Archery bug or just me expecting too much?

Hi all first post here so be gentle :-)

I play as the English, when I do I always (as most people probably do) group all my archers together to arrange in line, give commands to all archers easily etc.

When I select the group (not just a single unit of archers) and click on an enemy unit to attack with missiles, I've noticed that not all the archers are hitting the enemy unit I selected. Turning on fire missiles makes this easier to see. Some archers aim at enemy units other then the one I want hit.

Is this a bug?

is it maybe the case that some archers do not have a line of sight to the selected target and decide to aim for another unit they know they can hit?

Am I expecting too much of my archers and it's the case that some arrows are simply going off-target and hitting other units?

I guess I should test this more thoroughly by selecting the archer units individually and clicking on the enemy to see if it has anything to do with the fact im selecting multiple units to attack at the same time.

One thing I have noticed when commanding multiple archer units to attack at the same time is that occasionally a unit will march towards the enemy instead of firing arrows. If I then select the individual archer unit and click again to attack, they then revert to firing missiles.

If you group units and tell them to attack another unit, they will not all attack that unit. They also target units either side of that unit as well. If you want a group of archer units to attack a single enemy unit, select them individually and tell them to target the unit.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lusted

If you group units and tell them to attack another unit, they will not all attack that unit. They also target units either side of that unit as well. If you want a group of archer units to attack a single enemy unit, select them individually and tell them to target the unit.

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Bah I never realised that. Bit of a pain, maybe i'm just too lazy :-) Thanks for the update Lusted.

well i only know that cause i read it in the manual the other day.

It was a bug in RTW and I suspect it still is the same. The problem is ordering archers to fire in groups. I always select targets unit-by-unit, which seems to work fine. If you try to select one target by choosing a group of archers it will most likely just fail and the archers will fire at their preferred fire-at-will targets.

Shift/Ctrl click them as a group works too, so you don't have to give the command x times but only once. I usually have my army stacks sorted with cav first, archers second, infantry third (i do not use siege tools - too slow), so i can select the first archer and then shift click the last one to get all quickly.

Select the group hit g on the keyboard and select the target then hit g again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lusted

well i only know that cause i read it in the manual the other day.

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Yeah I suppose it would help if I read the manual more thoroughly ;-)

That is how the group system works and as such I rarely use it for archers/missle troops, however it can be usful (if it works properly) on your line troops (spear/pike etc) if you select this 'grouped' infantry they will proceed to march and attack their opposites of the enemy. This means that your 'grouped' line will not all just a single unit at the centre but some or all of the units in the enemy line.

if that makes sense ...

Short answer : it's not a bug.

Long answer : there's a group AI going on. If your archers are in a specific group, and you select them through the group to order them to fire (ie either click on the group tab, or select the group through keyboard shortcuts), they'll split their fire over the enemy battleline as best they can, selecting best targets on their own. Same group code going on than when you make an infantry group and order it to attack the enemy battleline : the AI tries to ease out your workload.

Of course, sometimes this AI prerogative can be a bother. If you really want all your archers to target one single unit, either ctrl+double click select them or ctrl+single click 'em all, and then right click order them to fire. That does the trick, and tells the group AI to back off.