archers who needs them :)

[Servius]

jesus I NEED archers. Archers + dumb AI = I win.

Archers decide bridge battles. Archers are huge in city battles too, especially for clearing the area around the breaks in the wall and wiping out city-square guards without losing any of your own guys (cause the AI just sits there and dies).

They are decisive in open-field battles too, especially defensive ones (at least they were in MTW where the terrain actually allowed you to bunker atop a hill in the corner somewhere).

[Red Harvest]

I'm convinced that most of the high end archer units (you know, the ones you face most of the time) are overpowered. Why? Because in large armies I only need two or so to dictate the battle (in SP.) Same for when they are in the enemy's camp.

I can't just march up and endure the fire. In this time period I should be able to march through it with reasonably small losses (having effective units when I reach the enemy line.) Standing around in it would be stupid, but if I can close, I should not suffer. That is not the way it plays in my experience. (Suppose it would if I had desert axemen...grrr.)

[BDC]

Creten archers vs Madcedonian armies, with some hoplite anti-cav. They win, the enemy simply cannot get near to you without breaking. I have massacred thousands of Macedonians for almost no losses.

[Beirut]

Archers are great!

I like to up the quality of the enemy's armour and weapons, then fight outnumbered (1.5 to 1 perhaps )with a few units of phalanxes, archers to the rear, and a few cav units for mobility.

Win some, lose some. But always good meatgrinder fun.

[Red Harvest]

I just had a nice army and faction leader massacred by a small besieging army. It had no family member, but it did have 3 units of chosen archers mixed with a few scraps of falxmen. I sallied out to break the siege. My two phalanx units could not get into range without being cut to pieces...and my cav could not break them because of the falxmen mixed with them. It was on very hard, but it illustrates the silliness of archery in RTW. Those units should have been dead meat.

[lancer63]

I'm still learning to use the archer units in RTW. In my MTW campaings, archers and xbowmen accounted for a pretty piece of the casualties I inflicted in battle. Funny that slingers seem to have the same range as archers and appear more efective too. Thanks for the tips guys.

[TheDuck]

I'm convinced that most of the high end archer units (you know, the ones you face most of the time) are overpowered. Why? Because in large armies I only need two or so to dictate the battle (in SP.) Same for when they are in the enemy's camp.

I can't just march up and endure the fire. In this time period I should be able to march through it with reasonably small losses (having effective units when I reach the enemy line.) Standing around in it would be stupid, but if I can close, I should not suffer. That is not the way it plays in my experience. (Suppose it would if I had desert axemen...grrr.)

Aren't you playing on VH battles?? Which might have a slight in influence on the outcome??

[Red Harvest]

Aren't you playing on VH battles?? Which might have a slight in influence on the outcome??

It must be awfully slight... My own archers are deadly, yet my side is the one taking the penalties on VH. To my way of thinking that shoots down the difficulty level as being the culprit (pun intended.) A single unit of my own archers causes grievous damage in only a few volleys--usually enough that the targeted unit is no longer a melee threat (so I swap and decimate the next unit.) I have not heard if missile attack is given a +7--it sounds as if it is only applied to base melee attack/charge values. Even if the battle line marches straight for mine, I can usually destroy the melee effectiveness of 2 enemy infantry units per archer unit deployed. The depleted enemy infantry units usually rout as they meet my line or shortly thereafter. From what I have gathered, archers were not that effective during this time frame.

Blaming it on VH fails for the same reason as it does when cav are discussed. My own light cav are still decidedly lethal despite VH, and like archer volleys, they tear up infantry. Infantry...now they suffer on VH, especially the smaller phalanx units.

I don't think the base level archers are all that powerful, but the many, many special units get range and missile attack boosts that often result in 10% casualties per volley at range (I've seen 15% before with equal sized units.) Want to place any bets on how likely that was in the RTW time period? If it had been so, armies would have rapidly converted to a heavy reliance on archery and been successful. Afterall, who would want to stand in a dense packed infantry formation so that archers could mow them down, while they could do nothing in return? No, archery must have been much less effective.

[hoof]

IMO, the AI in MTW did a much better job of dealing with human armies with archers than in RTW (on the offense). I have many vivid memories of the AI forming up en masse outside of archer range before charging me. I have yet to see that done effectively by the AI in RTW.

The frustrating thing is that it would be so much more effective in RTW due to the friendly fire issues. In MTW, it was very safe to have a wall of spearmen with your archers *behind* them (until the enemy mass hit your line). In RTW, placing archers behind another unit is a sure way of killing a bunch of your men except in very specific situations. This forces you to put your archers in front of your front line. If the AI did the "form up outside of arrow range then charge" maneuver from MTW, you would get only a couple volleys before being forced to retreat your archers behind your front line. The mass would then hit your front line, and you'd have a bunch of useless archer units for the rest of the battle.

In my experience, RTW AI armies tend to attack much more piecemeal, which allows you to tear them up. They'll charge a few units at your archer line, you pull them back, kill those exposed enemy units, rinse, repeat. Half the time, the lured enemy unit is the enemy General, which makes it even worse for the AI (apparantly the General unit gets so fixated on the archer unit they ignore the mass of spears that the archers just ran behind).

Of course, this is only on defence. On offence, I can pick apart the AI with archers just like in MTW. Actually, I find the AI in RTW tends to send cavalry after your archers quite nicely (one of the few good ways to minimize this tactic). Now if only it would figure out when the archers have reached safety and turn the cavalry around ...

[andrewt]

I've noticed that as well. My Cretan archers almost always run out of arrows because the enemy walks to them instead of gathering out of range and then running at them all at the same time. I get so much time to shoot and I could rout them one by one because they come close one by one.

