Arqs vs retinue longbow?

[Marauder]

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?

[FactionHeir]

Longbows, hands down.

[Eikon the Magistrate]

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.

[Old Geezer]

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.

[PBI]

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.

[Old Geezer]

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.)

[Proserpine]

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

[Old Geezer]

Cammels be worser.

[Marauder]

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!

[Eikon the Magistrate]

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.

[Ramses II CP]

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.

[Sheogorath]

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.

[PrestigeX]

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.

[Sheogorath]

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

[PBI]

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

[Quintus.JC]

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

Never seen any here.

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.

[Grey Bahamut]

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

[Askthepizzaguy]

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.

[Eikon the Magistrate]

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

GB

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

[Quintus.JC]

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

[Abokasee]

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.

[Sheogorath]

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 >_>

[weeeeee]

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[Old Geezer]

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

[FactionHeir]

Just a troll, don't mind him

Got anything to contribute to the topic though?

[Askthepizzaguy]

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...

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.

[Quintus.JC]

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.

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.

[FactionHeir]

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

[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.

[Ramses II CP]

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.