Missile accuracy vs. kill speed?

[Red Harvest]

I have not yet tried the kill speed mod although I plan to (combined with no timer, of course.) However, I have a concern about one thing I suspect it will unbalance: melee vs. missiles. The game has been set up for extremely rapid killing, so the missile units get less time to do their work. However, slowing down the melee kill rate will amplify the effectiveness of missile units to some degree since the fighting (and shooting) will last longer.

I've been a bit concerned watching single slinger units kill off several units of infantry and even hoplites from a good distance. Any thoughts?

[LittleRaven]

I've been a bit concerned watching single slinger units kill off several units of infantry and even hoplites from a good distance. Any thoughts?

I've only tried the kill speed mod with my Britain campaign.

So far, I haven't noticed a problem. But I don't have very many missile units. Slingers are impossible to use once melee has been joined, because they have a very flat arc and will inflict massive numbers of friendly casualties if you try and use them once the lines have joined. I also have head hurlers, who are pretty cool but they have very limited ammo, so speed isn't as big an issue for them.

The only other missile unit I have is the light chariot, which is very deadly, but the speed mod hasn't affected them because nobody ever catches them anyway. (or at least I try not to let anyone catch them because they don't last very long if they are caught, kill speed mod or no)

I've only been fighting Gauls and rebels, and neither ever has very many missile units, so I haven't seen the effects from the other side yet.

My verdict: No problem so far...but still to early to tell.

[Osbot]

I've been doing all of my campaigning in the east where the prevalence of archers is much higher. The kill rates of archers is insane period. Kill speed mod or not. You will quickly learn fighting Egypt as a greek nation to bring your own archers and lots of them. The Egyptians will simply bring half their force in archers/skirms and walk up to your phalanx lines and decimate them.

I had a few battles early on as the Seleucids where I had a numerical superiority and what I thought were superior units. Untill the Egyptians destroyed my phalanxes in 5/6 volleys.

[LittleRaven]

Wow, Osbot. I definately haven't seen anything like that. Sounds like archers may need to be toned down period...speed mod or no.

[Kraxis]

5-6 volleys? GAH! How many units was that? I guess it is also good to upgrade armour (or is to too hot for that?).

[Osbot]

I can think of 2 battles off hand. One was a 2 Phalanx/2skirmisher/1General army for me. I was fighting 1 nile spears and 2 egypt bowman and a general unit. Within 6 volleys my levy pikes were reduced into the 60's.

Another battle, MUCH larger. I had around 8 Militia Phalanxes all fairly heavily upgraded 2 cretan archers some eastern infantry, 4 merc units worth I believe + my general.

The army that attacked me was much smaller, I believe it had about 5 units of spear total, 2 were nile. Rest of the force were archers/chariots/skirmishers. I did my best with the cretans but at 160 men per unit, facing off against 4+ 240 man egyptian archer units. Soon my cretans were reduced and then my phalanx formations ate it. When he finally charged with his infantry there wasnt much left of mine. So I sent my army on a suicide charge and ran my faction heir out of there ;p

That was the point where I thought my Seleucid campaign was over. However I came back with MASSED cavalry including some cataphracts I bribed from the Armenians and lots and lots of archers of my own. I had one Cav heavy army, 6 units of greek cav + 1 cata and my general supported by phalanxes. Second army was levy phalanxes/phalanx pikemen with 7 Archers and a General. Used those 2 forces to wipe out a couple huge egyptian armies and since then things have been going smoothly ;p

[WhiteSkull]

I can think of 2 battles off hand. One was a 2 Phalanx/2skirmisher/1General army for me. I was fighting 1 nile spears and 2 egypt bowman and a general unit. Within 6 volleys my levy pikes were reduced into the 60's.

um so 320 or is it 480? archers fire 6 rounds at 240 men, and you think they should only do a small amount of damage?

They fired 1920 or 2880, depending on there size, and your upset they only killed 190men?

