Archers on walls bug - fix on the way?

[briny_norman]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's tired of seeing my archers fire straight up into the sky instead of at the enemy when positioned on castle walls.
It makes their arrow volleys much less effective and takes away much of the advantage that castle walls are supposed to give you.
And it looks plain stupid.

Has anybody heard CA acknowledge this as a bug that will be fixed in a coming patch?

[Musashi]

It's not a bug. Think about it... only the guys at the very front of the unit would be able to lean way out over the parapet to fire straight down. The rest of te squad would be firing blind.

[Kraxis]

Yup... it is very important to spread out the archers into a single line.

Also imagine the crossbows, how are they supposed to shoot down when there are two guys in front of them blocking the view (and access)?

[briny_norman]

No, sorry. It happens no matter how much I spread them out.
Even spread out as a single line all along the breastwork at least half of the archers will fire straight up into the air.
At least that's what happening in my game - are you telling me that you don't experience this phenomenon at all?

[Sir SillyDuck]

Maybe because of the ramparts? not all archers will be in front of a 'hole' in the ramparts.

I do see the same, but I thought it was because of this no clear line of sight thing.. Though I only took notice of it with archers in the field..

[Kraxis]

It happens... but not to that extent. There are the guys that are behind the parapet and then there are the guys that might be out of range or has their vision blocked.

If my archers don't get involved in melee, they will generally get about 150-200 kills. Not bad at all. That is in fact a bit better that in the best field battles where 120 kills seems more normal.

[Spino]

I think the problem lies with the minimum angle at which archers and other missile units can fire their projectiles. Basically once an enemy unit is within a certain range a missile unit either standing on the walls or positioned on much higher ground can no longer depress their weapons low enough to take a 'direct' shot at the enemy. The engine then forces the unit to compensate by increasing the angle of fire to such a degree that the missiles 'rain' down on the enemy as opposed to being shot straight at them. Think indirect fire instead of direct fire. Hopefully modders will be able to change the minimum angle of attack once the patch is issued and appropriate files can be extracted from the packed data files.

It may look unusual but archers firing at such extreme angles is not ahistorical; at the battle of Hastings Norman archers were instructed to use high angle, indirect fire against the Saxons when it became painfully obvious that their direct fire was seriously handicapped against the Saxons who were standing on higher ground and deployed in their famous shield wall formation.

[todorp]

I was shocked to see that my musketiers shoot up fromw the wall as well, when the enemy is just below them

[Lukasa]

I think it probably is a line of sight thing - you can see the same thing in field battles if you deploy your archers right behind another unit. And I think that's a lot more reasonable than in Rome, where your archers would just shoot your own men in the back.

[dcd111]

It makes their arrow volleys much less effective and takes away much of the advantage that castle walls are supposed to give you.

I doubt that it is hindering their effectiveness in any way, since the graphical representation of how they are shooting doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how the calculations are performed, at least as I understand how it works. The game calculates whether a particular shot will hit its mark or miss, and then it displays graphically what happened in the calculations, it doesn't use collision detection after firing the shot to determine whether someone was hit. Although it might be indicating that it is difficult to hit someone standing directly below when you're up on a wall as others have said here.

[Bob the Insane]

I think it probably is a line of sight thing - you can see the same thing in field battles if you deploy your archers right behind another unit. And I think that's a lot more reasonable than in Rome, where your archers would just shoot your own men in the back.

I agree with this, I think they shot shooting directly at enemies near the walls because they can't draw a direct line of sight to the unit anymore...

I wonder if archers (like cavalry) have two attack modes now... Direct and indirect with direct being accurate but requiring LOS and indirect being inaccurate but being fired in steep arc over other objects... It would appear that each individual archer in a unit can do either one as necessary independantly of the other in the unit...

Just a guess..

[Frantz]

every time the crossbowmen recharge they get away from the parapet and so at the end only 2 or 3 on 40+ shoot directly to the enemy .... thats not good ... btw itsn not so bad and give the AI a minumum advantage while sieging ....

[Werner]

Yes, this is a bug don't know why anyone would think different.

only the guys at the very front of the unit would be able to lean way out over the parapet to fire straight down.

But they don't! Even the archers in the front don't shoot at the enemy like their supposed to. And it has diddly sh*t to do with LOS because they aim upwards even when firing towards the inside of the walls (i.e. after the enemy has stormed the gates)

I doubt that it is hindering their effectiveness in any way, since the graphical representation of how they are shooting doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how the calculations are performed

Wrong. The effectiveness is seriously hindered when firing straight up and accuracy is nill. Soldiers can be hit several times by "stray", upwards fired missles before dieing.

[pat the magnificent]

i don't get this problem to the extent some of you guys seem to. My first 2 rows along my walls shoot straight at enemies as long as they're a sufficit distance away from the wall. However when my archers/ crossbowmen are shoot towards the inside of the walls, it does seem to be rather hinkey.

this needs a bit of work, but i don't think its quite as bad as you're making it out to be. though i suppose it might be something a bit more specific pertaining to the particular units and/or settlement type you're using.

something i'd like to see implemented would be round bastion type towers near the gates that would allow for good firing angles right against the walls. Also it'd be cool if your units threw rocks and boiling oil / molten lead on enemies at the base of the walls.

mottes would be nice too, as walls seam fairly useless once artillery gets brought into the mix.

[Shahed]

There's also a bug that a drizzle reduces the effectiveness of missile fire very dramatically. Over dramtically, as if there was a storm with huge downpour.

The problem is the effect is instant, if it were to progressively get worse during the drizzle I guess that would make sense.

[Quickening]

I was shocked to see that my musketiers shoot up fromw the wall as well, when the enemy is just below them

Haha! Yes that is clearly deranged.

[stoner_fluxx]

I've seen this graphic "bug" alot during sieges. Tried doing a little test by setting archers/crossbows on the parapet and firing at troops behind the walls, inside the city/castle.

First there's a feature in the formations that doesn't allow you place troops in a straight line towards the inside of the fortification. This means that most of them will have no line of fire against troops below. But the troops that DO stand on the ledge looking down at the enemy do fire perfectly straight down as they should while the rest just do the indirect fire thing.

Really looks cool to see (some) missile troops shooting straight down into a massed formation and wasting them in droves. So in conclusion, too bad you cant place your troops a little more freely on the walls.