Archers

[Jihad2Death]

I have been playing MTW for about two months now,and have never really used archers in any of my attacking armies.My brother who is a much more experienced MTW player,says that archers are the single most important units in the game.I find that they get in my way more than they help,plus I have to worry about putting them in the right place on the field,moving them,and making sure they don`t get attacked.My question is are they really needed in attacking armies? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-confused.gif

[Kaiser of Arabia]

no, not really, unless against a massive hoard of Knights, or Men at arms, or any armoured unit. And USE CROSSBOWS/LONGBOWS not just archers, they suck.
-Capo

[mfberg]

Even vanilla archers provide a way to cut their units down a little before the h2h slugfest. They are especially effective against UrbanMilitia, using only about 15 shots I was able to cut one down to 7 men. Using two units you can set up crossfires and whittle down units protected by shields. You really have to protect them though, they won't stand up to anything.

mfberg

[eds]

What other unit costs so little, can kill so much and not lose a single man? The only competition are other ranged units, heh.

[Sarnaen]

They're useful, and provide flexibility to an army - a determined force of archers can influence an enemy attack or defence greatly. They mess up morale, and cause reasonable casualties. It's also a psychological thing. No-one wants to advance their Varangian Guard in the face of arbalest fire, they're too expensive to get damaged and spooked before they even reach an enemy, and it's just not an honourable death - A Varangian losing out on an honourable death in combat.

Even humble archers have an effect. People tend to try and keep their units well away from units with bows, especially units that have armour piercing projectiles. They force your enemy to change their unit formations and army formations to account for archers - Where a Byzantine might want his Varangian leading the assault, he may be forced to march his Byzantine Infantry ahead of them because his enemy has deployed a large force of arbalesters or longbowmen, which would make short work of the small Varangian units. Instead of you reacting to your enemys moves, you can force your enemy to react to you. It automatically puts you one step ahead.
A unit of spearmen defending a bridge isn't particularly daunting, but a Unit of spearmen supported by crossbowmen makes it much more intimidating to mount an assault.

Even if they don't get a great kill/death ratio, ranged units are almost always worth the investment for morale and scare tactics alone.

[katank]

mass 6+ archers first in front and if they get near, behind a spear wall.

these boys can freely mow down many units.

even armored RKs will be decimated to half strength by a few volleys from 2 archers.

they are invaluable.

having mass is important as their power is exponential. however, use spears to shield them well or they maybe screwed.

against low morale troops in early, many will not even melee your spear wall but often make contact and break due to heavy archer fire.

arrows are free, and arrows don't give a damn how much valor your got.

best way to kill a royal is pinned by spear and mass archery or better yet javs and naptha.

when you hit high, use arbs like crazy. they can shoot down armor like nothing and outranges just about anything esp. if parked on a hill

[KillerKadugen]

I've found that archers can be lifesavers or, on the other side, be the cause of many, many porblems. As long as you micromanage them, they can cause the enemy to engage prematurely, which allows you to sucker them into attacking you on the ground of your own choosing. If you are not into micromanagement, then they can cause serious problems. I remember a battle I had where I started engaging in melee and forgot about my archers. A single unit of Jinettes flanked my army, charged into my bowmen and caused a chain rout, even though I had nearly broken the enemy. SO, if you are going to bring them along in an attack, make sure you keep a mental note to keep them actively involved in the combat. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/barrel.gif

[Tozama]

I admit sometimes not bringing vanilla archers into my invasion force but always use them in good quantity in defense of borders.
But in most assaulting armies I do include 2-3 units per stack. Shield them behind your spear wall as you advance to the enemy's defensive line. Once in range move the row of 2-3 archer units just slightly forward of your spear wall and start wittling down his font line. Almost without exception this will lure some of his units to break formation (and even better, come down from the hilltop) and as soon as he does this movement run your archers back behind the spears and butcher the 2-3 units he sent at you.
Used correctly they will save the lives of many more expensive shock troops in your army from dieing needlessly against a hilltop defender.

Longbows ROCK. Once you can build them forget the plain old archers. Attacking or defending they are like cannons. Long range and deadly as all get out. Use 4-5 units in all armies and simply form a ring around them with spears. They are like ICBMs against anything until arbs are available.

