The Missile Thread - Hints, Tips and Information

[Slaists]

I agree with the archer bit, and matches my experience. The rationale behind the mechanic seems reasonable.

The 2nd point is more interesting; saw a fairly detailed thread about this very topic on TWC, so others are seeing the same. I guess I haven't fooled around with TWA slingers enough to have a first-hand opinion. The rationale behind the mechanic, however, baffles me. Sudden appearance of stones causing uncertain footing, so soldiers/horses now closely eyeing the ground to watch their step? That's all I can come up with. Is there any historical/literary background to this? Am not second-guessing, just interested. I have no idea.

In general, you will slow down if you have to dodge missiles (unless you choose to ignore them): the move speed or any other action (other than dodging) you're involved will be slowed down. It's the 'suppressing' effect of missiles. Probably all missiles should have the effect not only slingers or 'whistling arrows'.

As to javelins: I see that they do insane amount of friendly kills even when you manage to position them so they shoot in the backs of engaged enemy. On a related note, I hate that CA has taken out the "kills" stat from post-battle summary. That gave a pretty accurate estimate for friendly fire casualties.

[Bramborough]

I agree...and it's a minor change which is actually somewhat bizarre, because I can think of no remotely feasible reason for them to have removed that little feature. I guess maybe somebody thought the unit cards looked a little cluttered...but then, of the bazillion criticisms leveled at recent TW games, am pretty sure I've never read "I don't like the kill counts on the post-battle display unit cards."

That said, the data is still there; appears in a mouse-over pop-up. I too have noticed heavy kill-counts for javelin units....numbers which seemed a little high to me. Would be nice if there was a breakdown, distinguishing number of friendly fire kills (or alternately, number of friendly fire deaths suffered).

[Oleander Ardens]

As to javelins: I see that they do insane amount of friendly kills even when you manage to position them so they shoot in the backs of engaged enemy.

True. Ideally you want to shoot into the right flank or back of an enemy blob and target the closest unit. Generally enemy cavalry should be your prime target if possible, especially if there is no to little of your own in the mix. The additional bonus against cavalry enlargers the gap between enemy kills and 'friendly fire', doubly so with the Frankish skirmishers and their special +30.

Overall the considerable need to micro is the main reason why with the Franks I just use them one one wing.

P.S: Whistling shot can be great because it deals so little damage while hammering the morale and giving the rate of fire penalty. Not that it makes that much of a difference in kills with the poor Nordic archers. If you have a unit with decent moral winning a fight, especially against the often-encountered levies, stacking penalties will give you a quicker victoriy with fewer casualities suffered.

[Greyblades]

How do you avoid having the whistling arrows affect your own troops?

[Hooahguy]

You cant. Maybe just position the archers in a way that they arent going over your own troops?

[Bramborough]

Yep, which is what I infer of Oleander saying "if you have a unit with decent morale winning a fight." Both units will take the morale hit, the difference being that your guys can afford it, while the enemy cannot. And with Whistling Shot, you don't take significant friendly fire, since the arrows are almost harmless.

Bottom line; low-end archers can hasten the end of a fight that your guys are already winning, by making the enemy break that much quicker. But they're not going to change the morale balance and turn around a fight that you're currently losing.

[Slaists]

Yep, which is what I infer of Oleander saying "if you have a unit with decent morale winning a fight." Both units will take the morale hit, the difference being that your guys can afford it, while the enemy cannot. And with Whistling Shot, you don't take significant friendly fire, since the arrows are almost harmless.

Bottom line; low-end archers can hasten the end of a fight that your guys are already winning, by making the enemy break that much quicker. But they're not going to change the morale balance and turn around a fight that you're currently losing.

The thing with whistling archers is that they hit not only the morale of your troops but their fighting ability too (at least in Attila; not sure about R2).

On a related note, as mentioned before, slingers slow units down. They do the same to your own troops if they hit them.

[Oleander Ardens]

Bottom line; low-end archers can hasten the end of a fight that your guys are already winning, by making the enemy break that much quicker. But they're not going to change the morale balance and turn around a fight that you're currently losing.

Indeed, I should have worded it better, you did a better job at that..

The thing with whistling archers is that they hit not only the morale of your troops but their fighting ability too.

Yes, they give all the affected units -12 morale, -8 melee attack and a -25% reduction in rate of fire. Maybe something of great importance which doesn't seem to get noticed that often: Whistling shot throws a blanket of fear over all the units along it's path. The sheer number of units affected can be staggering, often more then a dozen against the AI, if you shoot diagonally across the line of battle as I sometimes do. As I have written before I generally flank on the left while being more defensive on the right and have the low-level missile troops which usually get the task of whistling around on my right while the true killers like crossbows or javelineers tend to be on the left.

[Slaists]

So far, whistling shot and fire arrow combo works well for me playing as Huns. I'd have squads of 5 HA's skirmishing. 3 would use regular arrows, 1 flaming shot, 1 whistling arrow. The specialist shots on the right flank so they minimally affect the others. Most stack vs stack battles on legendary end up with me losing a few guys versus total annihilation on the other side.

On a Hun related note here is

A tip for Huns

Upon starting the campaign you're not at war with WRE. Ask them to join their wars in exchange for cash. Hell, join all their wars for a few turns. All of those are far from your starting position anyway. The key is: every extra war you have boosts the integrity of your stacks. So, you can end up with +20 or so integrity per turn just from remote Roman wars.

Once you are ransacking WRE, all those enemies of yours will start loving you and before you know it they'll pay cash for truce agreements.