ordering archer units into melee?

[Dustfurn]

In all the previous total war games, you could order missile units into melee (i think it was alt + right click?). this doesn't seem to work in shogun 2, am i missing something? in Shogun 1, it was often a game winning tactic to run your archers around once melee started, and charge right into their flank/rear.

[Gregoshi]

Welcome to the Org Dustfurn.

I vaguely recall seeing something about bowmen and melee, but I haven't paid too much attention to it so far. I'm just trying to get back some kind of basic control of the army and doing anything fancy with the archers is a lesson for later. I will say that my bowmen have not fared well on the battlefield as their casualty rate is very high. Poor fellows.

[Forward Observer]

In all the previous total war games, you could order missile units into melee (i think it was alt + right click?). this doesn't seem to work in shogun 2, am i missing something? in Shogun 1, it was often a game winning tactic to run your archers around once melee started, and charge right into their flank/rear.

Any time you select a missile unit there will be a mêlée button that appears on the border of the circle that envelopes the picture of the unit commander in the lower left hand corner of the screen. It appears as crossed swords, and you have to highlight it for it to take effect. I could not find a toggle key command like those used for archer units in Med 2 and prior TW games.

I don't know how effective the Ashigaru bowmen would be although they do carry a sword. The Samurai bowmen would probably be better for this.

Cheers

[knoddy]

only way ive found out to do it so far is, next to the 3d portrait thing one of the buttons toggles melee mode for range units.

edit : the icon is 2 crossed swords iirc

[Cecil XIX]

Yeah there's a button now. It boggles the mind why CA would apparently force you to use two mouseclicks instead of one like in the first four games.

[Daveybaby]

The cheapest archers have no melee capability. The more expensive ones (that also have a slighly lower headcount per unit) will melee (2nd level archery building required? Not sure). Read the unit descriptions :-)

And just as with every TW game to date, you can instruct a ranged unit to melee by ALT+Click on target. Or was that CTRL. Weird how my brain cant remember when i'm not playing the game, but my finger muscle memory does it automatically when playing.

[johnhughthom]

And just as with every TW game to date, you can instruct a ranged unit to melee by ALT+Click on target. Or was that CTRL. Weird how my brain cant remember when i'm not playing the game, but my finger muscle memory does it automatically when playing.

Alt click certainly didn't work when I tried, I think I tried the obvious other combinations but not 100%. I only got it to work with the method Forward Observer mentioned.

[Daveybaby]

Alt click certainly didn't work when I tried, I think I tried the obvious other combinations but not 100%. I only got it to work with the method Forward Observer mentioned.

The way i've found it to be:
Bow Ashigaru cannot melee
Bow Samurai can melee

Note: i'm playing the choskabe faction, their archers have higher stats, maybe this affects things...

[Veho Nex]

I believe f is the hotkey to switch from ranged to melee

[Forward Observer]

I believe f is the hotkey to switch from ranged to melee

You are right; thanks. I missed this when I scanned the manual because it was captioned "Group--Battle Land Mêlée", which made me think it was some sort of grouping command.

I think that all ranged units have the mêlée capability--regardless of cost. It's just that some units like bow or matchlock Ashigaru only start with a mêlée stat of 1. However, their levels can improve with experience. You can check this out in the custom battle planner and the in game encyclopedia.

Cheers