Arqs vs retinue longbow?

I'm (still) playing as England in a grand campaign. My domination of Europe is pretty thorough and I'm moving towards Jerusalem, the last thing I need before my endgame. I've been using the arquebusiers with some success in making enemies route, but they don't seem to have a big edge in killing power over the longbow. Longbowmen also have an edge in seiges since they can fire over walls.

Anyone care to comment on when they use arquebusiers over longbowmen? What would be better against Mongols/Timurids?

Longbows, hands down.

Arbs do not have a long range making them less effective than long-ranged arrow units. You might try to use 1 arb unit and have the rest of your missles be arrows. This way you can keep your longbowmen on reg arrows and use the arb to rout em once they are whittled down abit.

The only faction I consider an exception to the rule is Portugal,they have musketeers (long range) and their own special arbs that are melee capable as opposed to the regular arb unit tho Ive extolled their virtue soo much that I find words no longer suffice.


Against the Timurids and Mongols tho gunpowder does work, it would appear that your cheapest, low tech and most readily available units are your best bet. Light cav, horse archers,skirmishers, ballista, spearmen; Simply because they are cheaper to replace, and youll most likely lose most of your stack force anyways. (Depending of course on the terrain,number or armies vs. yours etc)

I sally in a city always, but still am not a fan of gunpowder troops being used for garrisons. To each his own on that 1 I suppose.

Keep the Retinue Longbowmen. Arquebusiers are a toy. Against the Mongols and Timurids you might as well use peasants. Actually if you are defending in a siege the peasants would be far better. Use long range accurate cannons or flaming ballistae against The Hordes.

As Eikon says, one unit of Arqs max mixed in with Longbows to give a little more routing power. Although, it occurs to me that the English have Mortars, which would be a far better investment in terms of gunpowder field units (not to mention they are fantastic in sieges).

Muskets and Portuguese Arquebusiers are the only gunners who can even approach the range and killing power of longbows, so they are the only gunners worth bothering with in the field.

Against Mongols/Timurids, don't even bother with gunpowder; Mongol morale is so insanely high that they'll pretty much fight to the death, so by the time gunpowder would rout them you'd have to have killed almost all of them already. Guns are mostly only good against armies with lots of killing power but dodgy morale, so you can rout and sweep up otherwise dangerous units before they can do much damage. Against the Mongols, just get lots of longbows so you can flood the field with stakes.

Good point PBI. In my present Scottish retrofit campaign I find the mercenary arquebusiers to be effective against rebels because of their low morale but if I can get them over to fight the Timurids before I kill them all I doubt that they will have any effect at all. My mercenary pavaise crossbowmen don't seem to be worth the slots they take up in an army either. At least Hospitalers can hurt elephants if they get in a good charge. (Pikemen can kill them too and the combination can be rather impressive. But culverin seem to work the best at smoking elephants.)

Smoking elephants can damage your health :laugh4:- sorry couldn't resist. :help:

Cammels be worser.

This makes sense if I'm England, who has great longbowmen. Does the same comparison hold for the French and Italians? They don't get the bonus vs. armor, but I think they still have the arqs beat in range.

A custom battle proved the point that arqs aren't worth much against mongols on the open field. The Longbowmen's stakes were way more useful. Thanks for the comments!

The Brits enjoy the stake *bonus* with their longbowmen which in many cases eliminates
most or all of the cav you could face.(unless the AI is extra sneaky which is rare)
Its a luxury lost to all other factions so its hard to compare to that as far as cav is
concerned and defending from it.

The French eventually get voltgiers (sp?) and scots gaurds which are a hybrid archer/melee
unit. To my knowledge they are both abit shorter range than retinue longbows. The question
would be if you think its worth it to build mass missle armies with the French or simply
to roll over your opponent with good cav. Because of cost and time usually Ill
build cav instead.(Cost being that cav is expensive yes...but so are the late
missle units, in scots gaurd case being near equal $ to most of your cav for upkeep)

The Italians and Milan/Venice in particular get a mix of old and new units, with both being
able to build musketeers in the late era. Milan also gets possibly the most annoying unit to
fight early on,(at least 4 me) that being the pavise xbow militia,which the AI fields with great gusto!
Since you have the ability to build musketeers, they are your best missle unit in the late
game and therefore no reason to build an inferior unit.A mix of cross troops and muskets
served me well with Milan in the past. (take a guess what the battle looked like..
something about circling the wagons...yeah you got it)

In nearly all cases the Arb is not to be used en masse for any faction. You can scatter em about
and use em as good support troops,they work good in bridge battles etc but they are not frontline
material, and they are shorter range than most late missle units. Coupled
with the grim fact that unlike most other late missle units they are relatively useless in
melee (ports excepted) so you cant or shouldnt send em in when out of ammo or desperate,
with this in mind its easier to see how long range is usually a better bet.

