Longbows are no good

[Sonny WiFiHr]

Pavise Xbows are better.2/3 rate fire with beter att/def stats.
I attack 1 PXbow Milanese with 2 longbow and my general save the longbowman from total destruction.
My englis troops act like they are from stone age not blodbath medieval.
Stonebow English good at harasing chicken

[Lord Condormanius]

This has not been my experience at all. If you get a bunch of longbowmen (3 or 4) in your army and concentrate their fire, they cut infantry and cavalry (from a distance) to ribbons.

[pevergreen]

Pavise Xbows are better.2/3 rate fire with beter att/def stats.
I attack 1 PXbow Milanese with 2 longbow and my general save the longbowman from total destruction.
My englis troops act like they are from stone age not blodbath medieval.
Stonebow English good at harasing chicken

First of all, proper sentance structure is always a nice change.

Longbows are incredibly powerful. But so are Crossbows. Remember citizens with a few hours crossbow training could kill a knight who had trained for his entire life.

Look at the armour difference for Close Combat. Milanese have the best pavise crossbowmen for a start, wearing chainmail.
Longbowmen are archers, not meant for combat, wearing leather...not even padded. Retinue Longbowmen can handle themselves, but skirmishers/archers arent meant to fight. they are meant to shoot. Pavise Crossbowmen are meant to win any archer fights, they have armour and HUGE SHIELD on their back.

[Sonny WiFiHr]

I'm not talkig about sitting ducks.I'm talkig abut distruption in the force.LB fire much faster (historicly) pierce almost like Xbow.But now they are slow have same range as Xbows and they have less damage.This is not a shock troop as should be.Need some balancing.

[sabremookie]

Pavise Xbows are better.2/3 rate fire with beter att/def stats.
I attack 1 PXbow Milanese with 2 longbow and my general save the longbowman from total destruction.
My englis troops act like they are from stone age not blodbath medieval.
Stonebow English good at harasing chicken

I agree with you entirely, the balance between pavise x-bows and longbows seems incorrect.

[ScrapTower]

Its the rate of fire that is imba... The pav xbows should die slower, but also fire much slower them longbows...

[sabremookie]

Its the rate of fire that is imba... The pav xbows should die slower, but also fire much slower them longbows...

Yes, that is exactly the problem, and we are not sure yet if it can be modded easily :(

[Sonny WiFiHr]

Guy archers (Sherwood) can beat pavise. If you like fantasy side of the game.I will test them against panzer elephants.

[Sonny WiFiHr]

Correction. Guy archers (Sherwood) can't beat pavise.

[BigTex]

Guy archers (Sherwood) can beat pavise. If you like fantasy side of the game.I will test them against panzer elephants.

As a scarry side note to this. Apparently CA intended to put rocket armed elephants in the game. The unit is in the export_descr_unit.txt file but apparently never made it into the game, bless their hearts.

Never ran into problems with the Longbows. Of course pavasive armed crossbowmen should always win against another archer unit, they have a massive shield. But the longbows are generally cheaper, and far easier to train en-mass. They can also use wooden stakes, something that shouldnt be under valued. Their fully capable of going toe to toe with other heavier armored units due to their armor piercing mallots. They might not be the best 1 to 1 infantry but their support value for an army is something to be awed by. As england you can easily pump out dozens of these units, while even milan has trouble producing a couple pavasive genonese crossbowmen each year.

[ScrapTower]

The Retinue Longbowsmen have swords. The next longbows below them use mallets.

[Lochar]

The one thing I dont understand was I always thought the english longbow was by far the best range bow avail?

I always thought the xbow was a hard punch weapon but not the same distance.

But as the english I never see the advantage of longbowmen except to basic milita archers. The other crossbow troops at least get those shields to hide behind.

