The Missile Thread - Hints, Tips and Information

[Oleander Ardens]

I just wanted to share a couple of interesting points about the various missile units in TW:A, some of which are perhaps not known or appreciated...

1) Cheap archers seem to kill hard anything unless under close to perfect circumstances like light horse standing around or a secure position on a wall shooting into unshielded light infantry. However a couple even cheap archers are almost as efficient at attacking the morale of the enemy troops by stacking flaming arrows and whistling shot.

Indeed a single cheap archer with whistling arrows can help a great dealt to break enemy units or reducing the rate of fire of a high quality ranged unit for 20 seconds. Keep in mind that the arrows cover often quite a large area, affecting thus more then one. This is especially valid if the targets spread out, overlapping thus. This is easily checked by pausing the game and mousing over the red downward triangle on the left of the unit stats.

2)Slingers slow down enemy units and reduce their charge bonus for 12 seconds which is especially handy against cavalry charges. With their high rate of fire and the usual spread of shot they can affect quite a few units, in some cases five to six targets where slowed. Precision shot is very valuable because they lack armour piercing ammunition and a 50% increase comes in very handy.

Overall slingers seem to kill in field battles more then cheap archers, mostly due to their rapid shooting. A special case are the rather expensive Armenian slingers with their great range of 175 and large shields. Those guys excel at skirmishing and counterfire with their only weak point being endurance due to their low number of shot.

3) Decent and good archers are a step up in killing power even if this step sometimes doesn't seem that big. They generally have better stats, shoot faster and have more arrows. Overall flaming arrows plus precision shot does the most damage to enemy targets, especially to big ones like horse. The morale penalty on top is also a great plus and can be stacked with whistling shots from selected units. Once the damange boost expires heavy shot might harm heavily armored units more but this has to be tested again to be sure.

Some (Eastern) archers have actually a small missile block chance due to their small shields even if they shot, making them a bit more useful at screening the army especially if they also have better health and decent armour, The Germanic longbows are surprisingly the only ones with 200 range outranging their Hunnic competitors by 50, with all the resulting advantages.

4)Crossbows are the big ranged killers, especially with flaming arrows if precision shot and quick reload are activated unless the enemy has a very high missile block chance. For many factions archers and slingers seem to mostly there to support their crossbows and other troops.

Part two will come later. My PC crashed and somehow only a fraction of part 1 was posted...

[Bramborough]

I agree with the archer bit, and matches my experience. The rationale behind the mechanic seems reasonable.

The 2nd point is more interesting; saw a fairly detailed thread about this very topic on TWC, so others are seeing the same. I guess I haven't fooled around with TWA slingers enough to have a first-hand opinion. The rationale behind the mechanic, however, baffles me. Sudden appearance of stones causing uncertain footing, so soldiers/horses now closely eyeing the ground to watch their step? That's all I can come up with. Is there any historical/literary background to this? Am not second-guessing, just interested. I have no idea.

[Greyblades]

Perhaps some of the men are becoming concussed and slowing down? If some of them are running around dazed it would ruin the cohesion of the formation and make charges less effective.

[JeromeBaker]

When using whistling arrows, can they negatively effect your own troops? (ie you have the archers behind a line of spearmen and they are firing them over the heads of the spearmen into an enemey advance...)

[Greyblades]

That was how they worked in shogun. Will have to test.

Edit: yes it does, even when you are shooting the enemy in the back while in melee the whistling arrows will affect your troops fighting them.

Incidentally I found that my fears of crossbows not being able to arc over infantry were unfounded, for some reason I had gotten it in my head that they were like firearms.

[JeromeBaker]

That was how they worked in shogun. Will have to test.

Edit: yes it does, even when you are shooting the enemy in the back while in melee the whistling arrows will affect your troops fighting them.

Incidentally I found that my fears of crossbows not being able to arc over infantry were unfounded, for some reason I had gotten it in my head that they were like firearms.