There are exceptions of course and always remember that your range increases if you are uphill
from your opponent. You can make peasant archers alot better than they *should* be simply by
positioning them correctly on the field.

English longbowmen (And Yeomen) are hands down the best ranged units in the game. I'd take a full stack of RLs against any AI stack under any circumstances. The stakes completely eliminate cavalry from consideration, and because your army is all ranged the AI will be forced to attack you instead of waiting for you to attack. The RLs are a match in melee for most infantry too, and stakes work very well to break up infantry formations and let the RLs have a local numbers advantage at the start of an engagement.

Arqs are like ribaults IMHO, specialized morale breaking units. Used correctly a single company can cause a chain route, but used en masse almost any regular ranged bow unit will destroy them.

:egypt:

The best ranged unit in vanilla, I should point out :P
Welsh Saethweyr (sp?), I find, can beat them nicely in a 1 to 1 fight.

If you play as england, there is almost no reason even to use any unit other than longbows.

IT is pretty stupid in my opinion that they get to have Stakes, since really.. Stakes could/should be available to ANY unit. It is really the best reason to have longbowmen, since it is like getting a small 'wall' in the middle of the field that kills horses faster than an army of pikemen, and disrupts infantry formation.

I know anytime i use longbowmen or jannissary archers, all i'm thinking about is the bonus of getting stakes.

I don't know what the fuss is about elephants, or camel gunners, the longbowman is hands down the most unfair unit in the entire game. Especially online, when u always get those people who play as England, while you pick a more 'fair' faction.


In the MTW, the longbowman was atleast balanced - long range, no stakes, and the Billmen where actually good units. MTW2 the billman is worse than peasants and the longbowman is just uber-cheapness.

From my personal experimentations, Genoan pavise crossbows and musketeers can both beat retinue longbows.

Just out of interest, has anyone ever seen the AI actually use its stakes?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Poor Bloody Infantry

Just out of interest, has anyone ever seen the AI actually use its stakes?

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Never seen any here. :sweatdrop:

Back on the topic, playing as England there is absolutly NO reason to use any missile infantry apart from Longbows. I never use Arqubuiser as any other factions either (apart from the Portugese version). I'll train Masketeers if I can get them, but never Arqubuisers.

Longbowmen (both yeoman and retinue) are incredibly effective units - just play the battle of agincourt. I've tested a stack of RLs versus a stack of G. Xbows, and both times it was very close indeed - each side won once. I suppose that against cavalry, longbows have the advantage, whereas against a mainly infantry force, Genoese xbows' superior armour stands them in better stead, seeing as stakes don't seem to work vs infantry (correct me if I'm wrong).

GB

I dunno... I think stakes work against infantry.

If youre a medieval infantryman, wielding a little sword or a pitchfork or whatever foolish weapon your lord so magnanimously bestowed upon you before forcing you into combat, you may just decide that intentionally ramming your own face through a sharpened stake at a full sprinting speed could put you out of your mud-eating, cat-beating, anarcho-syndicalist misery. Then, in the afterlife, you can ask God for a grant to develop that silly walk you've been working on. And trust me, once you've impaled your own face through a wooden stake, you will have a silly looking walk.

That's guaranteed or double* your money back!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Zero doubled is still zero.

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Originally Posted by Grey Bahamut

seeing as stakes don't seem to work vs infantry (correct me if I'm wrong).

GB

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stakes dont work against infantry, cavalray dies on the stakes if they run through them, if the cav walks thru , none die

Stakes only slows infantry down, no man is that much of an idiot to ran straight through a sharpened piece of wood.

Arquebuses are silly toys in comparison to longbows, in fact, i'd place normal longbow men over Arques, the only advantage of Arques is that they cause more moral damage, but the amount of kills you get by with a longbow by the time they get into range of a arquebus would be roughly the same.

Something I noticed recently...
When placed in three ranks, Arqs seem to have a far greater rate of fire than musketeers. Mostly (from my observation) because musketeers first rank has to walk aaaaaaaaaaall the way to the rear of the line before the 'new' front rank will fire.
With arqs, the second rank fires while the first is reloading.

I've noticed that sometimes musketeers will get 'stuck' if a unit doesnt move correctly, or sometimes ends up attempting to walk through a comrade, and wont fire until you tell them to move, which means they all have to reform and line themselves up nicely again...
Its somewhat annoying >_>

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What's with this "Instagibbed" stuff lately? Both the statement and user name that's screwy font?

Just a troll, don't mind him

Got anything to contribute to the topic though? ~:)

I dont see why we should fight.

I think a combination of longbows and crossbowmen would be ideal.

Crossbowmen in the front to deflect incoming armoured cavalry and infantry, and Longbows in the back to rain death upon the enemy. I'm doing something similar in my Sicilian campaign... Muslim archers and Genoese Crossbowmen, with Norman Knights on the wings and maybe a trebuchet or two in the center.