Another reason that the higher level archers are very deadly is because they are supposed to be a counter against higher level units. However, many higher level units have better defense values because of defense skill or increased rank bonuses, both of which don't protect against archer fire. Units like armored hoplites do well against archers. Even standard hoplites can take a lot of archer fire. Of course, horse archers can move to their back where their shield bonus doesn't apply.

[warlordmb]

I thought I'd sling my pennies' worth in to the pot.

Yesterday I loaded the Total Realism 3.1 Mod by Gaius Julius. One of the changes it makes is to the size of archer units. (60 on Large instead of 80). When I read this it seemed to make more sense, particularly as this was the same in MTW. The other thing I realised was how dependent I had become on large numbers of archer units in my army creation. I had made a point of sending a spare family member to the greek city states to recruit 3-4 Cretan archers and then on to Scythia to grab a couple (at least) of horse archers.

I guess the point I am trying to make is this - if you are more into realism then drop the reliance on archer units. Combat in this time period was heavily reliant on infantry. Rome's military dominance was built on the effectiveness of her legions who were the best (overall!) heavy infantry of that period. It is really down to personal choice, so whatever tickles you is OK.

The size of archer units in Rome should be adjusted, in my opinion, to about two thirds, or smaller. A unit of 80 archers should not be able to destroy a 80 strong unit of say, armoured hoplites. It never happened back then. Missile troops played a supporting role to the real battle winners - the infantry. If archery units were really as effective as the game makes them do you think that Julius Ceasar, Pompeii, Marius and Sulla would not have adopted that into their military doctrine. These were the best Commanders of the First Republic and they relied on infantry, because that was how war was fought. Part of the reason was also because bow technology was not as advanced as some seem to think at that time.

Using the realism Mod 3.1 forced me to change my battle strategy. In this mod archer units are not available until after the Marian reforms. Instead, I have to make use of slingers which means putting them out in front of my main battle line (composed mostly, now, of Infantry cohorts) and relying on my infantry to slug it out. It is only my opinion, but I found it much more satisfying winning with infantry and not relying as heavily on archer units to shred advancing enemy formations. The other advantage to this new strategy is that I now rely much more on my cohorts to make better use of their pilum (again, this is far more historical). This mod has had tweaks to the effectiveness of javelin and other thrown missile stats making them more effective.

For anyone interested in a more historical battle experience, jog over to the TW Centre forum and have a peek at the R:TR Mod 3.1. I would recomend it.

However, realism is not everybody's style. If watching one of your archer units slaughter one of the AI's prime units toots your horn then that's fine. We all have our own playing styles. Me, I go for realism and that's because I have been a long time admirer of the Roman legions and this game is exactly what I've been waiting for since I first played games on a PC.

[TheDuck]

It must be awfully slight... My own archers are deadly, yet my side is the one taking the penalties on VH. To my way of thinking that shoots down the difficulty level as being the culprit (pun intended.) A single unit of my own archers causes grievous damage in only a few volleys--usually enough that the targeted unit is no longer a melee threat (so I swap and decimate the next unit.) I have not heard if missile attack is given a +7--it sounds as if it is only applied to base melee attack/charge values. Even if the battle line marches straight for mine, I can usually destroy the melee effectiveness of 2 enemy infantry units per archer unit deployed. The depleted enemy infantry units usually rout as they meet my line or shortly thereafter. From what I have gathered, archers were not that effective during this time frame.

Blaming it on VH fails for the same reason as it does when cav are discussed. My own light cav are still decidedly lethal despite VH, and like archer volleys, they tear up infantry. Infantry...now they suffer on VH, especially the smaller phalanx units.

I don't think the base level archers are all that powerful, but the many, many special units get range and missile attack boosts that often result in 10% casualties per volley at range (I've seen 15% before with equal sized units.) Want to place any bets on how likely that was in the RTW time period? If it had been so, armies would have rapidly converted to a heavy reliance on archery and been successful. Afterall, who would want to stand in a dense packed infantry formation so that archers could mow them down, while they could do nothing in return? No, archery must have been much less effective.

Ahh.. somehow I got it that your units were being wasted by the AIs... my bad.

On the 'archery units were more effective'.. maybe...

A few points obfuscate...

The Parthians at the time (as modeled in RTW) made great use of horse archers and were very difficult to deal with in ancient battles. Descriptions of these battles indicate that the Parthians were very good with bows on horseback.. so this argues that bows were effective tools overall. The issue may be with armor piercing power. That I could believe..

Another point is just a general observation made by many military historians: Hannibal on a few occasions demonstrated the effectiveness of cavalry when used correctly against infantry based tactics, and this did not push the Romans to highly develop their cavalry wing. That didn't happen until 350ish AD under more intense pressure from groups who proved to the Romans beyond a shadow of a doubt that well used cavalry can trump well used infantry.

There is also tradition to consider. Just as our current military has an understanding of warfare based on past experience, so did the Romans. If they didn't make big use of archers, it could just mean that they were successful enough without scads of them. Agincourt is proof that they can be mighty effective though.. (and yes, I know the British longbow is quite a development from Roman times.. but it is a bow!).

Finally, it is also possible that the use of the pilum delayed development of archery until later. Javelin and pila attacks were know to be quite effective and frightening. And given the standard 'engage with pila' then charge tactic used by Roman legions, I can believe they had that part down to a fine art. It is also important to note that many Roman enemies used javelins rather than bows. So a legionarre that understood the employment of javelins could pick up thrown ones from the enemy and easily use the enemy's javelins with proficiency. That may have something to do with it also.