Mounted Archers.. Grrr.

[Edible, Amir of the Egg]

I got Medieval for Christmas and i started playing it yesterday. It looks like an awesome game and i like it even though i'm not that good at it yet.

Anyways, i've got the basics down (went through the battle tutorial) and found that i prefer the Muslim factions. Now here i ran into a problem: how to use horse archers effectively? Every time i try to harass the enemy or lead a unit away from the main body, i always seem to get into a shooting match with their archers and my h. archers start taking sizable casualties. Their units don't even bother moving. What should i do differently?

[TheViking]

if their shooters move towards your cav arch you should attack them cus cavarch is better in melee then footarch, but im not sure all cavarch is.

If you cant attack the footarch move your cavarch from the shootout.

sorry i cant give you any better advice.

[Spetulhu]

There isn`t much else to do with horse archers. Those big horses with riders make big targets, while small bowmen are harder to hit.

Horse archers aren`t exactly my main unit, but I`ve got some nice results by using them as 'hidden units'. Have three or four HA hide somewhere off to the side and let your enemy move through. Then close in and start peppering his rear units with arrows. Nasty surprise, and he may lose his cool and make some mistake because of it.

[Gregoshi]

Don't match up your HA with archers. Move your HA to the flanks or anywhere the archers aren't. Believe me, HAs can be a real pain in the butt to the enemy.

[All_the_Sultan's_horses]

1. never take just one or two units. take at least 4 if u want them to make an impact.

2. in an archery duel, put them in loose formation.

3. once yr infantry are in melee, move yr horse archers beside or behind an engaged foe and fire into their flanks or rear. this kills most infantry fast. manoeuvring will take much doing though.

hope this helps. i'm still learning how to use them myself.

[Naagi]

All_the_Sultans_horses got most of it. Loose formation is your best bet against archers, but when they decide to put theirs in loose its time to move yours away. Also another good use for horse archers is artillery destruction. This is sortof tricky though, they have such a low morale to start with, that once the artillery hits them a couple times they start running. But if you can get around the side of the enemy, send them charging at the siege engine, not the units firing it, the engine itself and they'll knock it out and possibly kill some of the units too. Now if they did their jobs right, those units will be leaving the field because no other purpose, your behind the enemy and can move up to pepper his arse. Remember to put them back on skirmish though as attacking the siege engine puts them in attack at will. And 4 units of them is a good standard if you like horse archers, 2 per flank.

Naagi

[SmokWawelski]

I have to agree, the Cav Archers and Xbows are not very efficient. I scarcely use them, but when employed effectively they can be an annoyance, especially if the target army does not have any cavalry to chase them out.

The problem might be that they cannot move and fire/reload at the same time. The reality was that cav archers from the Muslim nations, especially Turks and Golden Horde units were able to do that: ride their horses and pepper enemy with arrows.

I am thinking how it would affect this unit if I were to change that, to make it available for the cav archers to fire/move.

Have anyone done that?

[Edible, Amir of the Egg]

Okay, thanks everyone. I finally used them semi-successfuly in a battle versus the Bizantines to get their infantry to charge down from their hill Only problem was that those infantry then proceded to destroy my spearmen that were waiting for their cavalry.

I lost 3 spear units but won the battle

[Kensai Achilles]

turcoman/horse archers are my fave against AI. Use 4 or 5 of them send 1 out to lure an infantry or two and have the rest waiting for the infantry behind. For some reason the AI unit will attack then pull back the infantry after far enough while getting the hails of fire, then I'd do the cycle again and again ... route the h archers after they are emptied and call more mounted archers and do it again (just make sure u lure their edge most units, the AI may not send out its archers to chase u down)

btw case u haven't learned them out yourself mithrandrir posted somewhere that a unit fighting while under fire gets a morale penalty.

[Alrowan]

i love cav archers... try to use them against thier flanks, and if your enemy has no cavalry you can easlily circle thier rear with them and aim for that pesky general

[Knight_Yellow]

i never take horses or ranged or spears for lotsa reasons i know that my army is so specialised but also very good vs anything ive seen.

i take
1 val 1 merc calv gen
3 val 4 urban militia
4 val 4 chiv maa
4 val 4 feud foot knights
4 val 4 militia seargents

i have only ever lost to superior numbers ie. 4 of them for every1 of me i usualy dont hang around while they shoot me i just charge in and take them by surprise (I DONT RUSH) there pavs/archers move bacl but my first line catches them and routs them witch panicks the enemy inf and then my 1st line hits them and my militia go round the flanks and take out any armoured horses or generals that get too close.

dont mock militia at val 4 there vry cheap and pack and excellent punch witch is always funny as my elite militia can cut up val 3 lancers. i was once charged by 300 val 3 lancers and although took hvy casualties i utterly destroyed an entire army of lancers with militia alone.
there fast cheap great in h2h but low moral is ther only prob so watch there flanks but 99.9% of the time my 7 militia overwhelm any reserves then hit there inf in the rear.