[Red Harvest]

Osbot,

I suspected as much, although I've not faced much yet except for the Numidian cavalry (and they really tear me up unless I have lots of cav.) I've not yet gotten to Eastern factions. Most of what I've read indicates that missile units alone were not all that effective vs. phalanx. They could wear them down over time, but it was far from quick. I've been bothered by the high kill rates of my own missile units. Slingers seem about as effective as arbalesters were in MTW. I really dread seeing archers on the field and so far have only faced a few units. I generally sacrifice a cav unit or two to chase them off and kill them.

A combined army should be best of course as Alexander and Hannibal proved (and Scipio adopted), but in this day and age (before crossbows and stirrups) heavy infantry should be relatively hard to crack.

[Osbot]

um so 320 or is it 480? archers fire 6 rounds at 240 men, and you think they should only do a small amount of damage?

They fired 1920 or 2880, depending on there size, and your upset they only killed 190men?

Um, where did I say I was upset or anything of the sort. I was simply relaying my experiences to people who had asked.

Please bro, if you're going to try and troll or flame, first learn to read, then learn to comprehend.

Since what I said seems to complicated for you. Greek archer units on the HUGE size have 160 men. Im not sure how you got this confused seeing that I had NO archers in that first battle I recalled. Egyptian Stock archers come with 240 men. I clearly pointed out my archers 2 units had 160 men each. The Egyptians had 4+ 240 man archer units plus chariots and skirmishers.

You can count on lightly armored troops taking 20+ casualties in a single volley from one unit of archers with the number diminishing each subsequent volley. Archers seem to lose some effectiveness once you get more heavily armored troops.

So lets recap for the comprehension challenged.

1) Archers are devastating.
2) Fighting a heavy archer army with no counter of your own is a very steep uphill battle if you can even call it that.
3) I am perfectly fine with this, nor was I ever upset, or gave any sort of impression that I was upset.
4) You can do simple math GOOD JOB heres a gold star. *

[LittleRaven]

I was looking at the attack values for some of these archers, and it's hard to believe that they're stacking up the kinds of kills you guys are talking about.

Slingers have an attack of 4. How the heck are they doing arbelest-type damage?

Now archers tend to have higher attack values...and some egyptian archers have very good values...but slingers?

[Kraxis]

I was looking at the attack values for some of these archers, and it's hard to believe that they're stacking up the kinds of kills you guys are talking about.

Slingers have an attack of 4. How the heck are they doing arbelest-type damage?

Now archers tend to have higher attack values...and some egyptian archers have very good values...but slingers?

I think I can answer that. They have a low trajectory, so the bullets, if they miss, have a much greater chance of a hit. The target fills a much larger part of the projected area the bullet can hit.

[Red Harvest]

I was looking at the attack values for some of these archers, and it's hard to believe that they're stacking up the kinds of kills you guys are talking about.

Slingers have an attack of 4. How the heck are they doing arbelest-type damage?

Now archers tend to have higher attack values...and some egyptian archers have very good values...but slingers?

I don't know why, but they are very effective. I'm talking about the mercenary variety. I've used them to mow down multiple units of shield protected men in the town square and I kill hoplites with them too.

Hazarding a guess, don't the projectile stats include an "accuracy" factor? If so, it might be a tad high. If I sling 100 balls at 50 yards, what percentage will actually be "on target?" (I dunno, it's just a question.) And if I'm on target, what percent will hit a shield or armour, etc. and do little damage other than aggravating the poor sap taking the beating--I think this 2nd part is the missile attack rating.

[Soulflame]

I have not yet tried the kill speed mod although I plan to (combined with no timer, of course.) However, I have a concern about one thing I suspect it will unbalance: melee vs. missiles. The game has been set up for extremely rapid killing, so the missile units get less time to do their work. However, slowing down the melee kill rate will amplify the effectiveness of missile units to some degree since the fighting (and shooting) will last longer.

I've been a bit concerned watching single slinger units kill off several units of infantry and even hoplites from a good distance. Any thoughts?