I had the same impression. I thought crossbows came around because they shot bolts with increased velocity to provide armor penetration compared to a traditional bow. To arch a crossbow shot would mean you are shooting from too far a range wouldnt it?

At least with the velocity of modern crossbows when hunting, you definetly are not arching a shot up in the air and hoping it comes down on the buck.... You are indeed shooting it much more similar to a firearm based on the range you should be shooting from.

The crossbow units later on in the WRE campaign I had were awesome. I wasnt using them like traditional archers, but now that I know they can shoot over a line of infantry I am going to use them more (plus they get flaming shot and heavy shot options like regular archers do, and I dont remember previous TW games having those options on crossbow units)

[Greyblades]

I had the same impression. I thought crossbows came around because they shot bolts with increased velocity to provide armor penetration compared to a traditional bow. To arch a crossbow shot would mean you are shooting from too far a range wouldnt it?

At least with the velocity of modern crossbows when hunting, you definetly are not arching a shot up in the air and hoping it comes down on the buck.... You are indeed shooting it much more similar to a firearm based on the range you should be shooting from.

The crossbow units later on in the WRE campaign I had were awesome. I wasnt using them like traditional archers, but now that I know they can shoot over a line of infantry I am going to use them more (plus they get flaming shot and heavy shot options like regular archers do, and I dont remember previous TW games having those options on crossbow units)

Hrm, it worked for me, but the arches were rather shallow, I was surprised there wasnt any friendly fire among the palatina guards they were shooting over. Obviously I stopped the crossbows when they collided with the enemy germanic nobles, but I suppose it could be that the whistling arrows were so weak they just bounced off the palntina's armour, will have to experiment with weaker units.

Edit: yes crossbows can fire over infantry, but it gets a bit messy the closer the enemy and your infantry get. I havent seen them do anything as extreme as the english longbow's "shoot right upwards and hit something 400 yards away" or anything, but they seem to be able to aim high enough that the infantry doesn't yell at them.

[Oleander Ardens]

Yes friendly fire is not only so very friendly with damage but also with all the other penalties. Be aware of this before letting your troops happily shoot into a big melee.

As clever way to get the most out of your missile troops is obviously good positioning and micro. With shields being more important then ever, at least in my view one should use the most effective missile units on the left flank. Depending on the situation they will of course move vertically. This focus on the left has a couple of advantages beside have the unshielded enemy side to aim for, for example having your own troops protected by their shields. Cheap archers on the right on the other hand do very little damage with whistling arrows so if they do even less so it doesn't really matter.

The long-ranged Germanic longbows are great at skirmishing so they are usually the guys provoking the enemy into the attack. As they can cover a large area they are also less inclined to wander around if I have forgotten to switch manually targets from those out of range which can happen in the heat of battle. Far easier to use then javs for example.

[Bramborough]

Disclaimer up front; nothing particularly revelatory or unexpected here. Mainly just reinforcing from a separate perspective what others have already observed.

I did several custom battles' worth of testing yesterday with various missile troop types. Used Ostrogoth units: Germanic Hunters (short bow), Germanic Archers (long-range bow), and Germanic Crossbowmen. Was my first time experimenting with crossbows, hadn't used them in campaign yet (because Saxons don't get any, lol). For infantry "test subjects", used Germanic Spearmen on both sides (53 armor).

1. Confirmed my already-strong impression that the cheap short-range archers (35 damage) are pretty much garbage as far as killing power is concerned. Even when using Heavy Shot. They do have the flaming and whistling capabilities, of course. Overall, my impression is that slinger/hurler type units are better early-game, with perhaps one unit of archers for their flame/whistle capabilities.

2. The longer-range archers (45 damage) are more useful. The 200 range is awesome, of course. Killing power a little better, although still not as good as the higher-end archers in R2.

3. Yes, the Whistling Shot does affect own troops' morale...which is rather annoying to me. Same with Flaming Shot. I guess I can understand the rationale. If fiery arrows are raining on you out of the sky, I guess you don't really give a crap exactly whose bow they came from. Even so, using archers to tip the morale balance in a close melee fight strikes me as a dubious proposition, as the morale effects seem to cancel each other out.

