Is the longbowman the best archer of the game ?

[Draksen]

Is the longbowman the best archer of the game ?
One thing is sure : it is not the only one ... but how good it is really ?

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[B]Duché de Normandie[b]
"De gueules aux deux léopards d'or, armés et lampassés d'azur, passant l'un sur l'autre."

[Kraxis]

If we are talking pure effectiveness I would say so.
But if we are talking costeffectiveness I'm not so sure anymore, I'm pretty sure some of the skirmishers are better than the Longbows in the long run.

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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[Draksen]

I guess it has a better maximum range, no ?
or fire rate ?

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Duché de Normandie
"De gueules aux deux léopards d'or, armés et lampassés d'azur, passant l'un sur l'autre."

[Vlad The Impaler]

well they finish their missiles too quickly i think ; but they are good in combination with billmen are great ; being well protected ..
i didnt played much with the brits but thats what i observe till now

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One sword to behead the white ruler sitting on the white throne in the Vatican.
One sword for the ruler who will come and unite us under the sign of the cross
with broken arms. Eleven swords to behead eleven lords and rulers of the land
united under the blue banner. A hundred swords to defend our southern
boundaries against black plague and half moon.
And one axe for me to defend my stronghold, and may I call this axe, "Bane of
Christendom" soon.

[Daevyll]

The Pavise Arbalester has my vote.

Excellent range, hitting power and it even has half a chance of staying alive for a while if attacked.

Of course if you play with unlimited ammo (gits) then Longbowmen are probably better, but what fun is that?

[Kraxis]

We are talking bows here, not crossbows (which includes Arbs).

Longbows advantages over normal archers are:

-Better range (quite a good deal better)

-AP capability (0.5 modifier to enemy armour)

-High rate of fire. Can be a double edged sword though.

-Lastly they are better in melee.

But of course there are skirmishers that are better in melee than the Longbows.

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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[Rosacrux]

So, we compare longbows to plain archers or what? I don't think that's a very fair comparison, given the difference in cost and the uniqueness of the longbows... Dunno, but I've had mediocre results with them longbows... maybe I am not using them right, I dunno.

Pav. Arbalesters, on the other hand...

[This message has been edited by Rosacrux (edited 09-23-2002).]

[Magraev]

Yeah longbows are the best BOW-unit, but not nescessarily the best missile unit.

It depends on the battle. In a long battle I prefer arbalesters (pavise or not) for their durability. In a shorter battle archers can deal damage faster and over friendly units.

As England I used to go 50/50. Then the spent longbows could retreat while the arbs kept pounding.

Longbows are more expensive than arbs - that has to go into the equation too.

[Kraxis]

Well Rosa, when you fire your bows they will fire at the spot where the unit was when they fired. So if you fire at a small fast unit they will most likely not hit.
Target the unit that walks in front of other units (but closely) then the units behind them will begin to drop.
When the enemy gets closer just target what you want.
Longbows are also good for firing into melee, just make sure yor men are of strong morale, at least better than the enemy's.

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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[andrewt]

I like longbows the best. They have the same number of ammo as any arbalest or crossbow unit and I guess around the same strength too. They also fire faster.

[Dawood]

Horse archers get my vote, or camel archers, Berber archers, y'know.

[Soapyfrog]

Boyars... they rock!!

[Magraev]

Quote Originally posted by andrewt:
I like longbows the best. They have the same number of ammo as any arbalest or crossbow unit and I guess around the same strength too. They also fire faster.[/QUOTE]

Yeah same ammo - but they spend it a lot faster. I like to keep my tactical options open. With a longbow-only army I basically have to charge after 2 minutes since I'm out of ammo by then.

[LittleGrizzly]

but the enemy will be weaker than you as they will still be firing arrows but there is the morale side also i spose.

and if were talking cost effectivness morale also has to be counted not howning the game whats longbow morale compared to bows

btw cav arcs were great in shogun i hope thier as good or better here !

[Kraxis]

LittleGrizzly, they are a lot faster, but hardly as effective because of their numbers. Also their melee stats are bad, they can barely beat normal archers in melee, and certainly not better archers (longbows or Trebizond Archers).

Real good Horse Archers are the Byzantine Cavalry, Boyars and Sipahi of Porte. But the last two only have 20 men in their units. The Byzantine Cavalry is equivalent to medium cavalry with bows, great for fighting infantry without spears.

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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[TC27]

The best combo is Longbows AND Pavise Arbs, use the longbows to quickly devastate the enemies elite armoured units while the arbs with the good missile protection can slug it out with the enemies archers and wont run out of ammo so quickly.

[Soapyfrog]

Boyars are 40 man units.

[Kraxis]

Quote Originally posted by Soapyfrog:
Boyars are 40 man units.[/QUOTE]

DAMN!!! That makes it a lot different, perhaps Sipahi of Porte are too. That really makes Boyars great...