[Blodrast]

it really depends what _kind_ of missile units you wanna use, but most of the time they are very useful.
Simplifying things very very much, you can probably single out the few following situations:
- faced with a massively armoured army: get lots of AP troops, like xbow/arbs. Need faster arrow fire ? get some longbows.
- faced with lots of slow troops or lack of anti-missile cav ? get some HA.
- afraid you're gonna face a rush ? then get vanilla archers, the casualties will probably be heavier than from xbows/arbs, since archers have a better rate of fire, even though less firepower.
- faced with an overwhelming enemy ? just camp on a hill, get lots of missile troops and protect them with some spears and fire away...

and the list can ofc go on...

[katank]

need to kill jedi and facing lots of armor, load up some javs and naptha and blast them to kingdom come.

need dominance of map and force em off a hilltop or two? catapults.

need to kill anything and everything? welcome to the three musketeers: culverin, serpentine, organ gun.

wanna flank without actualy being there? get some arqs.

wanna shoot and charge, handguns are it.

the list goes on.

[HicRic]

I've won several battles with about three seconds of melee contact thanks to archers. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

They are battle winners. Six units of longbows when you are defending is fantastic. On the attack, you can march up to the enemy army and hail them with arrows, dealy, armour-piercing arrows. Crossbows are nice, Arbs are better, and Pavese Arbs rule. Their shields protect them from incoming missiles very effectively, and having a few units of these on your side is very, very deadly. I find Pav Arbs to be the equivalent of Muskets in STW: they just kill loads of stuff. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[ah_dut]

Quote[/b] (HicRic @ July 07 2004,15:38)]I've won several battles with about three seconds of melee contact thanks to archers. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

They are battle winners. Six units of longbows when you are defending is fantastic. On the attack, you can march up to the enemy army and hail them with arrows, dealy, armour-piercing arrows. Crossbows are nice, Arbs are better, and Pavese Arbs rule. Their shields protect them from incoming missiles very effectively, and having a few units of these on your side is very, very deadly. I find Pav Arbs to be the equivalent of Muskets in STW: they just kill loads of stuff. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif
yeah what he said http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif . however, i have a few more things to add, for a newbie or nob (read me http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif ) 16 melee units are relatively effective as it is hard to keep track of everything, after a while i started including 3-4 arbalesters. I am stupid so started using the turks. Now i can use HA's okay and the byz feel their varangrians go to Allah http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[katank]

unless dueling, I find valor bonused arbs to perform better than the pav version though.

One thing I hate about pavs is when they are out of ammo and it takes forever to march them off the map for reinforcements to come back on.

[Blodrast]

Quote[/b] (katank @ July 07 2004,16:53)]unless dueling, I find valor bonused arbs to perform better than the pav version though.

One thing I hate about pavs is when they are out of ammo and it takes forever to march them off the map for reinforcements to come back on.
but if you're using pavs you're usually on defence, so time is not always an issue. you can prolly hold the line until reinforcements come, esp. because by the time you've exhausted your arrows, the enemy is using reinforcements as well, and his take a long time to arrive too (esp. since you usually camp near an edge, so his reinforcements have half the map to walk...)

[Jihad2Death]

Here's the scenario that happens when I use archers in attacking armies.

Army A sends infantry in front with spears behind followed by archers/crossbows,cav to the side.Army B begins to shoot Army A's infantry as they climb to Army B.Army A sends infantry to attack Army B.Army B sends infantry/cav to attack Army A's infantry.Army A's infantry are cut apart by Army A's infantry/cav.Army A's spearmen go to help.Army A's archers begin to shoot Army B.Army B's infantry attack Army A's spears,Army B's cav attack Army A's archers.Army A's cav have attacked rear and sides of Army B(can`t help archers)Army B's infantry routs,chased by Army A's cav.Army A sends infantry/spears to help archers.Army B's cav rout when Army A's infantry/spears arrive.Army A's cav have chased Army B's infantry to the back of the map.Army B send in reinforcements(spears)to attack Army A's cav.Army A sends infantry to help cav.By the time Army A's infantry reach Army A's cav,the cav is almost gone.Army A's infantry routs Army B's reinforcement.Army A's archers are miles away from the rest on Army A (I don`t have time to worry about archers with my cav being killed,and while marching my infantry is headed toward them)

Bottom line: Archers get in the way more than the help attacking Armies,IMO

[Jihad2Death]

Can someone tell me how to edit my post,I had a few grammer mistakes.

