Improving Archers

**seireikhaan** · 02-28-2008, 03:36

Okay, so I'm sure that a lot of people have noticed that in MTW, regular arrows are simply not effective enough. A thought offered by the wise Caravel-Sama a while back got me started on this, so much credit must certainly go to him. Anyways, I did a little home tinkering with Gnome editor on the projectilestats, and I think I've made some progress on solving the issue, in my opinion. In the regular files, regular shortbows/mounted longbows have a lethality of .69 on the editor. Same with Longbows. During my tinkering, I eventually upped the lethality of arrows of all bows, including longbows, to .75. The reason for upping the longbows, despite that they don't especially need it badly, is that it seems rather ridiculous, again in my opinion, for regular bows to be more lethal than longbows. During battles, I've now been finding that even vanilla archers are now quite viable units, on the defensive anyways, and are quite capable of tearing apart unarmored units given a little time.

Another thing that I changed, which I feel may have helped, is that I made sure that every bow wielding unit was set to have a preferred number of ranks at three. The idea being that archers, at least on the defensive, will then get more arrows off at better accuracy, thus improving their viability. Two ranks would seem to be better on the surface, but the wide range of the units proved a tad problematic at times for the AI, as the unit lost considerable side to side mobility, had problems with logistical movement on the battlefield, and were rather easy targets for cavalry, being so wide and, well, easy to hit. This also, of course, offers considerable aid to factions which use a lot of archers, especially the Turks. The Turks can now be truly dangerous with their vast array of archery units, and are now hardly pushovers in combat. Of course, heavily armored units still resist arrow fire pretty well, because I did not change the armor piercing capablities, so that a fairly strong semblance to realism can be maintained. Anyways, I felt I would share my thoughts on this, as I feel that it makes for a more balanced game and one where archer is quite viable as a means of decimating enemy troops, especially in the early period.

**Ravencroft** · 02-28-2008, 03:46

Wow...

I just got an idea. Why not balance the xbows/arbs too?

**seireikhaan** · 02-28-2008, 04:21

Well, in what way do you mean? I feel that xbows and arbs are plenty lethal on their own as is, but decreasing it much might render them obsolete given their long reload times and the fact that they don't really shoot over other troops very well like archers. Although I'm certainly open to conversation on the subject, I'm just not quite certain where its headed.

**Ravencroft** · 02-28-2008, 04:37

Well, I meant improving the xbows/arbs effectiveness without making them too powerful. I just don't know what specifically it is.

On a side note, how do you modify the "shoot poorly in bad weather" thing? I have Gnome editor.

**seireikhaan** · 02-28-2008, 05:01

Hmm...Honestly, I've never bothered to tinker with that particular stat, because I felt it would be rather ahistorical to make archers capable of shooting just as well in a downpour as they would on a clear day. Probably somewhere in the projectilestats, aways down would be my guess. Bear in mind, I'm no expert modder, I just do a few small things here and there to, in my opinion, either improve gameplay, balance, or realism.

EDIT: Also, I personally think that x-bows and arbs are plenty effective, given their range and armor piercing capablities, so long as they be protected, of course.

**Roark** · 02-28-2008, 07:18

Originally Posted by kamikhaan

During my tinkering, I eventually upped the lethality of arrows of all bows, including longbows, to .75. The reason for upping the longbows, despite that they don't especially need it badly, is that it seems rather ridiculous, again in my opinion, for regular bows to be more lethal than longbows.

Hang on...

There is a good reason you would find it "ridiculous" for shortbows to be more lethal than longbows... (eg: the fact that the latter is far superior to the former)

...but you have no problem with them having the same lethality?

I'm missing something here... something... nah, it's gone.

**Raz** · 02-28-2008, 08:24

I believe that longbow's bodkin arrowheads were so narrow, that they just didn't cause the same wounds as the broadhead arrows of most of the other archers and bowmen.

Also, arbs should have a higher lethality, as don't they have a longer reload time than normal xbows? Bah, it's been a while since I've opened up projectile_stats on original MTW.

I'm not too sure, but the shoot poorly stat is a yes/no true/false kinda thing in the proj. stats. Somewhere after the reload times but before the sound effects and models column. Again, vague on the details... I'd check but I'm a tad lazy.

**Brandy Blue** · 02-28-2008, 19:16

Originally Posted by Raz

I believe that longbow's bodkin arrowheads were so narrow, that they just didn't cause the same wounds as the broadhead arrows of most of the other archers and bowmen.

I think that longbows actually used two kinds of arrows. Flight arrows were provided with a small head so they could fly further. I assume that is the "bodkin arrowhead" you refer to. Sheaf arrows, however, were used at close range, had broadheads, and were more deadly.

In my opinion, the longbow should be more deadly than regular bows at close range, because they would all use broadhead arrows, but the longbow would have a greater pull. At longer ranges, the longbow would lose effectiveness, but the regular bows would not have the range to shoot that far anyway. I don't think the game would allow you to give the longbow variable levels of deadliness depending on range, so it is a reasonable compromise to give the longbow an "average" level of deadliness. Unrealistically low deadliness at close ranges makes up for unrealistically high deadliness at long range.

One other factor to keep in mind is that a deep wound is often more dangerous than a shallow but wider one. A bodkin head that penetrates deeper would not necessarily be less deadly.

That said, I'm just a causal reader of history, not even a serious amateur. Also, I have rarely used bows of any type. The opinion of a real expert would be nice.

**Ironsword** · 02-29-2008, 11:53

Don't want to go too off topic, but I think the bodkin arrow was the armour piercing round of its day. ie. effective even against plate. But yes, longbowmen, like other archers often used various arrow heads.

They were only really replaced by guns because it took so long to train the shoulder and arm muscles of the archers. It was much quicker and cheaper to give any old Charlie a point and shoot weapon like the handgun.

In MTW, longbows are really fast at firing. Does anyone have the times between volleys for the various missile troops?

**Aldgilles** · 02-29-2008, 12:27

They were only really replaced by guns because it took so long to train the shoulder and arm muscles of the archers. It was much quicker and cheaper to give any old Charlie a point and shoot weapon like the handgun.

If you look ar it that way you should have longer training times for archers (two years for vanilla, three years for longbows maybe?) and just one year for the 'point & shoot' weapons. That way it is reasonable that bows and longbows are better than Xbows...(on a side note: firearms only became better than indian bows in America when repeater weapons were invented, like revolvers and winchesters)