Missile accuracy vs. kill speed?

[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

[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.