Missile Units

[and another thing....]

The only useful missile units thatI`ve found are the longbow men - all other units seem poor.

Normal archers seem the best of the rest but others such as trebizond archers, bulgarian archers, and horse archers, seem to inflict little damage for the amount of arrows fired but suffer high casualties in return.

Any body found the same or got any good tips I can use???

[Stormer]

well longbows are the best archers even though it is debatable weather they are or not. but pavise arblibers are the best (crossbowmen) they have shields try them.

[Gregoshi]

and another thing..., welcome aboard. Thanks for joining us here. and another thing..., your user name cracks me up. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif Most excellent.

and another thing..., there has been quite a bit of discussion about missiles. As I recall, the gist of it was that missile units weren't all that effective in combat until the longbow came along. I think if you scan the Main Hall forum you find a few threads talking about archers and company.

[Geoffrey_FiztRogers]

Now crossbowman were very effective. I do find archer espcialy horse ones to be very usfull. I tend to concentrate thier fire on the flanks units of the enemy. Also I found holding a cav unit behind them if a good tactic. Aftera bit the enemy will move to an open formation and I charged my cave into them. Treb archers are great as well as turks. They melee well along with thier their bow abilities.

[TheViking]

Trebz are the best archers in my opinion. I always get high kills when i use them

[Lehesu]

Very funny, Gregoshi. I prefer archer units that can also melee effectively. That way, I get more use out of them if they are having an off day archer-wise.

[Gaius Julius]

I've had success with Trebizoid, and horse archers. Crossbowmen, and arblibers good too.

[Mr. Juice]

I'll admit that I'm a MTW n00b, but just less than a couple hours ago, I had one unit of Trebizoid archers decimate two units of horse archers while only taking one loss.

Before I finally settled with the Byzantine Empire I had been playing as the HRE for about 30 years. HRE left me thinking archers were just a notch above fairly worthless. Trebizoid archers are changing this opinion.

[TheViking]

Mr. Juice:welcome to the club. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif the Trebz are really great, newbie or no newbie they are killers hehehehe http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[Theodoret]

I've defeated enemy armies with missile fire alone, particularly on bridge maps. Whilst missile troops are best in defensive positions, particularly on the crest of a hill, they can also be used to effect on the attack. Arbalests are perhaps the best answer to cavalry archers (shot the Mongols to pieces when I was playing the HRE), and massed missile fire is wormwood to heavy cavalry.
Some handy tips for defeating enemy forces with missile fire:
1. Aim for the general. If you can shoot the general then other units in the army are easier to break with missile fire. The morse units you have firing at the general the more chance of nailing him. So fire everything at the general.
2. Concentrate your fire. Rather than fire three units of archers firing at three units of troops, concentrate on one unit and shoot the crap out of it. Better to break one unit then cause light casualties on three.
3. Toggle skirmish mode. Don't just leave your troops on skirmish mode all the time, sometimes a last minute volley can work wonders. So long as you have some decent infantry to back you up you should be able to get away with a bit of brinkmanship.
4. Harass with horse archers. You can use horse archers to split the enemy force up. That way there are less troops barrelling towards your foot archers. Horse archers can make a real mess of a pursuing unit, but don't rely on skirmish setting to get you out of trouble, I'm afraid you'll need to do some frantic mouse clicking.
5. Don't use horse archers against cavalry or missile troops. If you are bothered by enemy horse archers use either light cavalry or foot archers.
6. If you get caught in a missile duel (archer vs. archer) switch to dispersed formation as soon as possible and try to play the numbers game.

If you use them properly, even the lowly archer and horse archer can be fearsome foes. The main thing is not to allow them to function on 'automatic', manage them as intensly as you would a melee unit.

[Dukezer0]

First, i agree that treb archers are cool. Janissary archers are actually better (they kill more) but look at the differance in building requirements http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

You can build treb archers after 6 turns http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif i think.

As for tactics, i was very cheesy against the almohads once http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif, but it worked wonders.

1 line of defensive troops, 2 lines of missile troops (not x-bows) lined up in the corner of the screen at an angle so no cavalry troops can get round and flank. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Voila, 72 vs 800 and something and skilled defender http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Ueriah]

When attacking in relatively open terrain, I tend to keep my footsoldiers and archers in line formation and leapfrog them back and forth until the archers are within firing range. I let them fire while the enemy closes while leapfroging the infantry to the front to catch the offenisve before the archers are engaged.

Personally, I don't always concentrate my missle fire on one unit. Generals usually have high health (at least the ones that I'm fighting seem to... my own are oftentimes drinking themselves to death and have to be tied to thier horse, but that's a differant matter altogether) and by the time that I take them out with archers, I think I could use the archers much more effectively to lower the morale of the front line as it engages my front line.

Remember that being under fire is a -2 morale modifier. While that might not seem like much, it could be enough to get one or two units to route, which as we have all seen can lead to mass exodus from the battlefield.

Archers are great supportive units, but by themselves they are much less effective.

[Theodoret]

I always found that missile fire was better at killing royal knights than foot troops. Thats why I say go for the general, he is usually found amongst a load of knights.