[Sonny WiFiHr]

I found this.

historically, the longbow had longer range and a dramatically higher rate of fire than a crossbow. the only advantage of a crossbow is its simplicity and ease of training (hence crossbow militias), and the fact that it could be carried cocked and ready to fire.

a crossbow militia in the game should represent civilian tradesmen, merchants and farmers garrisoning a city/town with crossbows. english retinue longbowmen are elite archers whose sole purpose in life is archery and war.

a well trained professional crossbowman (without assistance) could fire 3 shots per minute. a militia crossbowman probably less.
a professional, experienced longbowman was expected to shoot 20 shots per minute.

in the game, crossbowmen have about 2/3 the firing rate of longbowmen (wtf!). set up at max range, militia pavise crossbowmen will (most of the time) inflict more casualties on retinue longbowmen - even with their slightly slower rate of fire. when the retinue longbowmen run out of arrows the crossbowmen still have about a third of their arrows left, which they can use to inflict even more casualties. the only way the retinue longbowmen win is if they close to very close range and/or if they charge the crossbow militia. this is unrealistic.

even with 2 servants and 2 crossbows (one to hold the pavise, and one to reload the second crossbow), a professional mercenary crossbowman can hope for up to 8 shots per minute. the pavise crossbowmen in the game have no servants, are militia civilians, and only have one crossbow.

in the least, crossbowmen need a nerf on their firing rate. its rediculous that not only do they have much better defense, the armor piercing stat, free upkeep, low upkeep when not garrisoned (100), and the ability to be recruited from just about any city, but that at range they can inflict more casualties than the professional, elite english longbowmen. either that or professional english longbowmen need to have their attack speed doubled.

from Ambrosiuss (tw center)

[sabremookie]

Yeah, we had a 10 page discussion over this at twcenter :) I think it will never end.

[ScrapTower]

I agree that the pavs fire too fast relative to longbows. I play multiplayer so thats the only reason I care. I dont play factions with pavs and the AI needs all the help it can get.

[Kraxis]

a professional, experienced longbowman was expected to shoot 20 shots per minute.

I think the number you are looking for is 12. 20 = an arrow every three seconds. That is seriously fast. Not only is it fast but it would drain the poor archer very fast as well.

[Oaty]

Don't have all your archers fire at once, if you pay close attention you'll notice they drop like flies when they are firing but are near impossible to kill while they are reloading. They are probably the only unit in the game that gets a bonus for being shot in the back.

[Kralizec]

I assume crossbows still fire in a straight arc like in MTW original, yes?

That was one considerable advantage (IMO) of longbows in MTW. To use crossbows you always had to put them in fornt of your other troops*. Longbows could be positioned safely behind a wall of spears.

(*the exception would be if you're defending from a steep hill)

[Daveybaby]

Actually, crossbows now seem able to fire in an arc over other units heads. Dont know if this affects their performance any worse than it does for longbows though.

[dopp]

I prefer the more reasonable estimate found in John Keegan's commentary on Agincourt that trained archers could volley fire one shot every ten seconds, as opposed to how fast it is physically possible to fire the bow. Compare this to 15 seconds for a musket, 15 seconds for a "light" crossbow (drawn back with a claw rather than a windlass) and 5 seconds for a modern bolt-action rifle. Remember also that they only have about 24 arrows apiece (30 in M2TW) so they cannot waste them firing all once. At least part of the longbow's (or any other missile weapon's) effectiveness is the delivery of well-timed volleys to break enemy morale, so they must wait and fire all at once. This cuts their RoF dramatically. Ingame the longbows I use have a RoF almost twice that of the crossbowmen, so I really don't see the problem.

Not all crossbow units are equal. There are steel_crossbow_bolt and normal crossbow_bolt. Pavise and all other professional crossbowmen (Aventuriers, Peasant Crossbows, Genoese) have steel ones and their range is 160, same as all longbowmen. All militia and cavalry crossbows are 120, along with arquebusiers. Muskets pwn them all with 180 range.

Crossbows will fire directly if there is a clear line of fire, indirectly if not. Not sure if it matters. Gunners just stand there blankly if a single tree blocks their vision.

[JFC]

I think the number you are looking for is 12. 20 = an arrow every three seconds. That is seriously fast. Not only is it fast but it would drain the poor archer very fast as well.

But looking historically Kraxis my friend, this 3 seconds IS what the Longbowmen were expected to do, but that's all expected. Looking at historical accounts of Agincourt et al, you find quotes of 'Clouds of Arrows' cutting down Knights every 6-12 seconds.