I don't yet own Rome ( ), but this seems odd. Does't the mod alter all speeds? Or can't you alter it so it does? Because if both kill speeds (melee and missile) get reduced, the melee have the advantage (since they can cover more terrain without being shot to pulp, then in melee their bows are useless, so melee has the andvantage). This would solve both problems at once: 1. longer battles 2. no crazy missile battles.
If it can't be altered, well, then you are right and the game will probably go to hell, but I think that if melee killing speeds can be altered, missile probably can too.

[Red Harvest]

I don't yet own Rome ( ), but this seems odd. Does't the mod alter all speeds? Or can't you alter it so it does? Because if both kill speeds (melee and missile) get reduced, the melee have the advantage (since they can cover more terrain without being shot to pulp, then in melee their bows are useless, so melee has the andvantage). This would solve both problems at once: 1. longer battles 2. no crazy missile battles.
If it can't be altered, well, then you are right and the game will probably go to hell, but I think that if melee killing speeds can be altered, missile probably can too.

I doubt it (but don't know at the moment.) In MTW, the reload/firing speeds were separate from unit movement speeds and were in a seperate projectile stats file. They were characteristics of the weapon, not the unit. I never modded those so I can't speak with authority about it even in MTW.

[LittleRaven]

It's plenty easy to mod either the speed of the projectile attack or the lethality of that attack, if you decide that's what needs to be done.

I'm not yet convinced, because my own slingers don't seem to have quite the killing power Red is describing. In fact, in one battle just a few minutes ago, I took two units of slingers against two units of rebel Warbands. The slingers exhausted all their ammo and reduced the Warbands by about a third each. That sounds about right to me.

Of course, they were attacking from the front. Missiles are far more deadly from the sides or rear.

[desdichado]

I think I can answer that. They have a low trajectory, so the bullets, if they miss, have a much greater chance of a hit. The target fills a much larger part of the projected area the bullet can hit.

Kraxis,

Not sure what you're trying to say here "if they miss, have a much greater chance of a hit"???????

Someone posted once the number of arrows fired by the English at Crecy I think and an estimated number of casualties caused. Kraxis - do you know the figures?

The ratio was quite low. So missile units destroying heavy infantry in only a few volleys seems too much to me. Light infantry of course another matter.

I also remember for RTW that pikemen/hoplite units were supposed to get some protection from arrows from their pikes disrupting their flight - anyone know if this actually happens??

[Sjakihata]

Kraxis,

Not sure what you're trying to say here "if they miss, have a much greater chance of a hit"???????

Quite simple really. He means that if archers who use a high trajectory miss their shot, the arrow tends to go either infront of the intended target or behind it ie. hitting the ground in both cases. In lucky occasions the arrow will miss the intended target and hit somewhere else in the unit, this is not happening often though, due to high trajectory.
Slingers, on the other hand, use low trajectory. So when they sling on a target, say a guy in the front row, and 'miss' that guy, chances are that they will hit another guy in the 2nd or 3rd row. This is much higher than archers due to low trajectory.

and I agree completely with Kraxis.

[Thoros of Myr]

and I agree completely with Sjakihata

a nice advantage of slingers.

[Jagger]

I have to agree that archers and slingers are deadly.

I hired some mercenary Belearic slingers. I used them against a single unit of stationary Libyan spearmen with this huge shield. I watched the slingers closely because it was a small battle with my three units against one Libyan. The slingers mowed them down.

My first thought was that huge shield should have protected the entire body of the Libyan soldier except the head. Unless the shields are penetrated, those slingers shouldn't have hit, much less killed, many of those stationary Libyans.

Archers are very expensive and very effective. As the Gauls, I am using those forester archers. Typically they kill between 2 to 3 times their numbers in each battle.

Something is wrong with the kill rates of archers. Or shields aren't working.

[desdichado]

Sjakihata,

thanks for clearing up. Man in front ducks his head, man behind loses his!

