Mighty Archers

[Xelvod]

I just get pawn by enemy archers all the time, they just hit me hard.. i ride fast and far from them but that is no problem for like 10 enemy archers in mather of sec i will be dead with 10 arows in my head. Is posible to lower ai accuracy somehow? And taking the castle from Ai is also imposible...Soon i spawn in siege battle i get shoot and need to hide somewere fast or im dead.

 

[AdmiralNelson6262]

charging as cavely at archers and being slautered is historicly accurate. at the battle of crecy a few hundred english longbowman  defeated a huge french cavelry charge, so it is just realism. try different tactics, like dismounting and getting your men to form a line with their shields up to catch the arrows. also, hiding behind a hill also works, as a bowman cannot shoot at what he cannot see

 

[Xelvod]

charging as cavely at archers and being slautered is historicly accurate. at the battle of crecy a few hundred english longbowman  defeated a huge french cavelry charge, so it is just realism. try different tactics, like dismounting and getting your men to form a line with their shields up to catch the arrows. also, hiding behind a hill also works, as a bowman cannot shoot at what he cannot see

yeah i agree about dismounting and stuff ...any advice for attacking castle ...i get owned very fast...

 

[AdmiralNelson6262]

well, having loads of troops with shields is obviously going to help, and you might want to have a few ranged units to hold position at the starting point to bring down a few enemy archers. best advice for seiges is to run like hell at the ladders. heavy casulties are expected when assaulting fortifications so try to have a companion with a good surgery skill rating to reduce deaths, a large amount of troops to start with will also help to.
if this does not work, try making sure your troops are spread out. this always helps reduce casulties from ranged attacks.

 

[dochtorgajo]

charging as cavely at archers and being slautered is historicly accurate. at the battle of crecy a few hundred english longbowman  defeated a huge french cavelry charge, so it is just realism. try different tactics, like dismounting and getting your men to form a line with their shields up to catch the arrows. also, hiding behind a hill also works, as a bowman cannot shoot at what he cannot see

Few HUNDRED longbowmen defeated huge french army only if they got machine guns through time machine.

Its BS not reality that well armoured cavalry gets slaugtered by archers under any conditions except when they attack frontally though obstacles (and most times being outnumbered) but its a matter of warband having no equivalent of effective armour protection (that prevents wounds from arrows if they cant pierce and not make you take less damage) And big accuracy is something I also experience a lot- if you try blood and roses mod where longbowmen have targeting reticule so big it reaches almost out of monitor so you cant hit anything yourself but still you get hit into head though whole map and killed invariably as damage is huge. So for sp mods Id say less damage (and cutting not pierce), less damage determined by power draw and more by arrow type and bigger accuracy would be good. (like in 1257 mod)

Nevertheless Id say that if you dont expect 20 horsemen to wipe out 60 longbowmen without casualties in this game its not such a big problem. They routinely all shoot at you so get their attention, fall a little back and order your cavalry to attack in big blob. Or anything already avised.

 

[Sr. Coronado]

Well, if you wanted realism, you'd make arrows be cutting damage - they're not effective against armor. Even at Crecy and other battles, very very few knights have been found to have been felled by arrows - though it did prompt heavier barding on horses until the bow, throughout the end of the High Medieval Period and into, and through, the Renaissance, was a weapon of antiquity. Arrows as cutting mean they're still effective against most skirmishers, bowmen, crossbowmen, and light cavalry - but heavily armored troops will be less concerned.

 

[AdmiralNelson6262]

against knights with very good quality armour such as milanese armour, arrows bouced off. however. the longbowman used bodkin arrows, specially desiged for punching through armour, and so was effective against the average knight, as only barons and very rich knights could afford armour good enough to protect against them. remember archers trained all of their lives to increse their strength, and if someone could pull a english longbow string back to their ear, they were abnormally strong. i have tried pulling back a replica longbows string and trust me, you have to be a weight lifter to have any chance of pulling the string back.

oh and by the way, check the battle of agincourt's army size difference. you will see then why the bow was such a good weapon. 6000 english vs 36000 french, and the english lost only around 100 men, while the french lost around 11,000

 

[Ulrich von Liechtenstein]

From your conversations, we make conclusions.
Do not forget that this game is not real life

 

[AdmiralNelson6262]

it's nice to have a debate every now and then

 

[wyrda78]

against knights with very good quality armour such as milanese armour, arrows bouced off. however. the longbowman used bodkin arrows, specially desiged for punching through armour, and so was effective against the average knight, as only barons and very rich knights could afford armour good enough to protect against them. remember archers trained all of their lives to increse their strength, and if someone could pull a english longbow string back to their ear, they were abnormally strong. i have tried pulling back a replica longbows string and trust me, you have to be a weight lifter to have any chance of pulling the string back.

oh and by the way, check the battle of agincourt's army size difference. you will see then why the bow was such a good weapon. 6000 english vs 36000 french, and the english lost only around 100 men, while the french lost around 11,000

At Agincourt the longbowmen barely killed any knights with arrows. The arrows might have demorilised and tired them, but they lost because they got packed together and stuck in the mud, and the longbowmen actually got mallets and outflanked and killed the helpless knights in melee. At Crecy, the longbowmen shot at the unarmoured horses.

