any way to upgrade arrows in the game?

so yeah im back from a long long time to eb, and currently im in the instalation procces but theres something that i, always hated. the arrows in
EB vs armored :daisy:, yep.
so here is the deal i know that in RL a nomad band shotting arrows vs full armorad phalanx of succesors wouldnt do shit, but its that correct? i
i mean i remember battles where i blew all the charges from my archers with like 4 or 5 casualities MAX and wih LUCK, and not only vs super armored all the mid strata of armored infantry are like inmune to this, even the archers from the late romans do shit, so my question is theres A MOD, to increase or change the effect in the arrows in the game? but not like Medieval something more balanced :B
> 4 stacks of turkomans
> 4-6 armored knights
> HUR HERP DUR SHOTTING AND RUNNING
>ENEMY FLEES, 0 CASUALITIES
>REPEAT
>PROFIT

I to agree with sunburst123, arrows do little damage to armored units (at lest from the front). i recon arrows probably had similar armor penetrating ability to lead bullets, however that did depend on the type of arrow head.

Actually, the reason slingers are still prevalent in the period is precisely due to the fact that archery is still relatively under developed. Most padded jackets, leather armour, linothorax and scale armour were very effective in protecting the body from arrows. Even chain-mail has decent stopping power because of the padding worn underneath. If you want to hurt armour units, slingers and javelins (another prevalent weaponry) are your answer.

However, I'm not saying archers are useless. Cretikoi, Syrians, Steppe and Caucasian archers can do pretty decent damage- more so if you shoot people on their (unshielded) backs. Nonetheless, you'll get more dividends using the archers in their historical role: harassers, ranged flankers and warding off un-armoured (light) troops. They work wonders in slaughtering those pesky skirmishers, evil axe/rhomphia bearing killers and Gaesatae (shoot their unshielded flanks).

As a steppe player, empty your quivers on the enemy ranged and light troops first. Their armoured men will wear themselves out running after your horses. Phalanxes can be shot on the back and lots will die. Even if they're heavily armoured, once you've killed off the light troops guarding their flanks they are notoriously vulnerable to a thunderous charge to the flanks and back.

I'd say the real problem with ranged units is that rtw mechanics don't take into account which type of weapon caused the casualty, if it did the ranged units could cause more casualties than present because many of those would simply be men who got wounded from a arrow to leg/arm and so forth whereas those who received stabbing wounds or had their arms/legs cut off by scythe would have far less chance to recover.

I have come to accept the (slight) ineffectiveness of ranged units against armored foes because that keep campaign balanced with HA factions, only minus is that AI controlled steppe factions fare quite bad because auto-calculation favors armored units way too much.

I modded phalanxes to have a lower shield rating. By default, they have a shield rating of 5, same as a hoplite! But a phalangite shield is a lot smaller than a hoplite one! So I lowered phalanx shield rating to 3 for elites, 2 for non-elites. Now they're more vulnerable to arrows.

Personally I think Archers are fine: otherwise HAs would be FAR to OP, the gap between Slingers Archers may be a bit too wide but with those puny bows it's rather clear that they don't to too much damage to guys with armor. Hollywood kinda overrates archers in close to all movies, with the piercing you see in most movies you'd think that Archers must have been the predominant part in every army but infact it's "heavy" Infantry for most, simply as spears and swords proved to be more efficient.
In many Armies bows were exclusive to bunches of highly irregular unarmored "peasants"(or slaves etc) who could aswell have a sling, javelin or a crude rock for throwing.^^

The Phalanx shield is a bit high tho, I still play with it, simply because otherwise Pike vs HA battles are either far too difficult or far to easy, depending on who you play as.

seriously if you try and shoot an arrow at a thorokitai it´s like trying to catch a fly on mid air with your hands pin them down and then shoot them in the back as many people already said it here archers serve their purpose but they ain´t the medieval longbowman of the midle ages if you want action instead of historical acuracy this might not be your cup of tea

more like throwing a sponge(dry) against a 10 ft concrete wall in order to tare it down :D

once wasted two full units of scythian raiders quiver content on the back of a unit of TABs(you know the guys with the mail pajama) without notable effects(maybe 5 but It could also be 0) it was only one unit but I was unwilling to dent my new and shiny import troops that had marched for six seasons.

Thanks everyone for the reply.
i still think that its bullshit that arrows dont kill phalanx units as someone said the shields and way more smaller than the heavy infantry melee-melee units
anyway as its been said arround there, its about historical accuracy. yet in my opinion the early era archers ( early of the games) compared to the late ones are like the same vs armored units. so in dunno 200 years? they didint upgraded the bows? ( romans )

TABs are an extreme case, since they're one of the most heavily-armored infantry units in the game (19 armor + 4 shield), and you'd expect archers to be useless against them in real life. However, slightly lesser elites CAN be whittled down with archers. As Hayasdan I just captured Seleukeia, and the final defender was a full phalanx of Argyaspides (11 armor + 5 shield). I lured them across the square with a bunch of mercenary thureophoroi, while my two Scythian horse-rider units shot them in the back. That got them down to ~1/2 strength by the time I ran out of arrows.

The critical factors for getting kills with archers are:
1. Shoot from the back (ideal) or from the unshielded right side (good)
2. Height, height, and more height. Any height advantage you can get REALLY helps the lethality of your arrows. In another recent example from the same Hayasdan game, there's a nice rock outcropping in the valley between the Seleukid town of Mazaka and my town of Ani-Kamah, and I've had a couple of mercenary Sarmatian horse-archer units sitting on top of it for years. In their last battle, a half-stack of varied axemen attacked, but couldn't decide which side of the rock outcropping to try to move up. By the time my two horse archers units (totalling 203 men) had emptied their quivers down onto the axemen and left the battlefield for a "close defeat", they had racked up 673 kills. If they'd been on the flat it would probably have been half that.