[ichi]

You won't be able to edit your posts until you graduate to Senior Patron.

Archers are very important, especially early in the game. Imagine a battle with two scenarios - one with archers and one without.

In the archer-free battle you must fight and kill the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. you won't be able to count on the morale penalty that units get when taking archer fire, so you will have to kill more (and probably lose more men) before the enemy routs. When this battle is over your troops will be depleted and unless you attacked with a lot of extra men, you may not have enough to hold the province without rebellions.

With archers you can hold back your fighters and kill enemy troops without taking a loss. When you do attack the enemy will be depleted, and if you were smart and saved a few arrows for the actual fight, the enemy will get hit with the morale penalty. You can also use the archers as flankers to hit the enemy in the rear and add that morale penalty. In this case you have taken the province with fewer losses and will need less retraining/reinforcements to hold it.

Archers are very improtant part of an army. As your technology increases (or mercs become available) you can upgrade to even more powerful units like Longbows or Arbs.

Not taking archers (missiles) means you are missing out on a major tool to use in your conquests.

ichi

[Malachus]

Alright, you want to know how important archers are to my army? I've won countless battles against the comp with a 1500 kills to 30 losses ratio. Archers can give hell to any unit in the game, even those superpowered knights... just train several units in and they'll fall, despite being heavily armoured.

[Assassins_Shadow]

Archers do rock, one time when I was playing as the Byzantines, I was attacked in Lesser Armenia by 2 stacks of Egyptians(mainly melee troops, only 1 dessert archer group) against my stack of Byz. I had about 6 groups of Treb Archers trained in Treb for bonus, along with some Kats, a Varangian guard, and some Byz Infantry. I set up my defense with a double line archer formation in the front. The Egyptian Horde began marching up the hill, and my mass of archers fired. I slaughtered alot of their army, and 90% routed before reaching my troops. After systematically trouncing the army and their reinforcements, I ended up with 187 of my soldiers dead against the 1300 of theirs that I killed. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[eds]

I wonder if troops get the -2 morale penalty from friendly fire. Anyone know?

[Doug-Thompson]

Quote[/b] (katank @ July 07 2004,15:22)]arrows are free, and arrows don't give a damn how much valor you've got.
There's the answer to your question. A high-valor Viking huscarle, for instance, is just another target to an archer.

[Maedhros]

all of that said, and all of that true, it is possible to win with infantry/cavalry combos.

I tried it once and it worked nicely. However my losses were better than my enemy, but still higher than I wanted. The AI didn't do what I wanted, because I had little to guide him with. I had to resort to leaving vulnerable units out for him to rush, then introduce my cav.


Give the archers a chance. There is nothing better, playing Welsh in VIking I beat the game using 6-7 longbows per army.
I sent everything and anything packing. So many princes died under a hail of arrows there were a record number of civil wars and factions collapsing.

I enjoyed it so much I delayed the final campaign so it would last longer.

[Maeda Toshiie]

Needless to say, missile units are even more important in bridge battles. Your archers would be doing most of the killing during such situations.

Turkish melee missile units are also very good units to use. Use up all the arrows and thereafter flank with them.

all of that said, and all of that true, it is possible to win with infantry/cavalry combos.

if the opposing army contains mounted missile troops, things would get a little more difficult.

[Tozama]

I thought about this more last night as I played out a few battles in my campaign.

