Archers and Slingers need tweaking

[Zatoichi]

I think another difference between MTW, STW and RTW which has been brought up before and is worth noting is that it seems like all the archers can fire at once in RTW, whereas before it was only the front 2 ranks. This makes comparisons of damage effects etc that much more tricky. That said though, I rarely have missile units run out of ammo before the battle ends even though they're all firing more arrows per volley - I guess because the combat is over that much faster in RTW?

[CBR]

Arbalesters had the potiential for high kills but took a long time as their reload was slow and they had only same range as basic archers in RTW (120 meters)

In STW/MTW you could have more than 2 ranks of archers shooting.

RTW melee is fast and of course units can run 50% faster than in MTW so its rare that RTW archers run out of ammo if enemy close in for melee quickly.


CBR

[Zatoichi]

Oh OK - my facts don't stand up to scrutiny! I'm sure there is a limit to the numbers of rows of archers/crossbows that can fire in MTW simultaneously though - although apparently it's more than 2...

Also, in certain situations, like firing in oblique lines etc, in previous games only certain archers from the unit would fire, whereas now all the archers will fire, again increasing the overall effect of a volley.

But yeah, the general speed increase can neutralise the added potency of archers - unless your trying to chase down an Egyptian army with a bunch of Sacred Band infantry... pincushion-tastic!

[ChaosLord]

I'd suggest trying the Total Combat mod ( http://www.twcenter.net/downloads/db/?mod=210 ) I've been playing with it in my latest Pontus campaign and it seems to work out pretty good. Archers/Slingers are only really effective versus unarmored/lightly armored targets. You'll only take out 1 or 2 per volley on heavily armored/shielded targets.

[Maltz]

Indeed. The AI needs some concept of dodging arrows as a whole. I wonder whether it is possible to add a concept of "enemy's arrow range" and try to stay out of it unless totally necessary.

For example, when defending a siege, AI just runs around on the street to become mobile targets of enemy archers outside. One time I had 6 regular archers in the army, and they shot down everything, including generals, that joined the parade behind the gate.

If AI knows to hide behind a tall building and wait till enemy rush in the gate, that will be more interesting. :)

[Medieval Assassin]

In Shogun archers were the best unit you could reallyl field, they were great.
In Medieval, The archers were firing blunts, I didn't like them.
In Rome, I'm really happy with standard Archers and Slingers.

For one, after playing Shogun for 2 years, I really like the archers in Rome.

[Satyr]

I don't really think that the problem is archers. I think the problem is the AI is incapable of dealing with archers if there are more that 1 or 2 of them. In MTW the AI would NOT split his forces up to chase archers unless he had cav to do it with. In RTW the AI will break his lines into many pieces to chase archers with units that can never catch them. This allows the archers to chew them up with ever being engaged. If you add in the ability to flank those broken up lines with cav and the AI completely fails to provide a battle at all!

I did have a nice surprise by the AI last night though. I was attacked by a vastly superior force of almost entirely infantry. I had 2 units of slingers and 4 cav against about 12 mostly heavy swordsmen. I ran around a lot and managed to break the AI up into many pieces. Then I could charge all my cav into a unit from different directions and wipe out a company while losing very few units. There were, what I assumed to be, 2 units chasing one of my slingers around and when I attempted to avoid the corner one of those turned out to have cut the corner and they were slingers too and just anialated my slingers. One of the only nice ploys I have seen the AI make, or maybe they just got lucky. Anyway, I did win that battle (barely).