4. Crossbows obviously best of all, particularly against armored troops. They can indeed fire over the heads of troops directly in front of them (although not if already engaged in melee). With the flat trajectories, however, they do seem much more sensitive to minor undulations in terrain...even areas that look reasonably flat with the camera panned out, and you can't really see the folds in the earth unless you zoom in close for the eye-level view.

5. None of the missile troops were effective at firing from directly behind the infantry line at targets already in melee. About a 30 degree offset seemed enough to at least let them fire at such targets with some effect, but full 90% needed for full effect without friendly fire.

With my playstyle, I usually like to go with a 4-unit missile complement in a 20-unit stack. Right now, I'm thinking the way to go early-game is 3xSlinger / 1xArcher, and then later when crossbows & higher-end archers are unlocked, to go with a 2x/2x split. I'd generally use the archers to go after the enemy's own missile line, and use crossbows on the flanks vs their infantry.

Again, I don't think I'm saying anything new here.

[Hooahguy]

So I tested the Elite Scattershot Slingers for the Burgundians, they are really good, mainly because they can hold their own in a fight, and then can do serious damage when the enemy flees from them, because slingers from the back are quite devastating.

The archers still leave much to be desired though.

[Oleander Ardens]

[I]

With my playstyle, I usually like to go with a 4-unit missile complement in a 20-unit stack. Right now, I'm thinking the way to go early-game is 3xSlinger / 1xArcher, and then later when crossbows & higher-end archers are unlocked, to go with a 2x/2x split. I'd generally use the archers to go after the enemy's own missile line, and use crossbows on the flanks vs their infantry.

When I played with the Franks very early I split the already recruited archers and added some slingers and rather quickly crossbows which are available with the level 3 goat farm and fields. Frankish skirmishers joined also in due time and with rich income the longbows are not difficult to unlock.

For those Germanic tribes which get good slingers and crossbows that way it is an attractive mid-ranged combination as it requires just one building slot and combines very well. One cheap (mercenary) archer adds whistling shot and you have pretty much all the tools till the longbows are able to join the party.

[Slaists]

Anecdotally, I've noticed that skirmishers (javeliners) tend to get insane amount of kills in field battles. Not exactly the very lowest tier but the ones right above: their javelins have 90 damage and all of that damage is armor piercing. So, unless they hit a shield-block, they kill instantly.

[Oleander Ardens]

This is part two in the discussions about missiles:

5) Javelineers: All skirmishers armed with javelins have a range of 80 and have a fairly high shooting rate compared to archers. Most do a damage of 90 with a large ap component and a +15 bonus damage against cavalry and elephants. In general more expensive skirmishers have more javelins, a higher rate of fire as well as special abilities while the rest of the range-specific stats remain the same. The Burgundians have special ones, which inflict 105 damage, almost all normal with the usual bonus and are thus devastating with precision shot. The Franks on the other hand have good quality skirmishers which have a range and melee bonus of +30 against cavalry which makes them quite devastating in this regard. Avoid the Brigands with their lowly 4, although one might be fun to play around with.

Their lethality in typical field battles can be high, as Slaists already noted, and is typically only outmatched by crossbows. Be however aware that a large portion of their kills can be friendly troops, which requires together with their short range more attention to them. If they can shoot it out with enemy missiles they tend to win cost-efficiently, the problem is getting in range.

a) Personally with the Franks I liked to have two-three on the left flank with cavalry support. This way you concentrate your short-range firepower on one flank which enables you to win the cavalry fight if the AI offers any and to wheel your skirmishers as one unit into the enemy's shieldless side*. With relative little micro you can devastate engaged melee troops or enemy skirmishers. If charge into a cavalry duel they do actually surprisingly well, rather similar to standard spearmen. Archers, Slingers and Crossbows were usually later part of the ranged mix.

b) With the Nordic factions you get amazingly cheap and low-upkeep javelineers and some higher quality ones, but you lack good long-range skirmishers. In single-player it pays off to mass low-cost troops, among them those cheap javs as you can easily outnumber the enemy with two or even three such stacks. With a lot of cheap javs you have a vast amount of javelins which will rather quickly take down even heavily armored units out of testudo or shield-wall.