No infantry whatsoever... just archers, artillery, and norman knights... :laugh2:

Does England have a similar configuration of troops? I don't recall them having good crossbowmen, but then again, I hardly ever play England anymore.

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Originally Posted by Askthepizzaguy

Does England have a similar configuration of troops? I don't recall them having good crossbowmen, but then again, I hardly ever play England anymore.

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The English doesn't have any sort of Crossbowmen. That's the problem, not a lot of factions possess useable longbowmen and Crossbowmen, France is the only faction that comes to mind with acessess to both in the campaign.

France only gets longbow mercenaries, as does any catholic faction really.

I believe the Sicilian Muslim Archers are long range arrows.

Are Longbows "very long range"?

I believe the Sicilians can go toe to toe with the English in terms of archer power, merely because they have excellent long range arrows and nearly unstoppable spammed crossbows.

The other Italian factions do not have Muslim archers.

Retinue longbowmen have a shield, which is part of what makes them better than the other long range bowmen in the game, and they fire significantly faster than crossbowmen. In my experience the top end pavise crossbowmen will sometimes keep up with RLs through about the first half of each unit, but eventually the RL's speed advantage will win out... and, of course, cavalry will eat every kind of crossbowmen for breakfast while RLs simply ignore them. Retinue longbowmen can also out melee every variety of crossbowmen I'm aware of, if the battle should somehow come down to that.

:egypt:

The RL's melee advantage is awesome. They're not going to take out DFKs or anything, but I send them against spearmen and various miltias when they run out of ammo on longer battles.

None question the superiority of the Retinue Longbowmen.

The question is, how do they fare against heavily armoured infantry? Crossbowmen are better for that, unless you light the arrows on fire, it seems. But then it takes longer, and crossbowmen are excellent at firing into heavy infantry and breaking up cavalry charges with their bolts, especially against mounted knights.

I suppose England could just recruit and save up a bunch of Mercenary Crossbows to compliment their Retinue Longbowmen...

I just want to point out that Sicilians can get Muslim archers in a matter of a few turns, and can get their top crossbowmen really early, and that advantage so soon gives them long term superiority over England, or any other faction for that matter.

It's only when everyone gets their top tier stuff, when that advantage become nullified.

I think, anyway. I admit, late game stuff is not my forte, seeing as I've never really played late game stuff.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FactionHeir

France only gets longbow mercenaries, as does any catholic faction really.

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Well technically... in multiplayers they get dismounted French Archers, which is the French countpart to the English Retinue Longbowmen. Campaign wise they get the elite Scots Guards teamed up with the Aventiers, quite a formidable combination of the best Crossbow and Longbow units in the game.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Askthepizzaguy

I believe the Sicilian Muslim Archers are long range arrows.

Are Longbows "very long range"?

I believe the Sicilians can go toe to toe with the English in terms of archer power, merely because they have excellent long range arrows and nearly unstoppable spammed crossbows.

The other Italian factions do not have Muslim archers.

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In the campaign there's three kind of bows; the ordinary bows used by militias and peasants, then the much more powerful composite bows used by Muslim and some southern European factions, then there's the elite longbow. Ordinary bows have a range of 120m and are pretty much worth crap. Composite bows have a range of 160m, very accurate and are used by lots of powerful/elite missile units such as Jannisary archers, Sicilian Muslim archers, Venitian heavy archers etc. The powerful longbow also have 160m range, but there biggest advantage over the composite bow is their superior armour piecing ability, making them a more competent unit then the rest, although only a handful of factions (only 2) are able to recruit them.

A longbow without stakes ain't a longbow :tongue2:

Ret Londbows do alright against heavy infantry due to their AP ability really. Damage isn't that much lower than Xbows.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FactionHeir

A longbow without stakes ain't a longbow :tongue2:

Ret Londbows do alright against heavy infantry due to their AP ability really. Damage isn't that much lower than Xbows.

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Afraid you're right, Scots guards can't take a charge against any heavy cavalry unit. What makes a good unit of longbowmen is AP ability and stakes, and that's precisely what makes them superior to the composite bows.

I don't deem Crossbows to be that dangerous as an adversary. They are only lethal when if you are willing to stand still and wait until you've become a human pin-cushion. Crossbows are slow-reloading and are as unaccurate as hell when they don't have a clear shot of the enemy (shooting over head). So basically if you aren't outnumbered then a frontal charge with infanry or cavalry should render out most kills by the enemy crossbowmen.

Who needs to use archers against heavy infantry anyway? Just mow them down with your knights. Archers are for taking out spears, and all of those found in vanilla die quite happily against any archers. As Quintus says though, the crossbows are really let down by their glacially slow reloading animation; makes them a liability when you are commanding them and easy pickings when the enemy has them. I have spent way too much time fuming at the computer when, having been ordered to withdraw behind the infantry about five minutes in advance, my crossbows proceed to dawdle around and get wiped out by the onrushing enemy cavalry.

