Metal smith, effect on arrows/bolts

[Silencer]

Does it have ANY effect on projectiles? (better arrow points etc), or does it improve only to hand to hand weapons?

S.

[Red Harvest]

Wondered the same...probably best to test it with two units in "custom battle", use same valor, but one with weapon upgrade. See whether the projectile inflicted casualties change for one vs. the other.

[desdichado]

already tried it in a custom battle and results were inconclusive. AI likes to go hth when his archers have weapon upgrade - makes sense of course.

This has been discussed before - forgot name of post and I think consensus was that it doesn't affect arrows, only hth weapons. Although if it makes swords/spears better why not arrow heads???

[The Last Emperor]

It has been mentioned before that the weapon upgrade affects units with hard weapons only, while valour is the key factor affecting the accuracy of the archer units.

[DonCoyote]

I may be mistaken, but my reading of posts in the jousting fields lead me to believe that increasing the valour of archers (or any ranged unit) only affects their melee stats (& morale) & has no effect on accuracy - i assume this would apply to SP as well.

In addition, in SP i have also upgraded archers with better weapons in the (now) mistaken assumption that it would improve the ammo. DOH

Don Coyote

[Brighdaasa]

Valor on archers and artillery does increase accuracy, you get more kills with higher valor. Plain archers will still have trouble killing armoured troops, but now they hit them at least http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
I don't think weaps upgrade improves arrows, only hand to hand combat, but valor really does have an effect on accuracy.
I tested this with artillery, you know, place a few seprentines on the edge of the map and see how much kills they make, and valor 1 serps certainly made more kills than valor 0

[DonCoyote]

I was thinking about artillery after my previous post - & i would agree that in my experience artillery with increased valour is more "accurate". Still not sure about archers etc.

I cut the following from a post by TosaInu:

"In STW, missiles did shoot better per volley with increased 'valour'. Though you had to increase it a lot to see a difference. I'm not sure whether it's because MTW 'only' offers v4 max (H4 didn't show real improvement in STW) or that it's completely removed. But upgraded archers should shoot better, not become melee units. Higher valour should increase the accuracy/lethality, not the melee."

This was where i got the idea that valour didn't improve accuracy. (Again with the caveat that MP = SP).

Don Coyote

[Red Harvest]

Tried testing this tonight (metalsmith effect.) To my surprise it appears that the metalsmith might give an edge to the arbalests with the weapons upgrade (improved armour penetration?) First few volleys from them were really deadly but tended to taper off the longer the duel continued. I was careful to match formation changes with the AI. Can't say with certainty because if I tried letting the AI have the weapon upgraded it ALWAYS tried to rush me (made good sense 1v1 but it happened even when I had CMAA backing my arbalests up, LOL.) Test probably should be conducted online with humans instead.

On the topic of accuracy vs. valour. My higher valour archers/arbalests drop a lot more enemy troops per volley in battle than the ones with lower valour. When easily possible and time allows, I'll have them kill a bunch of peasants/unarmoured troops just to get their kill count/valor up a notch before aiming at harder targets. Another example, demoralized missile troops rarely hit anything and they shoot slowly.

[Kraxis]

Valour does increase accuracy, but not by any important part.
I tested V0 Archers and V4 Archers against 100 V4 Pikemen with ten tests of each, with no elevation and no rain or wind.
The result was strange as the V0 archers killed more Pikemen... So in MP we most certainly can't see any difference. In SP we can possibly detect something.

Also I heard from Puzz3D that the CA did a cahnge when they made MI and that lowered the benefit of accuracygains from Honour... that was carried over into MTW.