I know 3 second loosing would be a bit wrong for 'A Game'(might as well play company of heroes), but the Longbow is supposed to be the English Medieval Machine Gun! Even in the startup, the English are prized for Infantry (bugged) and the Longbow.
My issues are also the rate of fire and the power of the arrows which should have the BODKIN Armour piercing heads. I had 4 units of retinue Longbowmen letting loose at about 40 Kyote Priests.
That's 480 top notch Arrows being fired at 40 padded americans armed only with 2x4s with a bit of sharpened gravel stuck in the sides.
That's basically 12 arrows per man.
You should expect first shot, even with arrows falling short/going too far/missing, to be goodbye fellas right? We ALL know it should have. Wrong. It took a good 7 shots to whittle them down.
That's 3360 Arrows.
84 Prime Enlgish Arrows for each of those yodelling Wolf-men.
Something that should have taken less than a minute. Which we ALL know didn't.

Wrong, just wrong. PLEASE CA! Patch me up good style!

[De Montfort]

I agree that the rate of fire for the longbow should be significantly greater than crossbow units.

English longbowmen spent years (from childhood) practicing their art, and could loose anywhere between 13-18 arrows a minute... and these were aimed and accurate (distance-wise). The range of the longbow would have caused chaos at a distance (and death for lighter armed troops) and utter slaughter at closer range.

The crossbow was largely useless at long range. It couldn't fire effectively in an arc which meant it was only really effective at less than 100 yards.

Both the longbow bodkin and the crossbow bolt were lethal at close range, but the skill and accuracy of the longbowman combined with his rate of fire would mean a longbow unit would make mincemeat of a crossbow unit - pavice or otherwise.

If M2:TW was more accurate, it would cost more to build longbow units (to reflect the training required) but their upkeep would be low.

Crossbow units would be cheaper to build, but cost more in upkeep.

In a standoff fight the range of the crossbow would be at least 2 times less (probably more) and the rate of fire at least 3 times less.

The Longbow is the English superweapon. While it's useful in M2:TW it wouldn't instil the same level of fear that the real weapon did.

[dopp]

But looking historically Kraxis my friend, this 3 seconds IS what the Longbowmen were expected to do, but that's all expected. Looking at historical accounts of Agincourt et al, you find quotes of 'Clouds of Arrows' cutting down Knights every 6-12 seconds.

Erm unless graphics lag affects real-life battles, 3 seconds between volleys should not stretch to 6-12 seconds between casualties falling over.

All troops take significantly more hits to kill in M2TW. Peasants can take several musket balls through the chest before dying. So don't be surprised if your longbows are not mowing people down in droves. Unless of course you contend that bodkin arrows are more powerful than heavy caliber musket balls fired at point-blank range.

[Handel]

The croosbows have the same range as longbows which is unaccurate. But I guess it is made for balance.
But the retenue archers are much better for castle defences because they can keep on their own long enough the help to arrive.

[FactionHeir]

My issues are also the rate of fire and the power of the arrows which should have the BODKIN Armour piercing heads. I had 4 units of retinue Longbowmen letting loose at about 40 Kyote Priests.
That's 480 top notch Arrows being fired at 40 padded americans armed only with 2x4s with a bit of sharpened gravel stuck in the sides.
That's basically 12 arrows per man.
You should expect first shot, even with arrows falling short/going too far/missing, to be goodbye fellas right? We ALL know it should have. Wrong. It took a good 7 shots to whittle them down.
That's 3360 Arrows.
84 Prime Enlgish Arrows for each of those yodelling Wolf-men.
Something that should have taken less than a minute. Which we ALL know didn't.

I noticed that especially in M2TW (more than in RTW even), the smaller a unit becomes (ie less troops), the harder they become to hit. Realistic? Kind of, not totally, because it also means that your archers should have only one target to worry about instead of a lot of targets. I'd expect maybe 30% reduced rate of hitting a target when a unit is down to say 1-10 men, but not 90% miss rate!
As an example, there were 2 crossbow militita (non pavise) left standing. I had 5 mercenary crossbows (all experience 3+) fire at them and it took 2 volleys to take one of those 2 down and another 4 for the last guy. Thats just sad.

