One thing that never made sense was why when you finally get units with guns, they end up being worse than the archers . I mean their range is less than the archers, and they still only do the same amount of damage give or take. Then to top it all off, they take forever to reload. So it makes you wonder why they are even there. I may be wrong about this, but thats what i have noticed.

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The most iv seen archers kill at one time is 3, for gunpowder it was 6.

And they scare the hell out of the enemy.

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Exactly. I'm not fond of gun units myself (aside from cannon and mortars), but I've discovered they *are* excellent at seriously disrupting the enemy's morale. In my experience thus far, gun-equipped soldiers seem to do best when defending bridge battles (and on other terrain that forces the attacker to launch a frontal assault). They can actually be pretty useful when you don't have to worry as much about protecting their flanks.

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I find the gunpowder units very useful due to their volley's morale penalty. recently, i was fighting in a desert territory and a arquebusier unit or two made up for my overall lack of archers, with only a few spear, and cav, with one feudal sgt unit helping out. Is it just me, or do the gunpowder infantry tend to have higher initial morale and stamina than an equivalent archer unit?

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Historically, the benefit of gunpowder units was their _cost_.

To take a person and train them to be deadly with a bow required years and years of dedication. You couldn't just hand a bow to some conscript and expect them to be effective with it.

Along comes gunpowder, and it becomes VERY easy to train a person to "point and click". It takes a while to load, sure, but if you can field 1000 gunners for the same cost as 200 archers, it's an easy choice. Especially given the armor-penetrating qualities of a gun.

That's reflected in the game: gunpowder units are actually quite cheap (175) when compared to the elite archers of any variety (heck - vanilla archers are 225)

The first gunpowder weapons, the handgonnes, were very inaccurate and very short range - but they packed a punch. People who fielded them were not expected to rely solely on them to be effective. The Hangunner units in MTW reflect this - they're capable infantrymen, but they can also fire off a volley or two of armor penetrating goodness. However, their weapons have a fairly short range.

The Arquebuses had a greater range and were considered a primary weapon - because they were deadly enough on their own. This is reflected in the game by a weapon with a Range/Velocity of 4000/300, and a unit that's not as good at melee as it's earlier counterpart.

By way of stats comparison: the range/velocity of the longbow is 6000/150, arbalest is 6000/250. The Range statistic is primarily used to determine how close a unit must be for the "archer" to target it, not /actually/ the effective range of the weapon. Velocity is more important at determining how far/fast the projectile will go. If you consider that arquebusiers were not trained to be sharp-shooters, but to "wait for the whites of their eyes", then a shorter "targetting" range makes sense.

In looking over the projectilestats file, the only thing I might play with is the accuracy of the Arquebus (it's at .07; all of the non-gunpowder are .6+), but only a little bit, and maybe bump up the weapon velocity stat by 50.

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The guns during the medieval ages werent the highest quality. They were pretty rough.

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I was messing around with the Byzantines in late and was trying to use an all Renaissance style army. I found Arquebusiers quite effective and easily won some uphill battles with them. They’re decently armored and additional armor upgrades really improve their survivability against archers. Whenever an enemy tried to charge downhill against my guns I had them retreat behind my spears while my Katanks flanked them. The secret is to advance slow and pull back behind your spears if you get attacked. The incompetent AI pretty much ran around and died and the morale penalty is awesome too. Gunpowder units advantage isn’t really exploited in an unmodded game because you can’t train massive amounts of them on the cheap like in history.

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I think you have most of the answers above. The main thing to remember is they're not replacements for archers, but a whole new style of unit and you have to use them appropriately. I use them more to scare the enemy than to kill them. Get the timing right and you can turn an enemy charge into a rout. If you deploy them 3 or four ranks deep they will rotate their lines and keep up a higher firing rate (though each volley is smaller). The AP ability also helps with those heavily armoured late units that your archers don't touch.

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Handguns/Arquebusiers are also armour piercing like crosswbows/arbalests and unlike archers. I only tend to use them defensively. Some players do seem to assume that the black powder weapons in MTW will immediately supercede all other infantry.

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Mac,
the smaller volleys were of immense advantage in breaking enemy morale, as it was essentially a more constant, withering fire, never knowing where or when the next shot would come. Even though the killing power is far less, your other units make up for it, catching the enemy forces as they rout. I took a western warfare course in college, and they used to also utilize the old roman columns, fire and turn to the rear, reload, and repeat.
Mil

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I believe that the morale penalty comes into effect if even one member of the unit dies. If I could set my men in a unit 60 deep I would do it for the rapid fire effect.

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they kinda suck...theyre actually less deadly. and cant fire in rain. their reload time is the longes of them all. as said above theyre good for scaring enemies. so actually their portrayed realisticly.

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guns=morale killers
i always use them in combination with archers, with the archers doing the most killing and the gunners crushing morale slowly.

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For me when my army has gunners and im up a hill then it means i got some good news. I always put them into the front where they have a better shot at enemys.

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I put gunpowder units between my culverin/cannon. Stack them in rows 4 or 5 deep and they will fire continuously and will only see combat if you use them as chasers. If it is raining I use them as reserve light infantry behind my halbreds.

mfberg

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