flaming arrows

[bnek]

are they more effective than normal arrows or against certain unit types/formations?

[Fearless]

I seem to recall that flaming arrows are better against mailed knights.

[Forward Observer]

That's a good question, and I suppose someone should do a test.

I use the flaming arrow mode almost exclusively because it make it easier to direct my missile fire and of course it looks cool when your target spontaneously combusts like the've been hit by a Molotov cocktail.

I don't have the feeling I am losing any effectivenes by doing so, but I could be mistaken.

In practice a flaming arrow would not have the range or accuracy of a regular bolt since to make it a flaming arrow in the first place it would be be weighted down with some type of oil soaked material wrapped around the head or shaft.

That alone would make flaming arrows sort of pointless except for the intended purpose of setting structural targets on fire, and of course this usage is not modeled in the game.

The arrows along with some of the flaming cannon ball effects are really pretty much gimmicks that the developers (Hollywood does this too) added to spice up the game, and compared to reality they are way over done, but as I said they do give one the ability to direct ones missile fire, and damn if they don't do exactly what the dev's intended---look cool as hell in the game.

Cheers

[Roy1991]

The drawback is that they take a lot longer to reload..
Firearrows are only good for dropping morale.

[FactionHeir]

In RTW, flaming arrows had:
decreased accuracy
decreased damage

but
lowered morale if it killed two or more units in a group

But IMO from the incineration effect you'd expect them to do more damage, but they don't.

[ScrapTower]

IIRC the tutorial said that they did more damage but were less accurate, and took more time to load.

[FactionHeir]

Yes, i forgot to mention that you fire at roughly half the rate at which normal arrows fire.

[Decker]

I normaly use fire arrows against units with spears or units on the flanks so I can free up my cavalry a little bit. Then I use crossbowmen and regular arrows for regular infantry or their heavy infantry. And I have notice the decreased accuracy when shooting at a target that is far away but up close, a volley or two if it is possible, really helps(and not to mention it looks nice when they burn ).

[katank]

Flame arrows are useful against heavily armoured targets if your missile attack is low (ie. archer militia vs. dismounted chiv knights). Armour piercing units like longbows don't need to do this.

Also, they drop morale quickly. Thus, targeting enemy militia units in a melee will often rout them and let your melee units gain an upper hand. Being hit by flaming arrows and charged in the back by cav simultaneously is usually enough to rout any unit.

Note that flaming shot is almost never useful (except against pavise xbow miltia) in an archery duel (rate of fire is more valuable in most cases). They should almost always be used against eles.

[Handel]

Wasn't the ysupposed to put the siege machines in fire (I never succeed to do this)?

[katank]

Yes, they are supposed to be able to light up siege engines. It's really, really hard for me with archers and seemingly trivial with AI.

The only reliable way to kill rams seems to be using ballista towers or better. My archers did a bit better against siege tower though.

[BigTex]

Normal arrows have higher accuracy. Which means they'll kill more with normal arrows against lower armored troops. Fire arrows increases the arrow damage allowing lower units to kill higher armored units. It also lowers morale with a significant bonus morale reduction on elephants.

They seem to be especially effective against cavalry for some reason too.

[Rothe]

I think the problem with rams is that they are so low in construction. Once they get close to the walls, the archers will not be able to fire the arrows straight at the ram, and they switch to firing those very high angle shots.
I suspect the high angle shots have a severely reduced damage and thus they are unlikely to set anything on fire.

Not sure about this, but I guess one could test this by firing at a ram so that the archers are outside the gates. This is really difficult though.

Siege towers are high and since they are over the level of the archers, they can be shot at with the normal angle. This translates into them taking more damage from fire arrows.

As for the horses, I think it is the barding (the armor on the horse itself) that matters. Unarmored targets take heavy casualties from arrows anyway and mailed knights have unarmored horses. Try firing at fully armored knights that have horses in chainmail or better armor.