Odd yet interesting find regarding missile units

[Kobal2fr]

This doesn't seem that bad, but if you analyze it empirically, you'll find that overloading end units with fire is a poor strategy. The right Y who gets shot at by 8 guys almost certainly dies, but possibly 3 or 4 times over, where those archers that scored hits could have killed 3 or 4 enemies if they were all pointed at a different enemy soldier.

Well, yes and no. It would certainly be true if archers did hit their targets consistently. But in reality, unless they are exped a lot, they have a very noticeable tendency to undershoot or overshoot. Now, the L and R archers undershooting will still miss, but if they overshoot, they have a longer line of "opportunity targets", if it makes any sense to you.

Sinan noted this in his thread relating to HA tactics : shooting the side of the box kills more than shooting the wide front, because overshooting arrows still fall down into the mass of men, instead of safely behind them. Same thing for L and R, I think.

Of course, this is speculating, I'd need to test thoroughly to be sure. But I'm no thorough tester .

[Satyr]

While I haven't say down and tested it, but from playing for a while, I would say that archers do not ONLY shoot things straight in front of the. If you have a long line of archers two deep and there is a square of spears in front of only the center 10 archers, all the archers will shoot at the square of spears and if there are no obstacles they will all hit with about the same level of accuracy. The point of this thread is that when they don't have line of sight you can improve their accuracy by putting them in a formation so that they all do have line of sight.