Avoiding Friendly Fire

[Jammies]

This is happening to me too often -

My archers are shooting up the enemy. Enemy charges, I engage. Archers still keep shooting. We both get hurt.

Sometimes that's OK but sometimes my good units are spanking a beaten enemy and all the archer does is kill a good friendly unit that would otherwise be alive.

I tried sending my archers further away but then they turn around and shoot again. I can't figure out how to get them to stop shooting unless I send them to another corner of the map. That doesn't seem right.

[Finn]

unselect fire at will (3rd icon from the left IIRC) and click halt to cancel any attack orders?

[Finn]

err third from right even..


/me curses lack of edit post button..

[Ikken Hisatsu]

yeah just undo auto fire. it is still a pain in the ass, i was under the impression the ai wasnt supposed to shoot at engaged units unless ordered to.

heh like in braveheart... but my lord, we will hit our own troops
yes... but we will hit theirs too.

[Selborne]

Do you even have to un-select fire at will? I usually just select my archers and hit the Backspace key, and they stop firing.

Better still, re-direct their fire toward some enemy unit that is not in melee range with your own troops (if any such exist).

[Brutal DLX]

Well, if you don't take off auto-fire, they will stop when hitting backspace but start to shoot again if an enemy is within their range.
The only other options are to move them out of range or re-direct their fire, as you said.

[Kaboom]

if they are on auto fire, they will take care of their comrade and don't shoot if friendly fire is too big

However, if you order they to shoot (auto on or off), they will shoot until enemy out of reach, friendly fire or not.

So if you order them to fire at an enemy unit, the only way to stop is press backspase (stop). If they are autofire on, let them fire Because friendly fire is minimal or stop them by turn off autofire.

[motorhead]

Basically what kaboom said. Left on auto-fire, archers will find another target if they see they are inflicting friendly casualties. If you manually order them to fire on unit X, and unit X engages in melee with your troops, they will continue to fire despite friendly casualties.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Are you talking about arhers or X bows as there is a big difference,Archers have an arc to their fire and should cause very little damge to friendly units .X bows on the otherhad fire in a straight line and will shoot your own men in the back and cause a lot more friendly casualties.

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (Gawain of Orkeny @ Jan. 17 2004,18:19)]Archers have an arc to their fire and should cause very little damge to friendly units.
Very little? Not true, remember, archers aim for the unit leader (the one with the banner) which is usually fighting at the centre of the melee. So, approximatly half of the arrows will fall on your troops and half of the arrows will fall on his troops. Of course, this is still better than crossbows and arbalest. With those, allmost all missiles will hit your troops.

[SmokWawelski]

Aside from the technical aspect of the discussion, I think that it all depends on the situation and the way you play.

If you roleplay a brute leader, killing some of your own man might not be a problem for you.

If you play a bif defensive battle, you better save your man...

If you play a good king, than any pointless sacrifice, even on the battlefield is wrong.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-inquisitive.gif

[gaijinalways]

Well, also you may be using disposable troops and trying to waste his higher valor troops with missiles. Also, your units may have better armor and shields, and thus your enemy may succumb to missiles fire faster than you will.

Otherwise, save your ammo for when the enemy routs or another enemy unit approaches.

[Sociopsychoactive]

Ah, well being a cruel and ruthless english king friendly fire is only an issue when shooting expensive troops. I agree with the sentiment of turning off fire at will completely, assigning targets means you don;t wast arrows on heavily armoured targets or idiots, and you keep shooting them when the enemy is running away. Well, so what if we were going to execute them anyway? We want to make good use of our arrows...

When firing ino a mob then yes, crossbows and arbalests are just pointless, I tend to place them out front to take as many shots as possilbe (usualyl two) at the approaching enemy ranks before retreating behind my spears, and not by skirmish setting, by manually retreating. On skirmish they would wait far to long before retreating.

But if my archers are raining gruesom death down on engaged units then just target them on another enemy, or take off fire at will and call a halt, simple. THn, when the enemy breaks and runs, start shooting again before you cavalry get there. Pincushoins rather than captives http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Ashen]

Select all archer units you wish to stop and press A then press backspace. This will

a: Disable fire at will which allows them to aim when enemies are in range
b: stop them firing if you gave them a specific target.

[lancer63]

Even tough I have lost the ocasional important general due to friendly fire, I'm more wary of rocks than pointy sticks.
I tend to micromanage my artillery a lot more than I do with bows, arbs and small firearms.
I'm willing to take some casualties from me own men as long as I can keep the pressure on the enemy and make him break sooner.

[Crazy Duke]

Friendly fire was always disaster, but at least after you win the battle you can always retrain your troops. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif