Crossbowmen or Archers?

[Longasc]

Hello

I started a LATE Era Campaign as the HRE.

Now I have a lot of crossbowmen, some even mounted.

But I planned to invade Switzerland and blast away those Pikemen and Armored Pikemen there

I loaded a custom battle and tried, what would work better:

Chivalric Men-At-Arms, Halberdiers or Chiv. Sergeants.

Hand to Hand, the Men-At-Arms fought those Pikemen best

But on distance, I supposed the crossbowmen to be BETTER than the Archers, because the Swiss Pikemen are heavily armored.

But well -> the Archers shoot faster and are nearly as effective in killing. They are a little bit better I would say. Even against armored targets. Strange...

I want to ask one more question: Handgunners and Arbalest/Arquebuses and such things, and those Crossbowmen with shields and so on:

What do you prefer?

If crossbowmen, I would say; let them carry that damn shield, if you can build them with shields. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Are Mounted Crossbowmen really worthwile?

I found them easy prey when playing with other Nations against the HRE.

[Kekvit Irae]

Any horse archer unit is a highly mobile mass marauder, especially one that wields a crossbow.

I'd go with the crossbow over the shortbow, unless you are playing the English, then the Longbow is the obvious choice.
Comparing the stats, the crossbow has a much higher velocity, allowing the bolts to reach the target faster. Also the lethality of the crossbow is 1, whereas the shortbow is a pitiful 0.68. The crossbow penetrates armor more effectively with a Armor Modifier of 0.4, as apposed to the shortbow's 1 (unable to modify armor). The reload time is one major advantage of the shortbow, coming in at a sweet 4 at apposed to the crossbow's 15.
Honestly? I'd go with the crossbowmen if you can, unless you like a large hail of arrows in the air, in which case the archer is just fine.

Out of all the hand-held missile units, I love the Longbowmen the best. Lethality is higher than a normal bow, it is able to penetrate armor effectively (0.5), and has a range of 6000 to the shortbow's 5000.
If you cant build the Longbow, I'd go with a arbelest. They have the same reload time as the crossbow, but are far more lethal.
I never, EVER trust gunpowder units. One second you are smacking down a line of advancing Chivalric Man At Arms, and the next it is raining, allowing the CMAA to slaughter your helpless men.

[Kekvit Irae]

Oh and even though they dont work in the rain/snow, Handgunners and Arquebuses have an Armor Modifier of 0.015, tearing to shreds any armor they hit, and a Lethality rating of 4, insuring that whatever they hit is most likely going to go down.

And crossbows and shields dont mix. You need both hands and a foot to load a crossbow, and if they used shields, it would have to be when they werent using the crossbow at all.
The things you learn from being a bowhunter http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Longasc]

http://shogun.cafe24.com/

I think you got your information from there.

The problem is, I tried again normal Archers vs Gothic Knights, dismounted.

Then the crossbowmen.
The crossbowmen should be better, right?

But they were not... :-(

I did not try Handgunners and Arquebusiers right now. At last they should really tear through armor.

[Shahed]

Against SAP (Swizz Armored Pikes) I would recommend:

-Xbows
-Arbalesters
-Arquebusiers
-Serpentines
-Chivalric Men @ Arms
-Gothic Foot Knights
-Feudal Men @ Arms (armor 2 weapon 2)
-Swabian Swordsmen (are they available in Late ?)

Only use the hand to hand troops, AFTER you have run out of missile ammunition.

[Longasc]

Hi Seljuk

I am the absolute Crossbow-Hater :>
(I think I must hire an X-Bow X-pert to train me, hrhr)

They do not much damage against those SAP's, and they run and panic often. One stack was got by the Pikemen, ouch...

The battle was won by Chivalric Man-At-Arms. At least some really tough boys. :> You are right, they did fine

Swabian Swordsmen are Early Era only, according to the VI manual. Could not build any in Swabia in LATE, while having all needed buildings.

Hm... I wonder how those Swabians look like. :>

[pdoan8]

If you are playing as HRE, Gothic are your best.

Swiss Pikemen: they have low armour and low melee, so CMAA/FMAA should be able to kill them quite easy.

Swiss Armoured Pikemen: these guys have good armour but low melee, so any troops with AP capability plus OK melee will beat them. Chiv Sergeants to hold them + Halberdiers or CMAA as flanker should do well.