One thing I've noticed tonight is that casualties from missile fire seem to get healed more often than casulaties from hand to hand.

Two battles in a row my merc unit of slingers has healed every single casualty, 20-30 each time and it is all from missile fire. My cav units were in h2h and almost no casulaties healed. Admitedly my general has a chirugeon on his retinue but the difference is quite amazing.

[Red Harvest]

I have to agree that archers and slingers are deadly.

I hired some mercenary Belearic slingers. I used them against a single unit of stationary Libyan spearmen with this huge shield. I watched the slingers closely because it was a small battle with my three units against one Libyan. The slingers mowed them down.

My first thought was that huge shield should have protected the entire body of the Libyan soldier except the head. Unless the shields are penetrated, those slingers shouldn't have hit, much less killed, many of those stationary Libyans.

Archers are very expensive and very effective. As the Gauls, I am using those forester archers. Typically they kill between 2 to 3 times their numbers in each battle.

Something is wrong with the kill rates of archers. Or shields aren't working.

That is my impression as well. (It is cool when you are zoomed in to hear shots pinging off the shields and see the shields move, though.) With large shields those Balearics should have fairly low kill rates. Soft lead is not going to be a good penetrator at the velocities they would get from a sling (surface area will be high.) I agree with the threads discussing their bone smashing effect though against unarmoured/unshielded portions of the body.

Interestingly, I get few kills with Balearics vs. the body guard cav. Most shots are misses, even up close. You would think the horses wouldn't be too happy about getting clobbered with led balls.

My Balearics got mowed down by archers though! A single volley from a single unit of archers on flat ground took out 14 of 80 slingers!!! I made my slingers run away as quickly as possible.

Last night with a single two exp. chevron Balearic unit I mowed down a unit of armour upgraded Hastati, and armour upgraded Principes, before switching to deplete two velite units by over half, and the third by a third. I also shot down a quarter of the body guards before I ran out of ammo, then finished everyone off with a cav rush. I was slightly uphill and the shots were frontal and stationary. This is not atypical for Balearics against staionary units in my experience on "very hard."

[Oaty]

Maybe its not the killing rate of the archers its that they seem to carry a whole lot more missles than previous totalwar games. So how many arrows do they carry for someone who looked in the stats files? What makes archers so deadlt against the A.I. is they wo'nt charge when they are going to get shot to death. Whereas when I'm defending occasionally the comp will have supreme missle superiority and I wo'nt and ca'nt logically camp on the hill so I charge all men forward and engage the enemy.

Now if I was to take charge of there army and attack the comp (now with my forces) I probably could sit there and tear them up and win because the comp refuses to take the battle to the human when you are raining death upon them and they are the defender

[Kraxis]

Quite simple really. He means that if archers who use a high trajectory miss their shot, the arrow tends to go either infront of the intended target or behind it ie. hitting the ground in both cases. In lucky occasions the arrow will miss the intended target and hit somewhere else in the unit, this is not happening often though, due to high trajectory.
Slingers, on the other hand, use low trajectory. So when they sling on a target, say a guy in the front row, and 'miss' that guy, chances are that they will hit another guy in the 2nd or 3rd row. This is much higher than archers due to low trajectory.

and I agree completely with Kraxis.

Yep, but not only that.
If an arrow misses its target (man, as every archer targets a single man in TW) it is likely to the ground besides him, if lucky it will hit one of the guys around him.
A slingbullet on the other hand if it misses the target to either side will be presented with a much denser target in the form of depth and frontage. Even if it falls into a lane in the unit it is likely to hit a guy some way down the lane (the bullet is not likely to have come from a man who could look down the lane and see open land).

I'm surprised though that archers kill slingers easily. Historically it was the other way around. Archers hated the slingers, possibly because the bullets were almost invisible?
It must be noted that archers were usually more effective against shielded enemies, as the arrows could penetrate the shield if lucky, bullets couldn't. Also archers could be formed much tighter than slingers, so fire for effect would be much more effective from archers...