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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[sodoff]

Technical (game) issues aside, if not already, the english longbowmen SHOULD have a fearsome range (those longbows DID have it) AND very high accuracy (this was not due to the bow itself, but the men who fired them had trained the art for many yars. As a matter of fact, the medieval britons were required BY LAW! to attend archery lessons. Thus, the quality of british archers would be ensured). The very high trajectory the arrows traversed combined with the arrow-points (designed specifically to pierce the armor of frenc heavy cav.) made for some nasty surprises for those french nobles who got slaughtered at Agincourt. In all honesty, if MTW was to accurately reflect the impact of briths Longbowmen, this game would be in SERIOUS trouble, balancing-wise....

Crossbow-bolt may not be fired effectively at a trajectory, by the way. The high power and the high escape-velocity of the bolt makes it nigh-on-impossible to lob them at an advancing enemy with any kind og meanigful accuracy.

[Kraxis]

sodoff, the Longbows have a better range than normal archers, and I believe it is comparably as good as it should be.
The longbows also have AP capabilities, not perfect but good, fair enough I think.

The reason crossbows can't be fired at an angle is because they are short and heavy. They leave the crossbow with a great velocity but it quickly loses speed and would even tually be ineffective as well as impossible to aim.

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[JRock]

I can't think of a "best" archer/missile unit because they all suck unless you fill half your unit slots with missile units. Taking just one or two is almost pointless in most multiplayer games. Only if you have a whole bunch is there any real effectiveness to them and then you're wasting a lot of money for them.

[Kraxis]

JRock, while you are right, you are only half right as archers are far more important in SP (where they can kill again and again and again) than in MP (where they don't have enough time to make an impact).

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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[Zacharat Hennataga]

what about the jannissarys and trebozind archers, from what i read, the furthist a "english" longbow has ever fired a arrow, was 300 yards, while if u look at the compasite bows of the turks, byzantines, mongols, and egyptians, the turks have recoreded bows firing arrows a distance off up to 800 yards, at the firing grounds in istanbul(constantinople) all im tryig to do is to introduce the eats into this convo, this is what i read, if anyone can show me any tother stats or sources, id me more then glad to look them over, (i LOVE history)

[JRock]

Quote Originally posted by Kraxis:
JRock, while you are right, you are only half right as archers are far more important in SP (where they can kill again and again and again) than in MP (where they don't have enough time to make an impact).

[/QUOTE]


And why is that? Because the AI is stupid and lets you pound away at them as no real player would allow.

This is why SP concerns are a separate issue than the MP concerns which are vital for clan and ladder matches - if missile troops stay in their current fairly-weak state, they will just be bypassed entirely in tournaments.

If CA is okay with that then fine, but if they are at all interested in seeing all units get at least SOME use in tournaments, they might consider tweaking the missile units a little.

[deejayvee]

If anyone doubts the power of longbows, try defending a bridge with 5 units of longbows, 2 units of billmen, 1 unit of dismounted royal nights against 800 Swiss Armoured Pikemen!

I did last night and the Swiss packed onto the bridge and were held by the billmen/knights while the longbowmen calmly fired volley after volley into them, killing 700 for the loss of 80!

Billmen/longbowmen are the best combo for fighting swiss pikemen.

[smoothdragon]

The best bow unit is definately the byzantine cavalry. They can fire arrows and harass units from afar (with decent accuracy and power), and then close in for melee with swords. They can even hold their own against Royal Knights! Only caveat with the unit is a fairly high support cost, but you get the speed and melee effeciency of a knight with the bow skill of a foot archer. Well worth it!

[JRock]

Well since most multiplayer games tend to be High period, there are no swiss pikement to worry about.

Plus if it's a 5k florin per player game, no one bothers with expensive wastes of money like those.

[Kraxis]

Quote Originally posted by JRock:

And why is that? Because the AI is stupid and lets you pound away at them as no real player would allow.
[/QUOTE]

That is not the whole deal, in SP you carry your Archers on to the next battle, and that makes them much more valuable than in MP.

It is not so much that the AI let you fire at it, it doesn't actually if your position is not great, a good improvement over STW.
I have not gotten much more than 40 kills with archers (not including certain quite good ones) per battle against the AI most of the time. Why? It charges in fast if it is outgunned... Basically what people do in MP, but I agree that it is a far cry from a person playing in general ability.

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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[Belasarius]

The East had great bows as evidenced by the Trezbond archers. But generally all those arrow flight records were not with war arrows but specially made flimsy flight arrows.

[Zacharat Hennataga]

well when i was reading, it stated that longbows were desgiend for a diffrent purpose then eastern bows, longbows were made to launch "heavy" armor piercing arrows, while eastern bows were made to fire ligth arrows long distacnes at high speeds, so i guess u could say the eastern bows are more effective at long ranges, while the longobws are completly brutel at a closer range, just a thought