Ranged Units

[St.Jimmy]

No worries, they will fire over your lines by a mile!

Ok Thanks. As stupid as this might sound i dident think they would be able to get the right angle and either miss or fire straight into the back of my troops.

Iv only used the bulgarians once as the Rus. I used three of em and my genrals unit to take thorn. They were able to take the walls with ladders and then shoot into the centre massacreing everthing.

[JCoyote]

Ok Thanks. As stupid as this might sound i dident think they would be able to get the right angle and either miss or fire straight into the back of my troops.

You're so silly, expecting crossbows to work in a strategic simulation like they would in the real world.

[Old Geezer]

It is a toss up. Milanese crossbows are so very effective and easy to get - only problem is shooting down when on walls that I can think of. Longbows are - well, words failed me and I timed-out. Scottish Noble Archers are overall just superb - best at defending walls with thier great melee ability, morale, and defense. Their only drawback is that you need advanced archery range in a fortress IIRC. The Milanese crossbowmen are not as much fun, for me, but they have the best "bang for the buck". Deadly archers from a low level city building - how can you beat that? Sure beats hiring expensive mercs with lousy morale.

[Yaropolk]

This easily has to be #1) Welsh saethwyr and #2) english longbows (regular, not yeoman/retinue).

Both are available from a regular castle, both can use stakes, and both are armor-piercing. Saethwyr comes out ahead due to their larger unit size (75) vs standard 60 man archer squad

[Quintus.JC]

while there are so many superb missile units, Dvor Cavalry and Vardariota stood out in my mind, both are great units.

[RollingWave]

Elephant artillery / gunner !

Desert archer can be build with Castle level archery range, the same as Longbow, it's pure damage is actually higher than Longbow (without the AP though) and they're considerablly cheaper. a very good unit indeed.

I think though. in terms of effectiveness those Camel gunners are simply rigged to hell. they simply wipe out everythign that stands in their way.

[G^2]

Genoese Crossbow Militia.

Available from a Large Town, lethal missile damage and infuriatingly tough to destroy. Oh, and don't forget armour piercing. PBI

Have to agree with PBI and Old Geezer on this one. Genoese Crossbow Militia also has a very long range.

Longbows or Saethwry are a close second but are recruited in castles instead of cities and in my campaign I always have alot more cities than castles.