Quote Originally Posted by econ21
I don't believe that is a fact. Most sources I have read indicate rough parity in effective range. (It will, of course, depend on the bow - both longbows and crossbows can vary a lot.) Also the longbow's lethality was mainly at the shorter ranges.

Here's about the first hit google throws up on "longbow crossbow range":

http://www.thebeckoning.com/medieval...oss_l_v_c.html



Who are you fighting? Against Venetian massed stacks of pavise crossbowmen, I can see you being disappointed although I doubt anyone would seriously try to duke it out with them. But against anything else I've encountered, my longbowmen do great. A unit of longbowmen will pretty much destroy a stationary unit of knights, dismounted or mounted, let along pikemen and more lightly armoured troops. The trouble comes when the enemy is not stationary...
The crossbow has a better punch then a longbow but a normal crossbow cant accurately hit a target 300+ meters away.
True that there are many different types of crossbows and they all varied in strength and effective range. But theres only two types of longbows the ones made of yew(the english longbows) and those not made of yew. But normal crossbows had inferior range and all the variations had a very low rate of fire. And that homepage isnt very scientific.
The way english longbowmen used their bows wasnt straight fire, as you would do with the crossbow, but they all fired into certain areas to carpet that area with bodkin arrows. But the bodkin arrow wasnt made to combat platemail as the platemail wasnt really widespread at that time, instead it was made to pierce chainmail, so the crossbow bolt with its greater energy would easily pierce most types of armor within its effective range.
The main difference is that the longbow has a better rate of fire then the crossbow.

The reason i said the longbowman wasnt better then alot of the other archers in the game, is based on their stats. Ofc you will rule the battlefield with longbowmen when fighting against the AI. But i havent tried mp yet, so its mostly based on the stats of the units which are pretty much identical.