Missile fire effectiveness question

**katank** · 01-03-2007, 18:35

Oh, and if you become a horse archer nut like me, you might find yourself low on ammo for a long battle (they have weaker missile attack than foot archers, less ammo 25 vs. 30, and 2/3 of the men).

Hence, while surrounding the enemy, order the ones that are in relatively ineffective firing positions like d, e, and f from Doug's system to not fire and merely sit there. Once the shooting HAs run out, switch their roles of bait and shooter. This is a great way to optimize and conserve ammo for maximal number of kills.

**Doug-Thompson** · 01-03-2007, 18:54

Re: HA ammo supply.

Ammo for missile cavalry is more of a concern in MTW2 than it ever was in RTW, mainly because of better-armored targets. It's not a real danger or a game breaker, but it is annoying to have to melee units that should have been killed with arrows.

I also find myself turning off "fire are will" on my enveloping units until they are in position. This is especially true of javelin cavalry, which only get eight shots and fire on the move. They'll unload into a bunch of peasants if you're not careful. I also leave fire at will off while the HA are running, switching it on when they get where I want or can walk. This lets them fire with improved accuracy compared to firing while running.

Ammo's not so much of a problem for foot missile units because those don't fire on the move. I normally leave "fire at will" on continuously for foot units until there's a friendly fire problem. Sometimes I even put them on "defend" so they won't move and will keep firing.

**Spark** · 01-03-2007, 20:18

I believe the shield bonus is applied to shots hitting anywhere a 90 degree arc from the unit's front to the unit's right. Defense "skill" bonus gets ignored by missle fire, and armor counts all around. Some units have high armor and no shield, some have lower armor plus shield, so depending on which angle you're shooting them from, pick your targets accordingly.

**Spark** · 01-03-2007, 20:26

Sorry, I meant from the unit's front to the unit's left (the shield side) (apparently you can't edit your posts or make another post right after - talk about stupid limitations :| )

**Blademun** · 01-04-2007, 03:22

Yeah, it IS a stupid limitation. The limitation is that junior members can't edit their posts period. Which is dumb.

But enough bashing the mods. I gotta admit I had no clue about this shield stuff. I stopped playing the TW series after MTW because Roman Era = No Fun for me. So this shield stuff is pretty new to me. I knew about the enfilade however. This game just got more complicated...

**RTKBarrett** · 01-04-2007, 05:35

This should help u mate...

**Spark** · 01-04-2007, 05:40

Thanks for posting that, Barrett.

This brings me to another question, if a unit does not carry a shield (e.g. two-handed infantry), does the "skill" defense rating get taken into account against all hits in a 180 degree arc in front of the soldier, or does it still only take into account that 90 degree arc to his right (with his left getting a 0 from shield)?