*I'm usually defensive on my right and aggressive on my left as I have an easier time to micro and can attack the shieldless side of the enemy center.

[Slaists]

I agree with the archer bit, and matches my experience. The rationale behind the mechanic seems reasonable.

The 2nd point is more interesting; saw a fairly detailed thread about this very topic on TWC, so others are seeing the same. I guess I haven't fooled around with TWA slingers enough to have a first-hand opinion. The rationale behind the mechanic, however, baffles me. Sudden appearance of stones causing uncertain footing, so soldiers/horses now closely eyeing the ground to watch their step? That's all I can come up with. Is there any historical/literary background to this? Am not second-guessing, just interested. I have no idea.

In general, you will slow down if you have to dodge missiles (unless you choose to ignore them): the move speed or any other action (other than dodging) you're involved will be slowed down. It's the 'suppressing' effect of missiles. Probably all missiles should have the effect not only slingers or 'whistling arrows'.

As to javelins: I see that they do insane amount of friendly kills even when you manage to position them so they shoot in the backs of engaged enemy. On a related note, I hate that CA has taken out the "kills" stat from post-battle summary. That gave a pretty accurate estimate for friendly fire casualties.

[Bramborough]

I agree...and it's a minor change which is actually somewhat bizarre, because I can think of no remotely feasible reason for them to have removed that little feature. I guess maybe somebody thought the unit cards looked a little cluttered...but then, of the bazillion criticisms leveled at recent TW games, am pretty sure I've never read "I don't like the kill counts on the post-battle display unit cards."

That said, the data is still there; appears in a mouse-over pop-up. I too have noticed heavy kill-counts for javelin units....numbers which seemed a little high to me. Would be nice if there was a breakdown, distinguishing number of friendly fire kills (or alternately, number of friendly fire deaths suffered).

[Oleander Ardens]

As to javelins: I see that they do insane amount of friendly kills even when you manage to position them so they shoot in the backs of engaged enemy.

True. Ideally you want to shoot into the right flank or back of an enemy blob and target the closest unit. Generally enemy cavalry should be your prime target if possible, especially if there is no to little of your own in the mix. The additional bonus against cavalry enlargers the gap between enemy kills and 'friendly fire', doubly so with the Frankish skirmishers and their special +30.

Overall the considerable need to micro is the main reason why with the Franks I just use them one one wing.

P.S: Whistling shot can be great because it deals so little damage while hammering the morale and giving the rate of fire penalty. Not that it makes that much of a difference in kills with the poor Nordic archers. If you have a unit with decent moral winning a fight, especially against the often-encountered levies, stacking penalties will give you a quicker victoriy with fewer casualities suffered.

[Greyblades]

How do you avoid having the whistling arrows affect your own troops?

[Hooahguy]

You cant. Maybe just position the archers in a way that they arent going over your own troops?

[Bramborough]

Yep, which is what I infer of Oleander saying "if you have a unit with decent morale winning a fight." Both units will take the morale hit, the difference being that your guys can afford it, while the enemy cannot. And with Whistling Shot, you don't take significant friendly fire, since the arrows are almost harmless.

Bottom line; low-end archers can hasten the end of a fight that your guys are already winning, by making the enemy break that much quicker. But they're not going to change the morale balance and turn around a fight that you're currently losing.

[Slaists]

Yep, which is what I infer of Oleander saying "if you have a unit with decent morale winning a fight." Both units will take the morale hit, the difference being that your guys can afford it, while the enemy cannot. And with Whistling Shot, you don't take significant friendly fire, since the arrows are almost harmless.

Bottom line; low-end archers can hasten the end of a fight that your guys are already winning, by making the enemy break that much quicker. But they're not going to change the morale balance and turn around a fight that you're currently losing.

