Quote Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
I'm the same, the ranged duel is a fetish people here seem to have. Its possibly the most idiotic idea I have ever come across. Two sets of guys with bows shooting at each other while the knights look on and laugh.
you can laugh, but this sort of thing happened all the time. Crecy in 1346 saw Genoese crossbowmen being decisively outshot by English longbows. In the Wars of the Roses, many battles featured archery duels...particularly Towton in 1461 (where clever use was made of the wind direction by the Yorkists). Also at Shrewsbury in 1403, where Hotspur's archers forced the Royalist archers to withdraw.
It does seem rather suicidal though, and i've always considered missile duels to be a waste of my archers...they're better used to wipe out enemy combat units. As you rightly say, cavalry should deal with archers.

I prefer longbows with maybe some pav arbs as the ultimate 'missile curtain', but otherwise i like normal arbs, as they can perform better in wet weather and can kill half a unit in one volley if they've got decent valour. It's easy to get fixated on using loads of archers, the AI does it a lot and is then left vulnerable to being slaughtered by small elite cavalry units.