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Thread: Is the longbowman the best archer of the game ?

  1. #31
    Barbarian of the north Member Magraev's Avatar
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    I had a very nice battle last night (sp).

    I am the french and defending Bavaria(...) with 2500 troops against 3000 germans (lotsa spearmen, militia and peasants).

    In the end my 4 arbalest units had between 180 and 200 kills each (with a total of 7 casualties). They were only outdone by my mounted sergants.
    Nope - no sig what so ever.

  2. #32
    Member Member Heggs's Avatar
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    I had a cool battle using the alamoheads last night. I started the battle as DEF on a nice mountain with a steep slope. I had 6 archer groups made up of standard and desert types with various foot soldiers and a bit of cav. The first wave of Knights and light cav were nearly wiped out before I ran out of arrows. I cleared up the rest with my foot/cav. So I think the point is if you get the right terrain archers of any type are lethal in mass numbers. I think if I had English longbow men in the same numbers it would have been a total slaughter.

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    Heggs.
    Don't talk to me about Limerick's. I friggin LIVE there

  3. #33
    Member Member Mori Gabriel Syme's Avatar
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    I really like my longbowmen. The armor-piercing capapbility is invaluable to me. Their melee rating of 4, which is as good or better than many infantry units, means I don't have to withdraw them when they run out of ammo.

    They are possibly a bit underpowered compared to history, but that is certainly a game-balancing issue. At Crecy, the French cavalry was decimated by longbows. At Agincourt, the English were tired, starved, depleted from beseiging a French castle, & outnumbered three (some sources say as much as six) to one. I have read that the longbow in the hands of a trained bowman was superior even to the muskets of Napoleon's time; of course, it took years to train a bowman, but less than two months to train a peasant to use a firearm en masse.

    Certain archers may be better for certain things, but I think as a total package the longbowmen are the best of the game.

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  4. #34
    Senior Member Senior Member NinjaKilla's Avatar
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    Any stats out yet on missile units?

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    Clan Kenchikuka

  5. #35
    Member Member Crusader Lord's Avatar
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    JRock wrote:
    Quote
    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.
    [/QUOTE]

    I must disagree. The more shooters you have, the LESS damage they do per unit. This is because the more shooters the more ranks do they stand in, hampering each others' line of sight. Consider the following by Kraxis:

    Quote
    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.
    [/QUOTE]

    I once reckon that I once fought as defender without any archers at all. That seriously hampered my tactical options. Instead of being forced to charge my position, the AI could circle around with cavalry and just wait for that certain chance to wreak havoc in my flanks and rear, and what could I do other than rather desperately try to keep up a formation that both allowed me to counter any cavalry attacks as well as put up a fight against approaching infantry?

    As Kraxis stated, superior firepower forces the opponent to attack your position, giving you the advantage of a more ordered troop ready to meet the attack as well as the possibility to send out cavalry for outflanks.
    Never interrupt your enemy while he's doing a mistake.

  6. #36
    Member Member sodoff's Avatar
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    "This is because the more shooters the more ranks do they stand in, hampering each others' line of sight."

    Isn't it standard procedure to drag those archer formations out to just two ranks, i.e. they make up two lines? I know they won't defend as well in this formation, but if your archers are defending in hand to hand combat, you may be losing.....

  7. #37

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    Jannisary Archers are frightning in SP. They have a high rate of fire, and they are also armor piercing.

    Apparently, they actually fire arrows with the same capabilities as the Cross Bow bold, but as arrows. So, imagine if you could lay out some xbows, that fired as fast and the same way as regular foot archers.

    I was playing a campaign as Turks, the Sicilians had rampaged and taken all of central europe, the Almos had most of Northern Africa and Spain. I attacked the Sicilians with an all Jann army they retreated and next turn attacked with something like 6000 troops. I think I had 2 heavies, 6 regular inf and 6 archers. I was on a broad shallow sloping hill, the Sicilians came at me, and not a single unit made it up the hill of his initial force. He had units of Chivalric Knights routing after a couple volleys.

    It was very impressive to say the least, the most success ive ever had using archers.

  8. #38

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    Longbowmen are so-so. The best archery units in the game right now are the hybrids with the ability to attack in melee and hold up decently. Take the Janassary...they are useful because they serve as good archers, and also can serve just as well as shock flankers as FMAA and CMAA.

    Longbowmen are decent, because they can in fact melee-flank. But they really suck at taking damage, causing routs, and they arn't worth it over a FMAA or CMAA in many situations.

    The biggest problem with bows right now it that they do not lead their aim in any way. Any charging enemy will be able to evade arrows until they get within white-of-their-eyes distant. And the say, two or three salvos that might hit a charging enemy are not worth their cost.

  9. #39
    Member Member Stephen Hummell's Avatar
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    My vote goes to the trezibond archers. Compound bows and good melee.

    [This message has been edited by Stephen Hummell (edited 10-02-2002).]

