Which ranged units do you prefer?

I made good experience with slingers lately.
In a battle against the Macedons (me being Greece)I only had one slinger unit and one cretin archers as ranged units + 4 Militia Hoplites, 2MercHoplites, 1BarMercCav, 1 General. The Macedons fielded at least 6 hoplite/phalanx units plus 1 Archer and 4-5 Cav. In addition to their superior numbers they had the high ground. I approached him with my whole army stopping just out of range of his missiles. I then moved my slingers forward and started to shoot at his hoplites. He countered with his archers. I put my slingers to loose, changed the target to the archers who were mixed up with his hoplites, one row standing in front of the hoplites.
The results of my attack were devastating, the number of archers dropped quite fast and every missed shot would hit the hoplites which were constantly shuffling their ranks. When the slingers finally ran out of ammo, being down to 35 from 80, I swapped them with my archers. The slingers had killed: at least 60 out of 80 archers, 25 of a 120 phalanx unit, ca. 30 each out of two 80 Hoplites. About 150 kills if not more. My archers focussed their fire on his cav, while his archers had used up their ammo.
Result: After he finally charged me downhill, his weakened lines broke on my solid phalanx wall, everyone routed and I only managed to get two of his hoplite units because of my limited cav.
Of course, the AI won't always sit and let itself be shot to pieces, this is where the speed of the slingers comes in. Deploy them very much forward and give them some cav protection.
In asia minor, when facing phalanx or hoplite strong armies, you'd better bring some slingers. Especially since they require less infrastructure as archers.
Peltasts didn't really work for me, yet. If someone has tips for them I'd appreciate it.

R'as

Slingers have the edge in a shootout since they have shields. Rhodian and balearic versions are both good while the basic kind (like the carthagenians have) is kinda limited in both range and damage potential.

I have no luck shooting over my formations or walls with slingers though - the trajectory is more flat. They have to be at the front or flanks.

The pharaohs bowmen are absolutely lethal. The only downside is that they take 2 turns to make and have an upkeep of about 330. They'll probably win a shootout with any other bowmen.

Cretan archers are not bad either, 3 units of them with flaming missiles are hell for the enemy thats receiving them.Protect there front with phalanxes and the flanks with light cavalry and u have a solid formation.
I find the flaming missiles to be very accurate sometimes also.

Cretan archers are good with their extended range and all. They do run out of ammo a lot faster than slingers, though.

Archers get 30 shots, Slingers get 40 shots.

Horse archers get 40 as well.

Cretan Archers for me. They have better range and missile attack than basic archers, and the upkeep is only slightly more. My Cretan archers tend to gain experience very quickly.

My second choice is British chariot archers. They can only be caught by light cavalry, and even when they've used up all their ammo, they still cause fear to the enemy so they can still cause a lot of mischef. Most other archer units are pretty useless once they've used up their ammo.

I'd go for Archer Auxilia: cheap & very long ranged. I can have 2 of those for about the same upkeep as a single Pharoah's Archer.

I´d go with Cretian Archers, mostly because i can have them behind my spear line and not take friendly fire as with slingers, i use slingers aswell though

I find I like em all. Slingers, archers, javelin men (a la velites and the other assorted types).

They all have their uses.

I prefer to get an opposing army 'softened up' a bit before closing to melee.. Much less casualties because:

o less numbers to face in melee
o they break quicker when thinned down by archer fire.

It follows the MTW model.. the more casualties, the lower the morale. I've gotten so good at this in my normal/normal campaign I'm strongly considering starting over or at least doing a new campaign on hard/hard to increase my chances of losing. Even highly outnumbered situations I'll only lose a few hundred guys....

My typical post-Marian Julii force:

8 leg. cohorts
2 samnite gladiators
2 auxila
4 archer auxilia (these guys do most of the killing)
1 legionary cav.
2 onagers
general

When the AI refuses immediate melee I just use my archers to kill kill kill.

forester warband are, imo, the best ranged units in the campaign.

gauls have an exp 3 temple AND a missile 3 temple.

Build foresters in the exp city and upgrade them in a nearby missile city (can't do it vice versa), and you have 21 missile (170m range), 17 atk (missile upgrades affect melee stats of missile units, lol), 11 def, 8 charge, fast moving, hide anywhere. Really ridiculous. Each unit can take on 2-3 urban units without losing a man. Even if you chase them down with cav, they put a serious hurting on even the best cav in the game.

I love the Auxiliary Archers.

They are decently armoured, they shoot far, and they shoot hard.
And they're cheap to buy and maintain.

They aren't the best shoot unit in the game, but they are the STANDARD shoot unit for Romans. For a standard, regular unit, they are insanely powerful.

Is this a trick question? ~;)

Cataphract archers. Can't be hurt by missles and are deadly in close combat.

Well, if you are including all units with missiles, you can't go wrong with armored elephants. They'd beat cataphract archers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by andrewt

Well, if you are including all units with missiles, you can't go wrong with armored elephants. They'd beat cataphract archers.

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That's true, although once I had the misfortune of placing some near my gate in a seige defense. The unit immediately went beserk in the middle of my army. ~:eek:

Probably because it was a small unit, the buggy mess of a game decided that the unit had taken those casualties THIS battle. :wall:

I was so shocked that they managed to do a lot of damage before I killed them. So the elephants weren't first on my list.

If onagers are missile units, I think they can compete.

Against defending AI - no competitors exist. You make your army 2/3 onagers and close up, start shooting with flame from far away - just watch that your other troops are behind. AI does not counter-attack, even with missile troops (this is unfair, I know). Then attack leftovers with rest of your 4 cavalry units, flanking only if you have time left :)