How are you useing your archers?

I was just curious, how are you all useing your archer units? Do you perfer archers or crossbows? Do you use a mix or just all one unit? Also, have you found useing fire to be usefull in anything but long battles? I used to think it was great, but it makes my archers fire to slow (and becides longbows, archers range is medium). I also noticed fire not haveing a huge moral impact unless troops are allready wavering or possibly shakend or figitng in a big blog, like the entrance to a ciry or bridge (because they cant miss, the will hit something). Ontop of that, it is rare for my archers to sucessfully light a seige tower when i command, it seems random. Normal arrows seem ok and fire faster but most likely dont do much damage to late era units (and some high). Crossbows on the other hand fire slow, dont seem to do much damage (because the miss) but i like them more historically.

So what do you use? Any ideas?

Crossbows are beasts against Generals! I get merceneary crossbowmen and pick off the english royal family.

Both archers and crossbows have thier uses. I usually use archers to take on other archers in loose formation, while I usually have 2 or 3 units of crossbowmen (Pavaise if possible) or longbowmen in tight formation behind my main line, firing at armoured units.

Pavise Crossbowmen (the ones with the shields on their backs) are the kings of archer verses archer duels. They take very few casualties when reloading.

How about fire vrs no fire? and when the Passive AI is fixed, do you think you will change your tatics? Also, do you let your archers shoot at whomever, or do you focus fire? If you select the targerts, what do you normally choose? infantry (sword,spear?) cavalry? mabye special elite units or cheap weak units that are lighty armored? I personally am haveing a hard time geting alot of use out of my archer/crossbow units as far as gaining casulties to justify there use. In seiges i get very little results from crossbows or archers unless they are longbows. How are you all gaining the most casulties before the enemy charges home?

I like to group 2 cards of crossbows & 1 card of archers. Having two teams of these groups are a very deadly combination against any units especially enemy cavalry.

I'm about 32 turns into my HRE VH/VH campaign.

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Originally Posted by Goalie

Both archers and crossbows have thier uses. I usually use archers to take on other archers in loose formation, while I usually have 2 or 3 units of crossbowmen (Pavaise if possible) or longbowmen in tight formation behind my main line, firing at armoured units.

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Crossbows *behind* your line ? Am I the only one shocked here ? Don't your crossbows fire right through the back of your own men, shredding them to bits ? Or do crossbows fire in an arc in M2TW ?

I must admit, with the big skirmishing problem they have I haven't used them that much yet, only as garrison in Venice and as first line rebel fodder (merc crossbows that is. Dying is what mercs are for. Like my historical French predecessors, I believe one merc is worth three men : one men fighting for France, one less man fighting for her enemies, one man freeing a Frenchman for other duties :laugh4: )

Then again, I don't use that many bowmen either, just enough to distract and deal with theirs, as I don't want to trigger that passive AI thing too often.

i use a combination of archers,crossbows and now arty and handguns/abs/muskets.

in the open ground, the high ground if possible. i use my archers behind my main lines of spear/heavies i use them to target lighter armoured units, i use Pavaise crossbowmen out in front on the flanks in loose formations skirmishing to draw the enemy missile fire and kill them if possible, they also help to break up formations as i target the back units with them as they shoot straight for the most part. inbetween my formation of inf i have my arty with muskets to target generals and elites. they retreat behind my inf who i use to charge through them to the incoming units.

c c
c c

arty mus arty.mus
inf inf inf inf inf
arc arc arc arc arc

gen cav

defending cities is mostly cavalry, crossbows or archers that handle melee okay and pikes or spears.. i now use muskets to volley down streets and through gates and the like.

for cav heavy armies i use squares of pikes and missiles with arty support to break them up.

I really don't like enemy missle troops so I usually use a combination of crossbows and bows directly against them in the initial phases, switching fire to his infantry once I have them thined out.

If the enemy has a some horse in his formation I keep these men in loose formation in front of units of spearmen. 7 out of 10 times the AI will attempt to run down my missle folks. I've now worked out the timing so that I can retreat these men behind the spears and let the horses impale themselves.

I then use my spears to tie up the front of the main body of the enemy while swordsmen/horses charge from the flanks. My missle troops then poor fire into the centre of the sandwitch. This is when the fire comes in handy.

Obviously things don't always work out perfectly like this as the battlefield is a dynamic place but this is what I aim to do whenever I can.

I use 5 units of longbows strung across the front of my army with stakes out front to protect my infantry from enemy cavalry.I prefer them in front of my battle line rather than behind as firing in a flat trajectory at an approaching army causes huge casualties.The wooden stakes also seem to break up enemy infantry when they do close.My formation also leaves space behind my armoured swordsmen for them to retreat to when necessary.
Alternatively,against a predominantly infanty based army i deploy them on the wings which allows them to close around the flanks when melee begins.As far as targetting goes i leave the enemy archers alone once better quality units are in range such as knights,the infantry can mop up the rest.I also noticed that many arrows were falling short of targets so i usually target the unit behind the one i want,ideally a large mass of advancing infantry/cavalry are perfect targets,dosent matter who you target specifically.In large engagements against the scots each unit of longbowmen accounted for around 300 - 400 casualties each.In true English style i fight better with them on the defensive.

On the question of fire arrows... I use fire arrows when I have archers set on "fire at will." In the heat of battle it's hard to see what archers are shooting at with normal arrows, and sometimes they make dumb decisions on unit targeting. With fire arrows I can see if manual intervention is required.

I do use normal arrows for manually directed fire, unless it's siege defense vs. towers or rams (burn, baby burn!).