archers who needs them :)

**Colovion** · 10-20-2004, 04:04

I just won a battle vs the Egyptians with my Hoplites and archers plus a little Cav work.

Basically I just setup my hoplites in a very subtle bowed formation and my 5 units of archers (2 of them Cretian) behind them. My cav just were there to cover the flanks, not for fighting unless needed. They advanced and got cut down so that barely any of them reached my lines. Most of my casualties were from friendly fire.

**Red Harvest** · 10-20-2004, 04:26

Archers of the RTW period were not generally decisive...heavy infantry was. There are some VERY powerful archer/slinger units in RTW. Seeing one or two on the field is enough to dictate how you fight the battle at times. The base units don't seem unreasonable, but the ones with high missile attack values seem over the top. I don't see much loss of killing power/accuracy with distance.

**Colovion** · 10-20-2004, 04:34

There's also no counter for an all archer army - you just get pwned left right and center before you even get within melee range.

**LordKhaine** · 10-20-2004, 04:49

I wouldn't say that. An all melee cavalry army would surely destroy an all archer army. But things are never that simple.

Personally I'd say onagers are perhaps more to be feared. You can predict what archers will do, but you can never tell where that firepot is heading. I remember one game I did, my first shot of the battle.... landed a firepot right on the enemy general killing him. And I wasn't even aiming at him!

**metatron** · 10-20-2004, 04:54

Ah, the old Rock/Paper/Scissors dynamic...

But yea, anywhere from 2 to 5 units of archers can decimate an unarmored target. Legionaries are alot harder, but then again, I have been playing as the West. The East should have compound bows, no?

**bmolsson** · 10-20-2004, 04:54

I think that the efficiency of archers really depends on the user. They are pretty useless if you don't use them wisely. If you play on a computer with a bit lower specs, you might have trouble to get them in the right place at the right time and they appear rather useless. If you have them where they really can wreak havoc, you will think they are to strong. So my point is, the balance of the archers will be very difficult since they depend a lot on the user (leader) ...... ;)

**TopHatJones** · 10-20-2004, 05:26

Archers are actually useful in this game, unlike MTW. I think it is more realistic this time around too. In MTW (not counting longbowmen) archers couldn't fire much further than I could throw a rock. They also never seemed to hit/kill anything! Even if they could they would get no more than 2 or 3 volleys before it was time to fall back due to their ridiculously short range.

I think it is realistic to practically destroy a single unit of 100 men, if they are being fired upon by 300 trained archers. No imbalance there either, 5 units of archers would put the hurt on 5 units of infantry, but the infantry would win in the end.

I like that there is more freindly fire when trying to shoot an enemy unit that is fighting a friendly unit because it is very hard to fire it just right to go over one group of heads and come down 10 feet further into another group! Its a kinda flat trajectory.

The problem is that when the archers should be firing in an arching, non-flat trajectory (like when the enemy is far away from the unit in front) the friendly fire is the same as if the units were in close combat....not cool.

Of course javelin throwers aren't nearly as bad as far as this is concerned...they are just right....except when they throw OVER the elephants!

**bmolsson** · 10-20-2004, 05:27

Originally Posted by Colovion

There's also no counter for an all archer army - you just get pwned left right and center before you even get within melee range.

Speed. Fast troops and fast commands, that's the counter.

**Ptah** · 10-20-2004, 08:02

Try fighting the "Warlord Style" Egyptians in MP - six chariots, and the rest are all Pharao's Bowmen.

Good luck trying to beat that without any onagers or weak cavalry.

**ToranagaSama** · 10-20-2004, 09:19

Are you guys talking about MP or SP?

**Quietus** · 10-20-2004, 11:14

Archers are great (I use 1 or 2, depending on the situation)! Especially when you outnumber the enemy. Just concentrate on one unit to rout and use that area as the place where you do a big flanking maneuver. You can sweep and devastate the enemy with this.