Polish and Horse arhcers

[Basu]

I love playing the polish and i love horse archer rushes. But the polish don't have horse archers but they do have mounted crossbowman. will the crossbowman still work?

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[Eastside Character]

Quote[/b] (Basu @ Feb. 22 2004,03:56)]I love playing the polish and i love horse archer rushes. But the polish don't have horse archers but they do have mounted crossbowman. will the crossbowman still work?

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Mounted Crossbows are better against armored targets, HA are better at killing unarmored troops. I think the Polish should be able to train some kind of horse archers, this would be more historical. Anyway when I play as the Poles I try to hire some mercenary horse archers, or try to bribe some.

Regards,
EC

[Kulgan]

Mounted crossbowmen are better then horse archers in many ways I think.
In the poland region you often have rain, so your arrows are less dangerous.
Mounted crosbows wil win a 1-1 dual with horse archers, as they can fire much longer.
They are better against armoured targets, and that's what your specialised troops are for, to kill heavy opponents.
Not much use in a horse archer if you spend all your arrows on killing 80 out of 100 peasants
Much use in crossbows if you kill 20+ knights.
And finally they are much better then horse archers at melee, and can take on other weak units in melee and loose little in pursuit.

Good luck with the crossbows http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[sledge]

but they have a slow rate of fire and are harder to keep away from the enemy than horse archers. I prefer standard horse archers because they are better harrasment troops.

[ichi]

Mounted Xbows are valuable, for the reasons kulgan suggests, but they have a slower rate of fire, so keep them away from enemy foot archers as best you can.

ichi

[Aelwyn]

They have better armour and defense iirc also. Just keep them away from enemy foot archers.

[Seven.the.Hun]

i've used them as mercs before...they are useful, just have to adjust as they do indeed reload slowly

[Glory]

Regular horse archers are better with a faster rate of fire and they can shoot over your troops.

[lancer63]

Mounted xbows help me keep other ranged units at bay when all my archers have spent their ammo and are recycling. They suffer horrendous casualties that way but buy time so that the rest of units can get ready to defeat the enemy.
They are great covering retreats and charging ill guarded bows and artillery. Get massacred against light+/medium cav.
I like 'em.

[Lord Rom]

The mounted crossbows can be a life-saver against those nasty flank harrassing cowardly horse archers, I often take one in multiplayer instead of a fourth pav. Specially when fighting hungry hippos.

[Red Yak]

Mounted crossbows are excellent at taking out or provoking enemy knights. I always try to take a unit to disrupt enemy lines.