Skirmishers - tales of idiocy

[Barbarossa82]

Does anyone else experience either of the following problems with their skirmishers? I'm seriously thinking of firing mine if they do this again.

1) Let's imagine you're defending a nice patch of ground, and the enemy forces are advancing towards you in good order. "Not to worry," you think, "I'll send out some guys to chuck javelins at them and mess up their formation." So out march/trot your 3 or 4 units of velites/numidian cav/whatever, towards the advancing enemy. As they get closer, you spot a really juicy unit in the centre of the enemy line which is just begging to get stuck full of pointy sticks. So you select all your skirmishers and right click that unit.
Here's where it gets stupid. It seems that the skirmishers have trouble taking into account the fact that the enemy line is moving towards them. They are basing their calculations about how far to advance on where the target unit WAS when you clicked it, not where it actually is at any given moment. Result - your skirmishers don't stop and fire as soon as the target comes in range, they jog merrily on until they're a few feet from the target unit, which then barrels towards them. Your skirmishers then pull out their javelins and start the throwing animation, before figuring out they are about to get creamed, and sprinting off back towards your own lines. By the time they turn around to throw some javs, the enemy have again advanced to within their "worry zone" and they flee again.
Had they started shooting at the target as soon as it came in range, then withdrawn slightly, they would have been able to get off 5 or 6 volleys before the enemy came into contact with your main force; as it is you'll be lucky if they do any damage at all before running back behind the cover of your battle line. :furious3:

2) One of your skirmishing missile cavalry units is playing a fun game with a pursuing infantry unit, pelting them with javelins and then cantering off when the target closes in. But then, for no apparent reason, they develop an attack of bravado and decide to leave it ridiculously late before turning tail. As a result, the rearmost member of their unit gets caught and bundled by cheesed-off enemy troops. Rather than leaving the stupid tosser to his richly-deserved death, the rest of the unit wheels round and starts to jab half-heartedly at the infantry unit, when they could be galloping off into the sunset. Result - you lose 85% of the unit to the combat when you only needed to lose that one dickhead.

Next time I see either of these happening, my skirmishers are getting their P45s.

[Sinner]

Yeah, as you'e noticed javelin skirmishers can be near impossible to use in their historical role because of their short range and prolonged readying to fire. Apparently this issue can be partly fixed by increasing the range of javelins from 50 to 60 or 70, actually giving them time to throw before they decide to run. Without modding, try moving them forward at a run, but stopping short of when the enemy will be in range with fire-at-will active - unless the enemy go all out you should be able to get a volley off, especially against phalanx units which tend to be rather slow.

As for the skirmishing cavalry, this can be quite common near the map edge. My guess is that the skirmishing AI gets 'confused' by the no-go zone, being unable to retreat backwards, but still wanting to do that in preference to skirmishing sideways which actually would get them away. The best advice is to keep a close eye on your skirmishers, whether near the map edge or not, and move them manually. I prefer to do this with my horse archers, since while they'll correctly skirmish away from melee troops, they don't try to skirmish out of range of short-ranged missile troops - I find it quite frustrating when I find a unit of horse archers taking casualties because it's in a missile duel with javelin skirmishers. If your cavalry do get caught in melee, double click on a safe spot some way behind them as soon as possibe to try to get them to disengage, preferably while hitting their pursuers from behind to distract them.

[tai4ji2x]

http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotalwarfrm7.showMessage?topicID=19053.topic

yup, skirmishers suck. dunno if they did anything in the patch, but i guess i'm not holding my breath...

[aw89]

I actually attacked a unit of eles with velites and they won! on vh/vh, i just kept an eye on the velites' unit card waiting for them to rout, but they got 1 ele and sent the rest of them running... ONLY 1 unit of velite... imagine my suprise..

[Red Harvest]

CA didn't think through the skirmishers very well. This problem was apparent in the demo (they actually *scripted* the velites in the demo so that they would work right...sort of...talk about false advertising.)

1. The command delay/long pause/failure to anticipate just doesn't work for skirmishers at all, in any form. It sucks. Even if your enemy is charging, skirmishers should be able to get off a volley, then turn and run. They don't. They either throw then stand there, or don't throw and run away.

2. Friendly fire. Makes skirmishers more deadly to your own than to the enemy once they run back into your line. So much for using them historically. Fix FF to prevent firing of your skirmishers on fire at will when physicially blocked by your own troops, and this problem will go away, and the skirmishers will quit firing when they should (fair to both sides.)

3. The AI and its crazy headlong charge. Since the AI does not deploy intelligently, it charges with either its general, cav, or whole battle line rather than advancing behind a skirmish line. The player's skirmishers become bait. Historical battle tactics? Forget about 'em. The AI is not programmed that way. It rarely uses a skirmish line, and when it does, it tends to charge your main battle line with it.

4. You can see how flawed CA's thinking was on skirmishers by default unit deployments. These guys are often in the rear...they should be infront of the battle line or on the sides or both. It would have worked for MTW...but not RTW.

5. Movement speed: most units run so fast that skirmishers can't do their work. The difference between throw and flee is so short that it rarely works as it should.

The "good news" is that skirmishers get to use their primary attack (missile) as their melee attack, so while their defense might suck, they do have some melee killing power. Of course, if they are going up against hastati or principes it doesn't help, because hastati/principes get their +11 pila attack for melee vs. +7 that their sword was supposed to provide.

[Kraxis]

I actually attacked a unit of eles with velites and they won! on vh/vh, i just kept an eye on the velites' unit card waiting for them to rout, but they got 1 ele and sent the rest of them running... ONLY 1 unit of velite... imagine my suprise..
Velites are one of the stronger javelineer units, and all javelineers have a rather substantial bonus vs elephants, and if the elephants stand still, then they are not much good either. And of course the new 'missile'-melee attack adds a bit to it.

But indeed they act rather stupidly.

I have Catanbrian Circle more though. They tend to circle into the enemy unit... Seems odd that afterthe first few rider had conencted with the unit the next one in the circle would continue to circle into the enemies to get chopped up.