[Oleander Ardens]

Well a sling had a longer effective range than most bows, at least there a a good deal of qoutes regarding it. As a ranged trooper used to spread killing without taking it getting shot should have been pretty bad, especially if you had only little protection...

In any case it seems that CA made the Slingers slowfiring heavy-hitters with normal range while archers are weaker faster shooters with higher accuracy, sometimes longer range and and a extra tactical option - flaming arrows...

So a combination of both should be rather effective, especially if you have Balearic Slingers and Foresters

Yeah and Slingers are a great option in wet climate, at least some random tests didn't show any affection by rain, and didn't seemed to be bothered by the Pikes - although I need more testing to confirm this

Cheers

[Red Harvest]

I was checking the units stats and it appears that all archer units (mounted, foot, etc.) are "piercing" while slingers are listed as "blunt." It does not appear that archers are divided into armour piercing vs. "standard" bow, but I have not dug into this very deeply.

I find the "blunt" spec hard to reconcile with the effect some slingers have on shielded and armoured opponents at range. Of course, I'm thinking specifically of the Balearics, and they have really high stats, so perhaps this is an unfair representation of slingers in general.

[Oleander Ardens]

Hm could it be that "blunt" means equally effective against all types of armor? Taking it not even into account? Could explain the kills of armored enemys, but it is all uncertain yet...

Some more testranges needed

We could really need more detailed info about the math behind the beattiful numbers, but than it's more fun finding out yourself. And what we talk about if all would be clear right away

OA

[Lichgod]

Some points on Slingers/Archers/Javelin troops.

From experience as the Carthaginians: Balearic slingers have longer range, greater missile attack values plus come with 2 experience points but are costly – still worth it. I have used both, normal Carth slingers and Balearic side by side. The Carth had to advance closer to the enemy to shoot while the Balearic were shooting already.

Firing arc for slingers is very low. They are “in-front” troops. But them behind and on Fire-at-will and you will get lots of friendly fire losses. After the enemy closes, I send them way to the rear so they don’t start shooting again. One fun experience I watched showed how flat their fire arc really is. I was in Gaul, in a forest battle vs Gauls. I knew they had a line of infantry in front of their archers but could not see them, only the archers. I closed with two Balearic slingers to engage the archer unit. As I zoomed in on the Gauls to watch them die, I notice dead swordsman bodies appearing in a nice row in front of the Gaul archers. Turns out the slingshots were passing through the hidden, crouching infantry on the way to hitting the archers. Some of those poor dudes were taking the bullet for the archers.

Hitting power. I think sling/archers are about the same vs light troops but modifiers for armor and weather and terrain (like trees) adversely impact arrows but not bullets. Of course the big factor is the combat rating of the unit.

Units. I visited a site today that had combat ratings for all the units off a link from a post at the tw.com site. I was especially interested in how Slingers/Archers/Javelin troops compared between different nations. From memory:
Javelin – mostly the same, 6 shots with 50m range, slight difference in combat ratings. Did not look too closely. Pila troops have 2 shots, 50m range.
Archers – Best is Gaul Forrester, 30 shots, 170m range, 15 attack with good melee attack, 9. 2nd best was Egypts Pharroen Archers – same but 14 attack with armor. Most archers had range of 120m with later/elite archers (Crete and Roman Auxilla) having 170m range – all with 30 shots.
Slingers – All slingers have 40 shots. Non-Balearic/Rhodes Slingers have range 80m with these elite slingers range at 120m. The elite have attack values around 10 or so (memory hazy).

Archers are not native troops for Carthage. Basically, as Carthaginians, it showed to buy Balearic slingers (w/plus 2 exper) for field armies and one normal slinger as a cheap town garrison unit (especially for stone wall cities) to buff up defenses. I am going to sail a fleet w/Leader to Rhodes/Crete buy some mercenary Crete Archers (rumored to be available in the Turkish province next to Rhodes as well) and Rhodes slingers. I like my Carth armies to have 2 slinger and 2 javelin units with the Javelin troops often left behind as nucleus for garrisons in newly conquered and exterminated cities.

