Missile accuracy vs. kill speed?

[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