Personally I don't take the melee stats of my archers into consideration; if my archers end up in a melee I consider myself to have failed on some level, even if I go on to win the battle. The only important melee ability an archer needs is the ability to scarper as soon as one looks imminent. Thus I prefer longbows over crossbows, since they can run away from any melee threat that will get past their stakes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Askthepizzaguy

I just want to point out that Sicilians can get Muslim archers in a matter of a few turns, and can get their top crossbowmen really early, and that advantage so soon gives them long term superiority over England, or any other faction for that matter.

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Those archers are the only/main reason that Sicily is a playable faction for me. The awful construction of Sicilian castles... thats another matter entirely. The Egyptians start with quite good archer units as well, and your in the desert to begin with so they guaranteed get their *bonus* from the start.

I try not to use the xbow much myself, I consider it an evil weapon: perhaps to be fielded only when Peter brings his gaggle of peasants/children to play.

I long for the days of the pavise arbalester......

Spam.

Retinue has 160 unmodded afaik.

I agree with PBI about archers not being suited for any melee with two exceptions. The noble Scottish archers have good melee stats and decent morale; they do very well defending walls. The pavaise crossbowmen can put up a decent fight and don't immediately collapse when charged by heavy knights. The nice thing about the crossbowmen is that their trajectory is so low that they never miss if you shoot into a deep enemy formation.

It's nice to hear from a fellow crossbow lover.

Longbows seem so overpowered... I like the better crossbowmen in the game because they have a realistic amount of kills, slower (fairer) rate of fire, impressive damage when they do hit, and good melee.

[QUOTE=Askthepizzaguy;1996046]None question the superiority of the Retinue Longbowmen.

The question is, how do they fare against heavily armoured infantry? Crossbowmen are better for that, unless you light the arrows on fire, it seems. But then it takes longer, and crossbowmen are excellent at firing into heavy infantry and breaking up cavalry charges with their bolts, especially against mounted knights.
QUOTE]

On a side note, lighting arrows on fire does not deal extra fire damage. This was confirmed before I think.

Dont fire arrows = less accuracy,slower reload,higher damage,morale reduction? Of course,there is a high chance that I am wrong....

In my mind Retinue Longbowmen have several advantages over crossbows.

1. Able to plant stakes
2. Faster rate of fire
3. Accurate when firing overhead (when standing behind friendly forces, Crossbow have to fire straight on)
4. Armour peicing (arrow)
5. Good melee capability
6. Armour Peicing (hammer, I think)

So I think Retinue Longbowmen are better in the game, if you are debating historically accuracy and all then it should be in the monastary.

Without question, RL are better.

I just prefer crossbowmen because they arent overpowered. An army of spammed RL could beat almost anything. Cannons, elephants, armour, cavalry, you name it.

Crossbowmen are cooler anyway. Go XBOWS!!!


And... in my own independent experience... when firing on general's bodyguards, regular arrows suck and fire arrows work. But, thats experience, not scientific testing. Perhaps they don't deal MORE damage, but they sure seem to kill armoured generals better.

I understand that, I often use regular longbowmen and yeomens instead of Rentinue ones because it just takes out the fun. I don't like a army made out of entirely elite troops. I try to keep the troops as professional as possible. Armoured Sergents, Men at Arms, Genoanese Crossbowmen are all good. Dismounted Knights should have no more than 5 units or else it would be boring.

Edit: In real life Crossbow are much easier to use than longbow, and more damaging too. Although there reloading rate is more than disappointing.

IIRC the RLs have swords, but Yeomen (and maybe regular Longbowmen) have AP hammers.

:egypt:

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Originally Posted by FactionHeir

Longbows, hands down.

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^
This.

Although Arqs certainly have their place...but in a straight question, straight answer "which is better" - see quote.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Quintus.JC

In my mind Retinue Longbowmen have several advantages over crossbows.

1. Able to plant stakes
2. Faster rate of fire
3. Accurate when firing overhead (when standing behind friendly forces, Crossbow have to fire straight on)
4. Armour peicing (arrow)
5. Good melee capability
6. Armour Peicing (hammer, I think)

So I think Retinue Longbowmen are better in the game, if you are debating historically accuracy and all then it should be in the monastary.

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The fact is that historical accuracy is relatively well reflected in game when it comes to the question of longbows vs crossbows.

There are far more crossbow units available, earlier, and for a cheaper recruitment cost as well as upkeep.

Still- A unit of crossbowmen vs a unit of longbows isn't really even fair. The crossbowmen have most likely taken casualties and a moral hit before they've even fired their first shot off @ the longbows.