When facing high armoured troops, regular archers can't hurt them much. So, AP missiles such as Arb, xbow, longbows are better in this case. Arb and xbow have slower firing rate than regular archers and longbow, so you may want to use them in conjunction with some faster firing missiles. When defending, I prefer 2 Pav Arbs with 2 archers behind them. Best if I can add 2 longbows behind the Pav Arbs.

Mounted xbow: if you know how to use them, they are best for harrasing heavy cav and slow moving troops. Their AP missiles are good enough to score some kills. They have enough speed to evade medium/heavy cav or chasing router. They have enough melee strenght to beat un-armoured/low armoured foot missiles. When attacking, mounted xbow offer much more maneuverability than foot missiles (who will need to be protected). Mounted xbow should not be used in a shoot out with foot missiles.

I don't use any handgunners and Arquebusiers. Too much rain, short range, slow reload. If I don't have high ground advantage and a dry-sunny day, I just don't know how to use them effectively. If I put them in front of the spear wall, they don't have the range and the firing rate to cause enough damage to the charging enemy. If I put them behind a spear wall, they can't shoot over the spear wall when enemy come into range. However, they have surprisingly good melee and defend capability after a few upgrades.

[Kekvit Irae]

The thing about crossbows are that they arent the be-all kill-all unit. While archers can fire off, in theory, two volleys in the span of one crossbow volley, they are weaker. This pretty much balances both units out since they can, again in theory, kill the same about of troops.

[Longasc]

I used handgunners succesfully to convert mongols to christianity - in conjunction with Cavalry to keep those Horse Archers and other Mongol Archers moving. The gunners suffer losses even if well armored, the mongols are shooting much faster and very good.

But I must agree, they fight only in fair weather and other missile troops can do better actually... IMO.

(still having problems with getting used to crossbows )

Edit: in answer to pdoan8.

[Longasc]

kekvitirae, how about doing a custom battle.

Try 4 Archers and 4 Chiv Sergeants against heavily armored and slow moving opponents, so that you can test a long time before you must retreat or melee starts.

Then try the same with 4 Crossbowmen.

I like your last statement, but http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif I always seem to be more succesful with Archers. I think the Xbowmen read the forum and are now pissed off because I talked bad about them... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Kekvit Irae]

I'm only going off of speculation from the stats of the Projectilestats.txt file. :P
I only use horse archers or Longbowmen if I must use archers, and if I play English, my 15 unit Longbow army is a force indeed ^_^

[Longasc]

I love Horse Archers and Longbowmen, too. And Trebizond Archers... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

Hey, you told me sooo much about the advantages of crossbowmen, and now you tell me that you like those English Longbowmen... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

Really, you should try out what I suggested. That is the what I call practice, theory meets the battlefield... see what happens to those bolt-throwers http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

[Kekvit Irae]

That's because Longbowmen are so exclusive, it's not worth mentioning them unless you specifically play the English. It's like the Janissary Archers. No point in mentioning them if you dont play the Turks http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

And I did experiment in the various archer units at one point against various targets, with varying results.
To make good use of archer units, you need to use a few units in a line or double line to maximize the effect. Just a unit or two isnt going to get you the results you want

[pdoan8]

My way of testing the missile units (not the short range ones like naptha):

- AI: defending. 1-2 units of missile type I want to test.

- Me: attacking. Same number of units of whatever I want the AI to kill.

Start the battle and walk my units into the range of the AI missiles. Let them shoot and see how many of my men die per volley, or when the AI out of ammo, or when my troops run. I walk my units around under the archer fire let see how good they are against moving targets.

I will try the test some archers again when I get home. I may have underestimated those guys.

[MalibuMan]

Quote[/b] (kekvitirae @ May 23 2003,16:37)]And crossbows and shields dont mix. You need both hands and a foot to load a crossbow, and if they used shields, it would have to be when they werent using the crossbow at all.
The things you learn from being a bowhunter http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
I think he was talking about pavise crossbowmen http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Kekvit Irae]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing too after I posted. The problem about a Pavise is that it's just one big bulky sheet of metal, often with no hand-holds. It's developed a little from the shields the Roman Legions used in the fields.
Most 'Pavises' had metal spikes on the very bottom of the shield to drive into the ground, allowing them to fire at enemy troops while allowing them to not have to worry about keeping the shield steady with their arms.

[Longasc]

pdoan8, your way of testing Archer types is much better... good idea. I will try it again your way.