buy a new PC, dedicated to this game.

 

[Dryvus]

When I play Darkmod with my foot archer character, I often join Ranger-Forest Bandit battles, for some all-ranged fighting. I usually keep a decent portion of party space set aside for archers or sea raiders (when I can get them).

 

[jeroen]

In 1066 i have for every melee troop, 2(sometimes up to 3/4) ranged troops covering him.
i always try to get the melee in a line and the archers behind it, when i do get them to it ( or as close as possible to the 2 lines)
it mostly look like the LotR Helms deep scene where the arrows just misses there own troops and kills the enemys.
if you do it in-game, both 3de-/1st person view it looks awesome if you are between the melee's, a real recommender if you got a good helmet for safety in case they don't miss you.

in even medium-siced group i get minimum casualties ( 3 to 5 tops) unless there are knight, but those go quite fast down with 8 arrows in there horses bodys, if not. . .your screwed

 

[HardCode]

I've tried an all-archer army recently, and they mostly just stand there after a "Hold" command and try to chase off the first enemy horsemen with melee weapons, with maybe a few firing one or two shots.

 

[Chilly5]

Hellua yes, in TLD man, I gets like 40 so Tower Guard Archers, or just yeomen, and bam, no orc can stand up to us.

 

[leprechaun]

Yeah, I have. They own when you get about 50 of them.