Lichgod

[Spino]

Some of you guys really need to take a look at the unit stats in the export_descr_unit.txt file to see what's going on with missile units before commenting:

Your average slinger unit has a paltry Primary Attack rating of 4 with a Range of 80. Balearic and Rhodian Slingers are so deadly because they possess a Primary Attack rating of 9 with a Range of 120, making them the most effective slinger units in the game and more effective than basic archer units.

Basic archer & horse archer units possess a Primary Attack value of 7 for their bows with a Range of 120 making them only mildy successful against well protected troops. Generally the more expensive the archer unit the better the Primary Attack rating of the missile and the better the range. High value archer & mounted archer units like Persian Cavalry, Cretan Archers, Pharaoah's Bowmen, British Light Chariots Forester Warband, etc. possess Primary Attack values for their missiles ranging anywhere from 10 to 15 and ranges up to 170! The last few units will undoubtedly take a heavy toll on most armored enemies long before they come within arm's reach. In terms of pure missile power the Forester Warband unit is THE best archer unit of the game, effectively making them the Longbow unit of RTW. With Weapon Upgrades and maxed out Experience Chevrons these guys are long range killing machines that can punch through anything, even taking down War & Armored Elephants with only a few volleys...

Most javelin units of the foot and mounted variety possess Primary Attack ratings of 6 and 7 respectively. The Primary Attack values for foot javelins ranges from 5 to 9 with the highest value applied to all Skirmisher Warbands and Illryian Mercenaries. The Primary Attack values for mounted units range from 6 to 12 with the highest number used by Eastern General Cavalry. All javelins have a Range of 50.

The average pilum wielding unit possesses a Primary Attack rating of 13. The Primary Attack values for pilae ranges from 11 to 18 with the highest value applied to Urban Cohorts. All pilae have a Range of 35.

Simply based on the numbers it seems that the average javelin unit is no deadlier than your average archer unit but perhaps the fact that it the weapon is classified as a 'spear' gives it a boost against armored units. Pilae are also classified as 'spear' weapons and obviously make a big impression on most targets.

Beyond this, everyone's favorite Head Hurlers have a Primary Attack value of 17 and possess a Range of 40. And although it doesn't look like it their missiles are also categorized as inflicting 'fire' damage which would explain where they get their morale sapping effect from.

I use Adonys' half speed version of his excellent Kill Rate mod and I really like the effect. Melee deaths were simply too fast at the default setting but I do not feel missile units are way overpowered with the Kill Rate mod in effect. I think the one thing that people are noticing more than anything else is the extraordinary performance of high end missile units which clearly illustrate their superiority in battle compared to their plain vanilla counterparts. Perhaps some minor tweaking is needed here and there but nothing drastic.

[LittleRaven]

Ah, Spino, thanks for explaining why my slingers weren't killing the way Red was describing. I really think that vanilla slingers work just fine.

But I have to agree with some other that archers are out of control, especially when compared to javelins. I'm toying with balance now, trying to find that sweet spot where archers can hurt the enemy enough to be worth getting, but not be the destroyer of worlds that they are now. Not there yet.

[Jagger]

As the Gauls, I found my archers to be devastating. But they are some of the best in the game. I also found Belairic slingers to be excellent. With archers, I was typically getting 180-340 kills a battle. I thought the kill rates were way too high.

I reduced the missile attack values by 1/2 and rounded down for odd numbers. I also increased the shield values of medium and large shields. Value 4 shields, I increased to 6. Value 5 shields, I increased to 8. I felt large shield troops shouldn't suffer too many casualties from archers or slingers.

I introduced these changes in the middle of my campaign. Right now, I am happy with the results. When I start a new campaign with inexperienced archers, i will have a better feel for the effectiveness of archers.

One difference between archers and regular infantry is that archers gain two effectiveness points in missile attacks for each gain in experience. Regular infantry only gains one for one.