Missile Weapons

[Lord_hazard]

The english longbowmen did not fire aimed shots an individual targets 300 meters away, they fired aimed shots into an area. And there wasnt a head archer who said ready, aim, fire all of the time, these men have been training their butts of since childhood and they were able to fire in unison without someone barking orders. They DID have 60-70 arrows, but not all at the same time, there were some boys who would run around a give them more when needed. The longbow was the machinegun of its time, BUT it simply wasnt cost effective enough compared to the crossbow and gunpowder, which is prob why only the english used them in any large scale as the other countries didnt want to invest in the massive training these men needed to be able to fire the longbow as they did.
There is one thing that bothers me in the game, only sherwood archers have longbows made out of yew...almost every single english longbow was of yew.
All the english longbowmen should have bows made out of yew, but they should have as high a missile dmg as the sherwood archer has, which is just way too powerfull.

[Neoncat]

Archers should be more effective against units that don't have any armor and less effective against units that have armor. Especially those firearrows. They seem to kill everything they hit. Afaik flaming arrows weren't back then that effective especially against armored units.

Crossbows should be a bit more accurate and much slower to reload. I think archer should be able to fire 5 times when crossbows shoot only once.

Trees should shield a bit more your units. For now they don't shield enought to use them.

And last one but not moddable one is that units with enough large shields are like invicible against arrows when they are heading shooters. For now they drop like flies after few hits.

[crpcarrot]

The english longbowmen did not fire aimed shots an individual targets 300 meters away, they fired aimed shots into an area. And there wasnt a head archer who said ready, aim, fire all of the time, these men have been training their butts of since childhood and they were able to fire in unison without someone barking orders. They DID have 60-70 arrows, but not all at the same time, there were some boys who would run around a give them more when needed. The longbow was the machinegun of its time, BUT it simply wasnt cost effective enough compared to the crossbow and gunpowder, which is prob why only the english used them in any large scale as the other countries didnt want to invest in the massive training these men needed to be able to fire the longbow as they did.
There is one thing that bothers me in the game, only sherwood archers have longbows made out of yew...almost every single english longbow was of yew.
All the english longbowmen should have bows made out of yew, but they should have as high a missile dmg as the sherwood archer has, which is just way too powerfull.

i'm with dop 20 arrows a min just defies beleif. any sources for the comment you have made?

3 seconds to pick arrow off ground, notch, aim and release just doesnt add up

[Poulp']

I'm interferring in the discussion although I just read half of the thread
(I'll happily follow the discussion once I'll have time at home though)

IIRC, there had been a debate in the Mid Ages over whether the Xbow should be banned or not. It was considered by nobles as a non honorable weapon.
The point was that with that weapon a one month trained peasant could kill a knight that trained from birth.

There's a mention about a debate over it in a council (forgot which one; historians will correct me)

As a comparison, it seems the bow was not considered an "evilly-effective" weapon.
Don''t get me wrong, bow is effective, but it takes years to know how to use it.

To conclude, I'd like to know what kind of crossbow do you refer to ?
I don't play MTW2 and I'd like to know if there is different version of those missile weapon ? (short or long bows, regular and siege Xbows ?)

*thread bookmarked*

[CBR]

20+ shots/minute is possible but thats done with no real aiming and with low draw weight bows. But the few contemporary sources(that I know of) that talks of differences in ROF between bows and heavy crossbows or arquebusiers suggests heavy warbows did more like 6-8 shots/minute.

That also makes sense with the 24 arrows that archers were expected to have with them (Burgundian archers had 30 IIRC) Starting from max range of say 350-400 yards using flight arrows, and then switching over to heavy broadheaded or bodkin arrows at around 250 yards, would give the archers something like 3 to 5 minutes before pulling back to safety against an enemy infantry attack.

Extra arrows would be back in wagon train but it would take a helluva lot of "boys" to run back and forth with enough arrows if archers really did shoot so fast as claimed.

The French and Burgundians certainly managed to have thousands of archers too.


Caledonian Rhyfelwyr: The Total War engine does not take range into account for armour piercing missile weapons. In real life any missile weapon would lose energy the further it goes and the angle of hit would also mean lesser penetration. Unfortunately the RTW/M2TW has missile AP as the same value for all weapons whereas the older STW/MTW engine had different AP values depending on weapon.

So we just have to live with the limitations of the engine. In theory you could remove AP from all missile weapons and just let attack rating and range be the main difference except for gunpowder weapons of course.


CBR

[dismal]

I'm gonna say that missile units seem about right to me.

They are great behind walls, and good on defensive field battles, and they can give a tactical lift if the enemy fails to match your ranged capabilities.

But they are not so powerful you can expect an army of foot archers to hold its own, which I think is what archer-lovers weem to want.

I honestly wouldn't care if longbows were a little bit overpowered in the AIs hands. I like the feeling of seeing a unit in an enemy stack and thinking "uh oh, I better come up with a good plan to deal with these guys".

[Rhyfelwyr]

Caledonian Rhyfelwyr: The Total War engine does not take range into account for armour piercing missile weapons. In real life any missile weapon would lose energy the further it goes and the angle of hit would also mean lesser penetration. Unfortunately the RTW/M2TW has missile AP as the same value for all weapons whereas the older STW/MTW engine had different AP values depending on weapon.

So we just have to live with the limitations of the engine. In theory you could remove AP from all missile weapons and just let attack rating and range be the main difference except for gunpowder weapons of course.CBR

Thats why I'm thinking of modding crossbows to make them short range anti-armour specialists, as giving them an AP value over a longer distance then archers is unbalanced and unrealistic.

[Musashi]

Thats why I'm thinking of modding crossbows to make them short range anti-armour specialists, as giving them an AP value over a longer distance then archers is unbalanced and unrealistic.

Where are you getting the idea that they have a longer range than archers?

[Carl]

You have to wait for the Marian Reforms. :-P

LOL

[antisocialmunky]

i'm with dop 20 arrows a min just defies beleif. any sources for the comment you have made?

3 seconds to pick arrow off ground, notch, aim and release just doesnt add up

Who says they're shooting one arrow at a time?

[Carl]

They couldn't all be Robin Hood and his Merry Men , (where Maid Marian anyway in those Sherwood Archers)

[antisocialmunky]

They couldn't all be Robin Hood and his Merry Men , (where Maid Marian anyway in those Sherwood Archers)

You have to wait for the Marian Reforms. :-P

Buuuudunk! *Sorry, it had to be done*


Why are there so many threads turning into history buff contests these days? Its getting ridiculous.

[Lord Fluffy]

i'm with dop 20 arrows a min just defies beleif. any sources for the comment you have made?

3 seconds to pick arrow off ground, notch, aim and release just doesnt add up

Don't know about an army doing it at 3 seconds per arrow with 100+ lbs bows. But I have seen a person fire 9 arrows in 30 seconds, with a 40ish pound longbow and back quiver.

Besides, aiming with a longbow doesn't take all that long anyway. A trained archer takes just a fraction of a second to aim.