[dopp]

Does the game model physics accurately when calculating hits or does it just "roll a dice"?

[Kobal2fr]

All troops take significantly more hits to kill in M2TW. Peasants can take several musket balls through the chest before dying. So don't be surprised if your longbows are not mowing people down in droves. Unless of course you contend that bodkin arrows are more powerful than heavy caliber musket balls fired at point-blank range.

Quoted For Truth.

Game balance trumps history.
Besides, I think TW missile "impotence" account for the fact that a connecting bolt/arrow hit (or musket ball hit, I guess), bodkin or not, is not an instant, automatic death warrant. Sometimes, it just makes you angry

[SMZ]

The ranges are correct. The effective range of a longbow isn't any more than a steel crossbow. Steel crossbows are powerful weapons. The penetrating power is mostly correct. Crossbow bolts hit harder than arrows. Don't forget that the longbows share the armor piercing ability just like the crossbows, but unlike other bows. The Retinue Longbowman should however probably see his Missile Attack bumped up to 9 or 10, it makes no sense for him to share the same stat as the previous Yeoman Archer. The firing rates are pretty close as well. A slight bump to speed up the Longbowmen, and maybe a slight bump to slow down the Crossbowmen could balance things nicely, but both are close to being accurate. Currently the Crossbowmen are operating on the high side of possibility, Longbowmen on the low side... the realism is fairly accurate in this aspect however.

All of which means, the units are pretty close to being accurate - only the slightest tinkering could be considered necessary. It is important to remember the good points of longbows: they fire in an arc - alleviating friendly fire issues greatly and allowing you to shoot over walls etc, they lay down fire more quickly than a group of crossbowmen would, they can use fire arrows to panic the enemy and burn siege engines, and they can deploy stakes to injure cavalry charges and break up infantry advances. Don't forget that you can place the stakes wherever you want during deployment, and then move your archers after the battle begins... the stakes will still be useful.

Now yes, you may see Crossbows firing a parabola shot at times... however what you won't see is them getting any kills that way. If you see your own Crossbowmen doing that, stop them - they're just wasting their ammo. Crossbows must be fired with direct line of sight in order to be effective.

-----------
Especially in Western countries a mythology around the longbow has developed. While it is a powerful weapon, it is not the weapon to end all weapons that it is often portrayed to be. Steel crossbows are extremely powerful weapons as well; modern crossbows are not considered primitive weapons by state hunting authorities... this should tell you something. Longbows are. Each has it's own points and effective uses however.

Composite bows in Eastern lands of antiquity outranged longbows. Penetrating power was still plenty good... there's a reason heavily armed and armored Western powers were continually slaughtered wholesale at the hands of Eastern horse archers. Technically speaking, some of the horse archer units could have the long range ability as well... but as good as they are already, this would greatly imbalance the game. However IRL, they were greatly imbalanced... horse archers had no match until the advent of gunpowder... but that wouldn't make a very fun game, people complain about the power of the Mongols enough already. In short, the game is pretty accurate - learn the units abilities and use them... that's what makes an effective commander. Don't just spend your time looking for the Magical Unit of Ultimate Smashing +5.

[GFX707]

Stonebow English good at harasing chicken

LOL, I am glad I read this thread for that last line alone.

[econ21]

I don't see much wrong with longbows per se. They are lethal in SP - perhaps a tad slow, I don't know. I prefer their rate of fire to MTW anyway, where they were out of ammo within a minute or so.

The issues seem more to do with the pavise crossbows than the longbows. Here, there are two aspects - the crossbow and the pavise. If the crossbow really is 2/3 the rate of fire of the longbow, I am pretty sure that is inaccurate and should be fixed. Even 1/3 sounds optimistic.

But the pavise itself should be a massive advantage in a firefight. It's hard to imagine longbowmen beating crossbow men who can fire behind that enormous cover. IIRC, the French also gave the pavise to some spearmen to counter English longbows towards the end of the Hundred Years War. In one battle, the pavise spearmen were able to drive off the longbows with virtually no loss. Sounds plausible to me.