Any tips to leading archers ?

[Poulp']

Alright, there was this battle, just now; I was defending a hill, a good hill with narrow slopes to the top, blocked with yari ashigaru and samurai. Behind them was the archers... They cost me victory.

Why do they keep shooting to units in melee? Thanks to the slope, that was 5-6 good volleys of friendly fire, from 4, 5xp units of ashigaru... And more importantly, why do they move when I order them to shoot at a unit, while they could just turn 15° and that the unit was in the original 90° arc? Yeah, why, while they were nicely on the ridge, with a clear view of the whole battle, do they decide to run and end up with half the unit in melee ?

Any tips to overcome their behaviour ?
I get this strange feeling that I should deploy my whole army to counter balance their homicidal tendencies and not according to common sense. Hard to deploy archers on the sides on on a tighly packed hill, though.


100 hours and this game is seriously showing its limits...
I just had a nostalgic flashback of Dark Reign, the guys who made it were brilliant.


And, I add that this is not a rant, Internet isn't my blog. I'm genuinely curious on how you're doing.

[HopAlongBunny]

I think somebody described their behaviour as comparable to "demented crabs".

The "firing arc" isn't. They will shoot dead center of the arc and apparently nowhere else. If strung out in loose formation, they seem to pivot on the center; the left flank may cross into melee if they adjust to shoot a target on the right.

The only way to avoid FF seems to be turning Fire at Will off and targeting them on your own. Sometimes they will follow your directions (usually actually) but I have "stopped" archers, re-targeted them and had them go back to pounding the unit I switched off of.

[Graphic]

Yeah this has always been an issue in TW games. Archer auto-target AI could use some improvement. In the meantime you just have to micromanage them or turn them off.

Sometimes it is good to leave them on, though. If the units in melee are clearly divided instead of it being a giant clusterfudge, most of the arrows will hit the enemy.

[Ishmael]

On a related note, has anybody else found that turning fire at will off for matchlock units does absolutely nothing? Particularly when they're defending walls, I've found that matchlocks will fire at any enemies within range even if fire at will is off, which is a pain considering their long reload times.

[Phog_of_War]

Yeah Archers are more of an artform. I have found the archers, compared to even original Shogun are spazzes at best and Monty Python https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16iN...eature=related at worst.

[Poulp']

The "firing arc" isn't. They will shoot dead center of the arc and apparently nowhere else.

The only way to avoid FF seems to be turning Fire at Will off and targeting them on your own. Sometimes they will follow your directions (usually actually) but I have "stopped" archers, re-targeted them and had them go back to pounding the unit I switched off of.

Except that during siege, I've seen archers firing at "strange angles", usually dead left or right from their position. Maybe because they were "locked" in place manning the walls. I stress "locked", because that's probably the only occasion they stay put in one place, I lost a number of archers sortiing and getting hacked down. There's no "Hold your position" button, alright, then, why doesn't that advisor shout "My Lord, we've opened the gates!"

Yeah this has always been an issue in TW games. Archer auto-target AI could use some improvement. In the meantime you just have to micromanage them or turn them off.

Sometimes it is good to leave them on, though. If the units in melee are clearly divided instead of it being a giant clusterfudge, most of the arrows will hit the enemy.

2 problems;
- the pace of battle is so fast that any micromanagement means you're letting a part of your army getting butchered/pincushioned somewhere else. Or that horrible slow motion or a pause fest...
- I've yet to see two units clashing at each other as units... once you double click, it turns into a giant brawl. Especially sad for spear units whose strength resides in cohesion.

On a related note, has anybody else found that turning fire at will off for matchlock units does absolutely nothing? Particularly when they're defending walls, I've found that matchlocks will fire at any enemies within range even if fire at will is off, which is a pain considering their long reload times.

I've seen that too. Matchlocks need a giant finetuning. Fire by ranks on, the first ranks fire and the whole unit reloads.


To carry on over archer's behaviour, I wish to know, when you order a group of archers to shoot at a specific target, do they aim at it, or as I saw, do as they "damn well please" ?

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

No,That is to inaccurate

Matchlocks need a giant finetuning. Fire by ranks on, the first ranks fire and the whole unit reloads.

That was european style,the Japanese tended to fire in line,on walls ,Matchlocks or archers would need to keep on firing,they're defending a bloody castle for gods sake!

[Poulp']

I'm just reporting what I saw; it was a pitched battle, on top of a slope, I could see my general and the unit of matchlock in front of him; normally, the first rank fires, then kneels and the second rank fires. That time, the whole unit reloaded as one and I was like, "I'm not even mad..."
And yes, fire by ranks on. Maybe that free matchlock unit is that special.

It was not a siege battle that time, Ishmael's post may have confused you.

[aimlesswanderer]

I normally tell my missile troops to walk in the opposite direction when the melee starts in a field battle.