All this and no one answered the original question:laugh4:

If you want to get missile upgrades from a blacksmith, you just have to add the modifier in the export_descr buildings file. I'd compare to the vanilla blacksmith to see exactly what to add.

Shoot units in the bum. Works better.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

Shoot units in the bum. Works better.

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Obviously it does, but he wants to know how to upgrade missiles. He's not asking for better tactics.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

Shoot units in the bum. Works better.

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No it doesn't - there's no vital organs in the bum, the victim just screams with pain, pulls the arrow out, and goes mental ;) :lol:

Upgrade your missile with better tactics or mod the EDU. :D

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Originally Posted by Ca Putt

Personally I think Archers are fine: otherwise HAs would be FAR to OP, the gap between Slingers Archers may be a bit too wide but with those puny bows it's rather clear that they don't to too much damage to guys with armor. Hollywood kinda overrates archers in close to all movies, with the piercing you see in most movies you'd think that Archers must have been the predominant part in every army but infact it's "heavy" Infantry for most, simply as spears and swords proved to be more efficient.
In many Armies bows were exclusive to bunches of highly irregular unarmored "peasants"(or slaves etc) who could aswell have a sling, javelin or a crude rock for throwing.^^

The Phalanx shield is a bit high tho, I still play with it, simply because otherwise Pike vs HA battles are either far too difficult or far to easy, depending on who you play as.

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Alltough Hollywood does overrate archers in their movies (Crude orc-made arrows fired from short bows penetrating mithril plate at ease, and that's just the first one I remembered!), the main reason archers were not predominant part of every army was the incredibly long time it takes to actually train a competent archer, especially comparing that to the time it takes to train a competent spearman. Since most soldiers in ancient armies weren't ecxactly professionals who had years of time to train using bows in warfare, they had to make them into "heavy" infantry. Also in many cultures (especially western europe) bow was seen as a cowardly weapon not suitable for a true warrior, so most people would just take a spear or a sword and go toe-to-toe with foes worthy of True Men. When those armies actually consisted mostly of archers, they would most of the time be highly succesful against melee-oriented foes, like the Persians, Mongols and English have shown us.

Besides, it's more economical to use the Irish! Arrows cost money. The dead cost nothing. :laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Vilkku92

Alltough Hollywood does overrate archers in their movies (Crude orc-made arrows fired from short bows penetrating mithril plate at ease, and that's just the first one I remembered!), the main reason archers were not predominant part of every army was the incredibly long time it takes to actually train a competent archer, especially comparing that to the time it takes to train a competent spearman. Since most soldiers in ancient armies weren't ecxactly professionals who had years of time to train using bows in warfare, they had to make them into "heavy" infantry. Also in many cultures (especially western europe) bow was seen as a cowardly weapon not suitable for a true warrior, so most people would just take a spear or a sword and go toe-to-toe with foes worthy of True Men. When those armies actually consisted mostly of archers, they would most of the time be highly succesful against melee-oriented foes, like the Persians, Mongols and English have shown us.

Besides, it's more economical to use the Irish! Arrows cost money. The dead cost nothing. :laugh4:

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actually depends on the culture the vikings (meaning raiders in norse altough people continue to just call all norseman vikings ) didn´t gave a crap about wich weapon they fighted with aslong as it helped them get the biggest pay for the least effort and they fighted romans (eastern roman empire) germans (holy roman empire) saxons, steppes nomads, turks persians and whoever had booty for their sparsly populated and poor land

altough given that they where extrelmy proefecient with the use of the batle axe so they too sported the famous up close and personal philosophy of their time that that was the honourable way to kill and die still another reason for the uselessness of archers is the geography of the places where they where being used europe was still very much forested and their use in in a densly forested enviroment is too limited (steppes and desertic enviroments like the midle they where usefull ) they where also usefull in walls either made of stone or made of wood (ships) so if you check their availability in the recruitment viwer you can see where you have the best or just more archers available


in broken terrain like that of italy or iberia it was just more usefull to give the men a few javelins

also take into consideration that what we call today an army and what was considered an army back then are 2 diferent things they didn´t deployed in the batlefield so the archers could just shoot at them most of those armies where nothing more then mobs using the top of the hill advantage or hiding to make an ambush they had very few "veterans" wich is what we can compare with what a soldier should be and even then those veterans would probably just be catle raiders

i advice you a documentary about the pokot tribe of ethiopia or quenia wich is a nice window into how those societies really where back then

nothing against archers i use them extensvly in my games to bring down light or even medium cavalry and to forçe the opponent to make mistakes wich i can then take advantage of with my fast thureporoi by shooting them from many sides

but they aint the yeomen of the midle ages so use them in their role and let the slingers and javelinman do their role and you can´t go wrong

Iron age Norsemen did use missiles in naval battles. And in The Legendary Saga of St. Olaf Snorri describes a typical shield wall in the battle of Stiklestad (although he is not a contemporary source, writing in the 13th century); the ones in front used cut (with swords and axes) the ones behind used spears, and the other ranks threw spears and shot arrows into the enemy ranks.

Experience is only way to improve it. It does improve the accuracy of arrow shooting. So never disband your EXP archers and retrain them.