I Stand Converted

[Gyrfalcon]

I believe that all valour gives an accuracy bonus. It is, however, a small one, and only noticeable above valour four or so.

[Mooks]

Anyone else use gunpowder units? I use them alongside longbowmen/regular archers. Gotta love taking down 1/2 a royal knight unit in one volley.

[Lokiss]

Anyone else use gunpowder units? I use them alongside longbowmen/regular archers. Gotta love taking down 1/2 a royal knight unit in one volley.

Truth be told, I don't make it to the Late period very often unless I start there.

[Ironsword]

TBH I prefer Arbalesters to gunpowder units. I guess i've been unlucky using them, but all I seem to be able to get them to do is trot towards the enemy where either a) they get massacred by heavy cavalry or b) it starts to rain!

Now serpentines and volley guns on the other hand...

[Geezer57]

TBH I prefer Arbalesters to gunpowder units.

Normally that's also my preference - but in a Turkish campaign a while ago (they can't build Arbalesters), I had surprising success with Arquebusiers. They have good defensive stats, decent range (better than Handgunners), pierce armor, and cause fear. What's not to like?!!?

[Martok]

Truth be told, I don't make it to the Late period very often unless I start there.

Ditto that. Of course, I'm not terribly fond of gunpowder units in any case. Aside from siege cannons, I rarely bother with them.

[Lokiss]

decent range (better than Handgunners)

Which isn't that great itself.

[Kamakazi]

i hate how on vi the ai doesnt know how to use missle units.... you don put them infront of your spears / swords jesus run them through then they retreat through their own peeps... instant mass rout....

[Knight of the Rose]

I *always* put my archers in front of my spears / swords. But I don't rely on the "skirmish"-mode to pull them to safety - I pull them out myself when I judge they are in peril.

When the AI deploys in front of the line, well - they get the benefit of the extra range, and as I'm playing on expert and as a blitzer, I rarely have the ability (ie numbers and/or quality) to make the AI army rout from hitting the line head on. It takes a little more "preparation".

/KotR

[Mooks]

I *always* put my archers in front of my spears / swords. But I don't rely on the "skirmish"-mode to pull them to safety - I pull them out myself when I judge they are in peril.

When the AI deploys in front of the line, well - they get the benefit of the extra range, and as I'm playing on expert and as a blitzer, I rarely have the ability (ie numbers and/or quality) to make the AI army rout from hitting the line head on. It takes a little more "preparation".

/KotR

The skirmish mode rarely works for me.

/moment of silence for dead archers

What about seige weapons on the battlefield? anyone else have them? I get at least 2 catapults or naptha in each full stacked army. They kill a fair amount and force the enemy to rush me. culverins can destroy units.

[oz_wwjd]

I've taken to using about 8 units of Arbys in front of my armies,in lines of 2.The damage they can inflict on the opposing force.especially on royal Knights and such,is proceless to behold,but no experience with artillery yet,but I'm planning to experiment with serpentines as a addition to my forces soon..

[Roark]

Anyone else use gunpowder units? I use them alongside longbowmen/regular archers. Gotta love taking down 1/2 a royal knight unit in one volley.

I absolutely lurrrrve gunpowder, which is weird because I used to play Early just to avoid all gunpowder in my games altogether.

I pack the following, whenever they are available:

- Handgunners in 2s or 3s any time.
- Arquebusiers when I have a high command general, or if they have valour-boosting traits (they are great fun with high valour)
- Serpentines on defence (devastating against anything except fast cavalry)
- Demi-cannons, Demi-culverins, and Culverins for sieges.
- Organ guns in batteries of 3 (usually mercs) on defence in hilly terrain.

My whole strategy is centralised around stacking a number of demoralising elements:

1. Constant stream of missile fire (usually flanker hybrids, if I'm Muslim, or arbalesters if I'm Catholic).
2. Flanker charges (Gallows, Highlanders, Futtuwas, Nizaris, Muhawids, Hashishin etc)
3. Engines (organ guns, serpentines, catapults - sometimes just for the fear factor)
4. Gunpowder infantry (Handgunners run around to the rear or arquebusiers on a hill)
5. Suleyman Gambit (kill the general: javelins, cavalry charge on pinned general etc)

...so gunpowder works well within this purpose.

Again, I stress that high valour arquebusiers are a heap of fun. Surprisingly, they even work well against annoying Mongol Horse Archers on a hill defence. They'll demoralise and scare off depleted units ahead of your main line quite effectively, as the Mongols will often get quite close to snipe at units other than your arqs.

[Knight of the Rose]

What about seige weapons on the battlefield? anyone else have them? I get at least 2 catapults or naptha in each full stacked army. They kill a fair amount and force the enemy to rush me. culverins can destroy units.

Siege in field battles I find quite impractical. They fire slowly, often miss, and can usually be bypassed as some cannot turn and others cannot target enemies too close.

Naphta, well, I'm in doubts about those. I try to use them in combo with spearmen, placing them right behind the spear wall to add some offensive punch to the defencive spears. But half of the time the greek fire engulfs my own men, causing a rout. Other times though, they've performed very well. They just feel like taking a chance, to me.

As for gunpowder siege, I find they're a little better than regular siege - except the bombard, that always blows up in my face. The scary value also help, together with some other gunpowder units. In fact, I always considered handgunners inept, but in my current campaign I'm going gunpowder heavy and build them. In one battle my two handgun units killed 1/5 of the enemy's army without taking losses, as their volley caused a rout every time. Made me reconsider their general use...

/KotR

[gaijinalways]

If using Handgunners or Arquebusiers, how high does their valor need to be? I have found them not that useful when their range is often too short to take down anything moving at a decent clip. If you can get them to fire into the rear of an engaged enemy though, you can get pretty good results.

[Roark]

With valour 3 or 4, Arquebusiers become proper shooters, and can take out 7 or 8 very heavily armoured troops in a volley. I'm talking troops which would normally be resistant even to arbalests (Halberdiers, bronze or silver CMAAs etc). With a lucky dice roll (or computer-generated "random seed" thingie) you can kill a dozen or more. This, combined, with the gunpowder fear, can be devastating against elites.

Yeah sure, the arqs are never going to contribute to melee, but it's all about the fear (and secondarily, killing armour).

With handgunners, their range is pretty cr@p and their combat skills are a bit better, so valour isn't as important. They're never going to be true shooters.

I use them pretty muchas you do. Just run them around the rear in a tight, small block, then spread out and take a couple of shots at the enemy's back, and finally charge.

[Roark]

Oh, and with Handgunners... I keep them tucked behind my flankers and, as my flankers charge in to attack the enemy's main line, I send my handgunners peeling off to the rear to take pot shots. I ignore any archers behind the enemy's main line, as the Handgunners have pretty good armour (and my horses are usually following up pretty closely).