fire arrows: what's the point?

no tests, but just casual observation suggests they are inferior to normal arrows, at least in kill rate.

Do they affect morale or something? When should one use them?

Tell me they're not just eye candy...

why, to be like gladiator, of course...

The advisor tips said they have an affect on morale. I only use it for fun to harass the enemy otherwise I don't bother.

in my limited experience, flaming projectiles from onagers are not worth it; they are waaaay too inaccurate, and most of them missed the town itself...
it would of course be a whole different story if we knew exactly how much of an impact on morale they have.
However, since it's likely that that morale penalty only applies while they're under fire, it may not be worth bothering, because their lack of accuracy makes that kind of impossible.

I always assumed they would be principally handy for burning down wooden structures...

Originally Posted by hoom

I always assumed they would be principally handy for burning down wooden structures...

what's the point of burning them down? If you have the forces to take a city, you might as well take it with buildings intact. You can raze and get money afterwards.

I guess you could use them, in a relatively evenly matched battle, to burn stuff in the city, then run before reinforcements could come. Those instances are pretty rare though.

Actually, i haven't even tried to use fire arrows on buildings yet, so i have no idea if it's even possible.

Originally Posted by Dorkus

no tests, but just casual observation suggests they are inferior to normal arrows, at least in kill rate.

Do they affect morale or something? When should one use them?

Tell me they're not just eye candy...

Set fire to a wood or a piece of grassland and smoke out the enemy?

I'ld guess fire arrows are not balanced well and the archer really likes to fire it away. Them being less accurate/effective doesn't really surprise me.

Reasons to burn down wooden structures:
Attack & fade -Insufficient forces to capture a city but enough to do some damage to the enemies' training facilities.
Just outright aggression -"They dare to resist me? Raze their city to the ground!"
Lack of other artillery when attacking a wooden pallisade.

I'm sure you can come up with some for yourself too...

So, is the only real point to flaming arrows the morale hit it can cause?

No one has mentioned it yet, but flaming arrows shoot much slower than normal arrows. I have found that they kill unshielded enemies faster, but do less damage to shielded enemies.

People in MP battles love these Fire Arrows - they must also love the lag it creates.

It is just fun to watch the enemy soldiers burn to death and turn a group of soldiers and calvary to piles of ash. mmmmm ashy barbarians

At first I used fire arrows because they looked so damn cool.

Now I rarely use them against anything save enemy siege weapons, normal arrows can rout lightly armoured or slow moving units before they reach your line by inflicting mass casualties quicker than fire arrows will.

Originally Posted by Morindin

At first I used fire arrows because they looked so damn cool.

Now I rarely use them against anything save enemy siege weapons, normal arrows can rout lightly armoured or slow moving units before they reach your line by inflicting mass casualties quicker than fire arrows will.

Those are the things I use the fire arrows for as well - but I do also use them at the end of battles as they tend to make tired/exhausted soldiers rout easier.

Fire arrows are useful for killing siege machines.


Fire-Onagers I find to be very useful. They are not very innaccurate but if one does land in an enemy formation it kills a TON of them.

Yeah I've seen a replay when someone was raining hell on their opponent with about 4 or 5 onagers - totally working their guys every time they make a hit. It's rare to make a direct hit but when it happens - wow!

Only use them on seige engines, although they were disappointingly ineffective against siege towers though. The can take out battering rams and saping points though.

If the archers are shooting at an angle they will probably not light up the siege tower.
One group of archers however shooting at it directly will usually set it up in smoke, on large unit sizes.

Whats with the machine gun like arrows those Carthagian siege towers shoot out? They cause absolute destruction to your defenders on the walls. Are they some sort of repeating scorpion? How come other factions dont get one?

I think they do(some siege towers seem to have ammo available even if the unit doesn't have ranged weapons). Maybe they are only available when assaulting Epic walls.

Never went against elephants yet bit would'nt they make elephants run mok easier

As far as I can tell, regular stone walls, your seige towers will have archers on top. Large stone walls, scorpions. Epic? I haven't tried.

Note: If you're not seeing this, set the marching unit to fire at will.

Originally Posted by oaty

Never went against elephants yet bit would'nt they make elephants run mok easier

Yep they do. When Carthage attacked my Greek city in Sicily my Archers used fire on them, it was fun to watch them "Run Amok".

Elephants and Siege weapons, thats what they are best reserved for.

As oaty and the Emperor said: Fire arrows are great against elephants.

Factions like the Gaul, Parthians, Scythians, Dacians, Egyptians and Spanish have absolutly to rely on fire arrows to stop them. Longrange archers/Siegeengines are your best bet against them...

I have yet to test if they are also good against very heavily armored enemys, which might be possible due to the "burn" effect...

Cheers

OA

Well if you are horribly outnumbered by lightly armored units the fire arrows might be better.

Otherwise, I think they are best saved for seiges and shooting at elephants. (Which at least seems somewhat historically correct as fire arrows were not a staple of open field fighting)

Fire arrows are the only option lower tech, non-elite archer units have against elephants. You won't kill any but at least you'll have a chance to route them.

Fire arrows lower morale. If you go to the official site and click on the advisor, it says to have multiple archers with some firing flaming arrows and the rest firing normal arrows so that you get a high kill rate and also a morale hit for the enemy.

At times it has seemed to me that fire arrows will kill armored targets that regular arrows won't. I've been in a situation a couple of times where I was softening up enemy heavy cavalry that were defending a city center. My regular arrows weren't killing anything. When I switched to fire arrows, the accuracy dropped but the ones that hit produced crispy cavalry.

M

Whats with the machine gun like arrows those Carthagian siege towers shoot out? They cause absolute destruction to your defenders on the walls. Are they some sort of repeating scorpion? How come other factions dont get one?

They actually are repeating scorpions, and you can build them once you build the second level seige engine building.....whatever it's called. You can also then build heavy onagers. Haven't used either yet.

Originally Posted by Morindin

If the archers are shooting at an angle they will probably not light up the siege tower.
One group of archers however shooting at it directly will usually set it up in smoke, on large unit sizes.

What's with Archers having a TERRIBLE ability to not being able to hit moving units? I thought that maybe it just takes them a few shots to get their aiming on and fire forwards to hit those towers when they're plauding along. I fired 4 volleys and maybe a dozen arrows hit the tower!