As far as using missile troops on their own, I agree its a bad idea, missile troops need to be guarded. Then again, an army composed soley of any single type of unit usually is a bad idea. I wouldn't write archers off as a simple support unit though, they can win battles in their own right. I've killed a lot more troops with Trebizond archers than I ever could with Kataphractoi.

[Exile]

Archers are essential in combat. Everything seems to have been covered already, but I'll add that horse archers serve a different role than your foot archers in most cases. Horse archers should not enter into a duel with foot archers, but are excellent at harassing enemy armies, either drawing them to attack en masse or luring out a unit or two. This can be a battle winner if you can lure a defender off a strong position or break up the formation of a strong attacking army. Also they serve the duel role of being excellent at chasing down routed opponents or charging into an enemy's flank/rear on occassion.

You can certainly win battles without horse archers, but you'll do better with them.

[and another thing....]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif
Thanks for all the tips - I`ve been trying the different suggestions (not got through them all yet) in some quick battles and I`m finally starting to get my monies worth from the normal archers units.

One other question tho - heavy missile cavalry eg boyars

I tried to commit them to battle in melee mode against militia sargeants thinking that once I had broken them, I could then finish them off by bowfire then running them down but got well and truly mashed up.

Next thought was too open fire and skirmish before then engaging in melee mode - same result.

Are heavy missile cavalry that useful - they look good as one unit can do the job (supposedly) of 2 other units giving some flexibility or is it just that my tactics suck big time.

[HopAlongBunny]

Boyars are very good in SP.

Use them pretty much like any HA...anything they can't outrun they can kill. Militia serg's are a bad thing to melee head-to-head with cav; bonus vs armour and bonus vs cav; hold them with a foot unit of some sort then charge into a flank http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Geoffrey_FiztRogers]

Also do not forget that units under fire tend to open their formation additionaly even if you do nto get many kills with yoru archers they do reduce the moral of the defendign unit. Oh and try to place them on high groudn they get a bonus when firing down hill both to damage and range.

[Knight_Yellow]

Well in my experience longbows arent all that good. But the funny thing is that all the english players sumhow feel obliged to take 4-8 units of them every MP battle.

i only use 1 type of ranged unit and thats Passive Arbalest's. i take 4 of them makem val3.
x= inf l= calv Y=passives G= general on merc calv

G
1 1 1
xxxxxxxxx
Y Y Y

now that is my usual army setup, nothing special but tried and tested.

One tip when the enemy charges u cos hes being shot up charge ur inf into his and try to hold up every1 of his units then send ur calv round the flanks.

A funny little all of my enemy's get if they r winning is 240 little shielded men charging there exhausted troops and almost every time my passives have saved the day for me.

Do not be afraid to make them val 4 and let them get charged by horse then simply tell his buddies with the axes to go carve tinights dinner. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Vertigo10]

Wow, in all honesty, I'm surprised this question is really even coming into play. In my opinion (which is what makes this game so great -- there's no 'right' or 'wrong', it's just how the person plays), archers can make the difference between a win and a loss. Your general dying or their general dying. First of all, simply being shot at by missile weapons causes a drop of morale of -2. Also, if you have relatively high-valour troops, that 50% and 80% unit-elimination level will be reached faster (-8 and -12 morale respectively). Finally, as long as their archers have been taken care of relatively well, you can position yourself behind the enemy without them being able to do anything; most, if not all, of their units will be tied up with your melee units. So not only do you get a better shot at the enemy (resulting in less friendly fire), you get a -2 morale infliction just by firing (from threatening the rear flank), and once you're out of ammunition you can inflict either a -4 morale penalty or -6 morale penalty. While archers may not get the same number of kills as certain melee units, they sure make one good way to get those enemies routing.

-Vert

[Vertigo10]

Anyway, my favourite unit would probably be pavise arbalesters or crossbows, though they take so long to get there. The fact that they have such great armour and a large pavise makes them ideal for assaulting besieged castles. It also reduces the level of casualties when engaged in archer vs. archer battles; so much that you can even ignore the enemy archer units and attack a more important unit (for example, the general). The only downside is the fact that they're so damn slow, so just about any cav unit will be able to catch them easily unless you have protection very nearby. Of course, I'd take arbalesters of crossbows, since arbalesters are unaffected by poor weather, and they have more killing power than their crossbow counterparts. Just make sure you have a stable enough economy to support large amounts of these guys; they're not cheap.

-Vert

[Lord of the morning]

What about the gunpowder units, are they any godd, they rae cheaper than bowmen and arbalesters, and also arquebusiers and handgunners have the smae cost, wichr are the best and do people use them?

[TheViking]

i only used handgunners one time, I didnt thout they were any good.

but i used arques.. many times but i not since the patch came. Now i dont train them cause, i win usually win b4 i can build them

[Vertigo10]

Arquebisers, in my opinion, are fun to use. If you set them in a two-line or one-line formation, they all shoot in one massive volley. However, if you set them up in three-line, the first line fires, then moves to the back, next line fires, moves to the back and repeats. This allows for an almost-continuous level of fire. It's really fun to use, but, unfortunately, the game is usually over by the time I get there.

-Vert