Missile fire effectiveness question

[Doug-Thompson]

Like Katank says, you are talking about option "d" in a series that ends with "f." You will get much better results by some attempt at flanking.

You are talking about a fair amount of micro, too, issuing fire commands for each unit instead of "fire at will." Still, slight improvement beats none at all.

Your question was:

When facing the enemy, fireing slightly to the right is more effective ?

[edited revision]

After thinking about it, the "Fire at Will" automation may be a long way from perfect, but it does a decent job of finding vulnerabilities. It finds the "softest" targets and fires at those. Therefore, I think that if the AI finds a unit that leaves an opening on its right side, the AI will probably exploit it.

However, this means that the unit of peasants dead ahead of your archers may get the arrows you want sent to the dismounted knights right next to them. Therefore, if crossbowmen on the left of your line are in range of both, you'd probably do what Ars Moriendi proposes anyway. This is especially true if the intended target is cavalry. Horses are long critters, and their big, vulnerable sides are apparently accounted for in the game mechanics. At least that's been my experience since I accidentally discovers that missile cav running alongside enemy cavalry units dealt a lot more death than units chasing them.

Also, where you deploy your archers makes a big difference on how many opportunities they get.

Tonight, I'm going to try Ars Moriendi's idea and also try putting big squares of foot archers on opposite ends of an infantry line but still behind the melee troops. Let's see if they can create some crossfire against enemy troops in the middle. Hopefully, they won't wipe out the line infantry in front of them.