I would think everyone has experienced this at least a few times:
You attack a province with 2 stacks of decent hand to hand troops and cav vs. his one stack of mixed arms. Problem is only 1 stack at a time is on the field so your numerical advantage doesn't kick in until he loses more men than you or gets tired as you bring in fresh reinforcements. The opening battle scene is 1:1. If you lose too many men your general may route. Your army follows him off the field more often than not and your reinforcements enter with no moral or valor bonus because the general is gone and they do not stand and fight for long. Your numerical advantage is nullified You suffer a loss where it should never have occured.
Like here:
Defender camps high on a HUGE hill.
You advance your lines toward the hill from your end of the map. There's no flank of equal height on the approach. Your choices are:
A. Try to lure his men down the hill to fight on even terms (your best choice).
B. To climb the hill to get to him (bad choice-last resort).

On expert I find when I am attacking a high star general enemy they tend to not leave that hill.
But what they do is shower your men with arrows as soon as they are in range. If you climb because you have no choice and you have no archers the result is your spears and swords are thinnned out by arrows the whole way up that hill as they lose morale from being under fire only to meet a defender with a downhill bonus to boot
Even if you win, its costly and rather a stupid waste of manpower.

With missle troops of any sort you have option C in addition to the above:
Line your spears just out of range of his archers and then advance your archers and start showering his men with arrows. 9 times out of 10 THIS WILL lure him off his hill and you can commence the hand to hand slaughter you intended. Run your archers back or withdraw them for fighting men or even if they get caught and killed - they are cheap units to replace anyway.

I speak playing on expert mode. I recall that on lower difficulty levels this scenario may not occur so much and you can just charge up hill with decent troops and win anyway. But what fun or challenge is that?

[Oleander Ardens]

There have many intelligent post here and I might only add:


Units with ranged attack give you the initiative as the enemy must attack you while you don't have to do..

Are best against Jedis and Generals; Killing a 4-star general will save many, many lives - on your side

Kill without dying, which results after a row of successful battles in high valor units which fare well against melee units


OA

[katank]

so true. another method on attack is if the enemy is parked on a big hill with archers and you don't have arty to force him off, then make a mobile battery with your massed archers just out of range of opposing archers and then use a sacrificial unit to charge up to their lines and intentionally rout it so that the enemy charges behind that unit.

suddenly, the attack turns into a defense as your mobile fort massacres the suckers willing to fall for it and killing their tattered units and claiming the victory will be simple.

even if they have reinforcements, you'll have been able to take the hill and shower the opposition with arrows.

problem with arbs is that I can often beat off 2.5 waves with them. then, in the middle of a MHC charge, if I have to withdraw pavs and bring on more pavs, by the time my pavs got there, my tired halbs would have routed already.

[Chimpyang]

I once used 5 units of (bribed) desert archers to annihilate 4 units of rebel spearmen and 1 unit of RK. I had my FMAA and Spear line in front of it to stop the DA getting attacked. I lost no men at all and captured the province. (Thew routers were sweeped up by my Hobilars.)

I also use HA as my harrying unit, i just use them to drag out units but this can also be done with any archers with the fast ability.

[Medieval Assassin]

Quote[/b] (eds @ July 07 2004,19:59)]I wonder if troops get the -2 morale penalty from friendly fire. Anyone know?
No, I read a thread earlier, that was an old one about firing into the melee They found that no, your troops wont suffer the penelty, ( The -2 morale only lasts for about the reload time of the thing being fired at them)

[katank]

archers are to provide nice ranged kills of high value units and also fast units. no matter what a hero you are, you are not going to outrun the arrow.

overall though, they are to force tactical advantages such as making them attack even while they are defending or to attack under unfavorable conditions and create haste as few are willing to stand around and take arrows all day.

[Leodegar]

Quote[/b] (katank @ July 08 2004,18:22)]overall though, they are to force tactical advantages such as making them attack even while they are defending or to attack under unfavorable conditions and create haste as few are willing to stand around and take arrows all day.
under this aspect archers aren't to evaluate high enough. archer superiority gives you so much tactical variability. they give you the opportunity to choose to attack or not to attack. you can stand before the enemy, pepper him with missiles and ... just have a cup of tea and wait what your enemy will do.
on the other side, if your enemy fields more archers, you can't just wait and get shot down. you have to charge or you will take haevy casualities from arrow fire.

summing up, archer supriority gives you the tactical opportunity to choose wether to attack or to defend and force your enemy to charge your position.