  10. #40
    Member Member EGr's Avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Kraxis:
    DAMN!!! That makes it a lot different, perhaps Sipahi of Porte are too. That really makes Boyars great...

    [/QUOTE]

    Mongolian horse Archers are an 80 man unit. And its so easy to bribe the horde generals.

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  11. #41
    Member Member cart6566's Avatar
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    Had about 60 kills to 3 or 4 deaths with three longbow units. They definitely earn their keep. Get them high and use them to tire out an enemy by charging uphill. Very effective.

  12. #42
    Senior Member Senior Member Hakonarson's Avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Kraxis:
    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.

    [/QUOTE]

    Err....none of the reasons you mention are relevant.

    Crossbows can be and were fired at elevations - especially to achieve range. Modern heavy crossbows use sights like rifles and can be fired to great ranges at high elevations in competitions in Europe - like SMLE's or similar sighted to 2000 yards!!

    However firing off the elevation of the guy in front of you is a learned skill - longbowmen were long-time archers who had practiced in groups with their peers, crossbowmen often weren't.

    Crossbows excelled in "direct" fire because they could be held liek a rifle to aim (ie you didn't have to keep holding the string back).

    Because of hte low rate of fire crossbows would sometimes use only a single rank of "shooters" while rear ranks loaded the bows and passed them fowards. In these cases obviously the rear ranks wouldn't bother shooting at all.


  13. #43
    Ricardus Insanusaum Member Bob the Insane's Avatar
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    A combination of Longbows and Crossbow (perferbly Arb..whatsits)..

    Longbow are the machineguns (deadly but quickly spent), Crossbows the snipers (slow but sure, and they could fire all day)... both are needed in my opinion..


  14. #44
    Magister Vitae Senior Member Kraxis's Avatar
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    Hark... the point of the bolts of the crossbows are so short makes them very unreliable to aim over great distances. You can't even learn it.

    Think about the muskets (regulars ones, not custom made ones), no matter how good you were with them, you could never learn how to hit a target at ranges above 200 meters, they were simply not accurate enough. The ball bounced around inside the barrel making sure that the target was an area not an individual.

    The same holds true for crossbows, the short distance between the heavy head and the finns made sure it could travel very fast, but it was not as stable as an arrow.

    Just because modern crossbows can be fitted with scopes, doesn't mean that medieval crossbows can be fitted with scopes and be relied on to actually hit what you have the sights on.
    In that case a good crossbower is a lucky crossbower.

    And because of the bigger head of the bolt, it had much greater drag. So if you aim it at an angle it would most likely come down with too little force to kill anything better armoured than light leather.

    Yes, it was their ease of use that made them great, but that doen't mean they could be treated as bows.

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  15. #45
    Bored Avid Gamer Member Alrowan's Avatar
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    well heres something i found out the other day... my gunpowder weaopns are my most cost effective in killing man for man. After shooting at some advancing chiv sergeants i got of two rounds and killed 12 of them all up, once the melee got fighting they killed a whole lot more... well thats my 2 cents
    Llew Cadeyrn/Alrowan - Chieftain of Clan Raven

  16. #46

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    My vote is for trezbond archers as well. Good at decimating units from long range and disiplined, good morale, and great for melee when your lines start to break.
    "I am the Flail of God. If you have not committed such sins would God have sent me to punish you?" -Genghis Khan

  17. #47
    Senior Member Senior Member Cheetah's Avatar
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  18. #48

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    What stats determine a missle attack's effectiveness? IE. range, damage, armor piercing?, etc. The attack stat listed in the strat guide seems to pertain to melee combat, not missle.

    olaf

  19. #49

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    Anyone?

    olaf

  20. #50
    Senior Member Senior Member econ21's Avatar
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    Olaf - no one outside of CA knows. CA have said they will put these stats in an moddable file with the patch, so that is when these secrets will be revealed!

  21. #51
    Senior Member Senior Member Hakonarson's Avatar
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    Kraxis who's talking about scopes??

    Crossbows can be fired "clout" - ie at an area, in EXACTLY the same way as bows. The crossbowmen at Agincourt expected to be able to hit the English at the same range as the English shot at them - some 250 yards.

    Of course they were wrong for various reasons, but then longbows had the same problem occasionally due to weather - eg the battle of Towton.

    Apaprt from their rate of fire you CAN treat them exactly like bows. Sure their qualrrels are unstable - but hten arrows aren't that accurate beyond 100 yards either.

    And Napoleonic musket armed skirmishers would happily plink away at 200 metres into massed targets - generally aiming at centres of importance such as groups of ifficers or the flag bearers, and expect to hit.

    Not all muskets had 1/4" windage!! lol They had techniques such as casting closer tolerance balls, wrapping the balls in wadding, and conserving fire to targets of importance so that their weapons weren't fouled so quickly.

    Not that I'm sure why that is in the least bit relevant....???

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