The thing with whistling archers is that they hit not only the morale of your troops but their fighting ability too (at least in Attila; not sure about R2).

On a related note, as mentioned before, slingers slow units down. They do the same to your own troops if they hit them.

[Oleander Ardens]

Bottom line; low-end archers can hasten the end of a fight that your guys are already winning, by making the enemy break that much quicker. But they're not going to change the morale balance and turn around a fight that you're currently losing.

Indeed, I should have worded it better, you did a better job at that..

The thing with whistling archers is that they hit not only the morale of your troops but their fighting ability too.

Yes, they give all the affected units -12 morale, -8 melee attack and a -25% reduction in rate of fire. Maybe something of great importance which doesn't seem to get noticed that often: Whistling shot throws a blanket of fear over all the units along it's path. The sheer number of units affected can be staggering, often more then a dozen against the AI, if you shoot diagonally across the line of battle as I sometimes do. As I have written before I generally flank on the left while being more defensive on the right and have the low-level missile troops which usually get the task of whistling around on my right while the true killers like crossbows or javelineers tend to be on the left.

[Slaists]

So far, whistling shot and fire arrow combo works well for me playing as Huns. I'd have squads of 5 HA's skirmishing. 3 would use regular arrows, 1 flaming shot, 1 whistling arrow. The specialist shots on the right flank so they minimally affect the others. Most stack vs stack battles on legendary end up with me losing a few guys versus total annihilation on the other side.

On a Hun related note here is

A tip for Huns

Upon starting the campaign you're not at war with WRE. Ask them to join their wars in exchange for cash. Hell, join all their wars for a few turns. All of those are far from your starting position anyway. The key is: every extra war you have boosts the integrity of your stacks. So, you can end up with +20 or so integrity per turn just from remote Roman wars.

Once you are ransacking WRE, all those enemies of yours will start loving you and before you know it they'll pay cash for truce agreements.

[Oleander Ardens]

So far, whistling shot and fire arrow combo works well for me playing as Huns. I'd have squads of 5 HA's skirmishing. 3 would use regular arrows, 1 flaming shot, 1 whistling arrow. The specialist shots on the right flank so they minimally affect the others. Most stack vs stack battles on legendary end up with me losing a few guys versus total annihilation on the other side

Great, I actually didn't use the Huns so much and was thinking more in terms of mostly infantry combat. Sadly my post got messed up, lacking the vital end:


"Overall in TW you want to accelerate the pace of battle (or 'tempo') where you are winning and slow it down where you are losing".

Oleander Ardens


This is incredibly important so let me bring the classic example of the 'hammer-and-anvil' battle. In Attila I tend to have mostly a line of solid and cost-efficient infantry, usually in a formation like shield or spearwall, in the center to hold and tie down the mass of the enemy while I try to flank with other troops.

In this economical use of force few are able to hold out against many in the center and you thus want an 'anvil fight' with a slow rate of casualities. Ideally this part of the battle should happen in very slow-motion. On the other hand if you are able to outflank the enemy line, usally by concentrating superior forces there, you want have as quick a victory as possible in the 'hammer fight'.


1) The flame+whistling combo with their -21 drop in morale does exactly that while the other penalties are just slight drawbacks when it is combined with the other penalties inflicted by virtue of the rear charge (-9), losing the fight and suffering a large degree of casualties quickly. It allows you to win considerably faster, accelerating in this way the battle of your hammer enabling you to rapidly striking with it again!

2) If you shoot with your 'whistling archers' (TM Slaist) from your right towards the enemy outflanked left you are additionally slowing down the fight in the center a bit with the -8 to melee attack, as long as your morale is not endangered. Your anvil inflicts less casualities but receives fewer, which is far more important as you are doing the killing, routing and winning elsewhere. A minor bonus but a nice one which comes naturally without having to alter my order of battle...


All in all quite often a focus on those aspects can result in surprisingly devastating victories at a surprisingly low cost in friendly lives.