Basically longbows have never really been that effective against armour, only at short range against average quality plate could they pierce it to any degree. And it depended a lot on the arrows the archers were using, most of the time the longbowmen were using iron arrowheads which were softer than steel plate, and the tip just flattened when they hit the armour.

Sorry for necro but I can't resist talking about this topic 

 

[Marius_Marich]

Spoiler

charging as cavely at archers and being slautered is historicly accurate.

Lol no.

The vast majority of casualties in all those battles were in close combat.
The "hur dur archers pwns" theory on medieval combat is a recent myth that is a result of launched arrow volleys looking extremely cool on the movie screen.

oh and by the way, check the battle of agincourt's army size difference. you will see then why the bow was such a good weapon. 6000 english vs 36000 french, and the english lost only around 100 men, while the french lost around 11,000

It was more alike 8-9000(1500 of those elite/experienced/heavily armed and armored men at arms) vs 12000 French...the English have a way of telling war stories their own way 

and the longbowmen actually got mallets and outflanked and killed the helpless knights in melee.

Also completely false, the killing/capturing was done by the English knights, not the archers.

The English archers had exclusively swords and daggers as sidearms, barely 1% of them had any anti-armor weaponry because it was considered insane to waste them(it took a generation of training to replace a dead longbow archer) in close melee against heavily armored tanks who's sole occupation since they were 6 years old was war and chivalry.

Even serious historians make that ludicrous statement these days simply because people adore the David Goliath type story of the common man sticking it up to the rich bastards, in reality archers ran away and got slaughtered every single time they failed to stop a heavy infantry/cavalry advancement;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Saint-Omer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cocherel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Roosebeke
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Patay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gerberoy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Formigny


and of course, the most hilarious one;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_La_Brossini%C3%A8re


Funny how absolutely nobody knows about the French victories while at the same time everyone keeps blabbing about the same three battles that the French lost...tells you a lot about the power of propaganda does it not?

 

[wyrda78]

and the longbowmen actually got mallets and outflanked and killed the helpless knights in melee.

Also completely false, the killing/capturing was done by the English knights, not the archers.

The English archers had exclusively swords and daggers as sidearms, barely 1% of them had any anti-armor weaponry because it was considered insane to waste them(it took a generation of training to replace a dead longbow archer) in close melee against heavily armored tanks who's sole occupation since they were 6 years old was war and chivalry.

Even serious historians make that ludicrous statement these days simply because people adore the David Goliath type story of the common man sticking it up to the rich bastards, in reality archers ran away and got slaughtered every single time they failed to stop a heavy infantry/cavalry advancement;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Saint-Omer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cocherel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Roosebeke
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Patay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gerberoy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Formigny


and of course, the most hilarious one;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_La_Brossini%C3%A8re


Funny how absolutely nobody knows about the French victories while at the same time everyone keeps blabbing about the same three battles that the French lost...tells you a lot about the power of propaganda does it not?

You obviously don't know much about the battle of Agincourt. After the French met the English battle line they were already tired and demorilised after having to walk through a muddy field in heavy plate armour whilst under a hail of arrows. And when they did start fighting the English knights, they tried to push forward to break through, but ended up being squashed together and stuck in the mud. So they were easy targets for the lightly armoured longbowmen to flank around them and kill in melee. It wasn't an equal fight, the french knights were pretty much helpless, like I said.

And the mallet wasn't a dedicated anti-armour weapon, it was mainly used for hammering stakes into the ground, but doubled as one.

 

[Marius_Marich]

You obviously don't know much about the battle of Agincourt.

After the French met the English battle line they were already tired and demorilised after having to walk through a muddy field in heavy plate armour whilst under a hail of arrows. And when they did start fighting the English knights, they tried to push forward to break through, but ended up being squashed together and stuck in the mud.

They weren't stuck in the mud, the mud merely slowed them down and broke their unit cohesion.

So they were easy targets for the lightly armoured longbowmen to flank around them and kill in melee.

A man in plate armor is never an easy target, an army of men in plate armor working as cohesive units protecting eachother as they push forwards is never an easy target no matter how tired or broken they are.

There is not a single account of longbowmen engaging the French knights in close melee, that is a modern myth propagated by the English to humiliate the French and popularized by humanities own addiction to stories that propagate the awesomeness of the common man.

It wasn't an equal fight, the french knights were pretty much helpless, like I said.

A trained soldier is not helpless until he is dead or unconscious.

And the mallet wasn't a dedicated anti-armour weapon, it was mainly used for hammering stakes into the ground, but doubled as one.

Which is, of course, completely irrelevant considering longbowmen were not equipped with mallets.