How to switch to secondary weapons?

[Daykeras]

So I'm messing with some archers and I tried to get them to charge properly, when I found that by ctrl+click attacking they don't ACTUALLY switch weapons until they charge... thus putting them at a disadvantage because their opponent does not have the same issue.

Is there something I can mod to get around this, or perhaps a different type of attack command?

[TevashSzat]

Hmm...I always used alt clicking, but that might just be due to habits from RTW.

[Daykeras]

Heh... Woops. I meant I was alt-clicking and this happened. I think ctrl click is forced fire... anywho I _am_ alt clicking but they won't switch until they begin to charge.

[Foz]

I'm not aware of any other way to make them switch weapons earlier. If the trouble is that they sometimes run into other troops before they charge the first target (and thus have primary weapon out still), then the best solution may be just to watch them carefully and be sure they're trying to attack the closest target you think they'll end up in melee with, which should mean they'll have their swords out in time. If I misunderstood why you felt their behavior is disadvantageous, though, then just let me know and I'll see if I have any other useful advice

[Daykeras]

ok... I guess the best way to explain it is this. You have two units walking towards each other. One is the Archers. The other is Knights.

You purposely alt-clicked the Archers so you can melee the Knights. However, the Archers still have their bows out the entire time they're walking. It's not until both the Knights and the Archers are at charging distance that the Archers think "Hey, we were ordered to melee and we're still carrying bows. Let's pull out our melee weapons!"

By the time the Archers DO get it out, the Knights have either just smashed into their line with their charge (not hindered by switching weapons) or the Archer counter charge is so disorganized that it's probably worse than not charging at all.

On top of all this, if the Archers happen to be the general for this battle, the actual General himself will not hesitate to charge on time... running FAR away from his support troops who are trying to figure out which weapon to use.

[Daykeras]

Anyone have any ideas? Maybe something I can mod to make it work properly?

[Whacker]

Anyone have any ideas? Maybe something I can mod to make it work properly?

What the heck are you doing charging archers headlong into knights anyway??

I'd suggest waiting for the patch and seeing if this type of behavior you noticed changes for you. In the mean time keep trying different tactics in custom battles and see if you can't get the hang of it. There were some... er... "changes" to the tactical battle controls in M2TW that it took me awhile to get used to as well. Good luck!

[Foz]

Have you tried alt-double-clicking? I've noticed that a great many units will typically halt to gather themselves up for the charge when you issue a single-click attack command. When you issue a double-click attack command, though, they simply continue running and move weapons to charge position, without the long stop in the middle to regroup. The AI even seems to issue explicit run commands to troops at some distance farther away than charge distance, seemingly to avoid this exact thing. I would speculate, then, that if you alt-double-click with your archers (or start them running when they get somewhat close), they will switch weapons while running and not incur the long pause to switch weapons that you have described. More than likely they'll just draw secondary weapon and immediately brandish it for the charge when at the correct distance, continuing to run the whole time.

So while this method applies generally to melee foot troops, I suspect it will also include archers sent into melee combat.

[Whacker]

suggestion

Don't forget the loss of some of the charge bonus when you do this. I don't remember the values but CA posted something on their blog to this effect some time ago, double-click running all the way to the target and charging while running doesn't get nearly as much bonus as single click attacking, where the units will "auto-charge" when they are close enough. Whatever the case may be, I still think this is an area that CA should improve upon in the upcoming or future patches.

[Foz]

Don't forget the loss of some of the charge bonus when you do this. I don't remember the values but CA posted something on their blog to this effect some time ago, double-click running all the way to the target and charging while running doesn't get nearly as much bonus as single click attacking, where the units will "auto-charge" when they are close enough. Whatever the case may be, I still think this is an area that CA should improve upon in the upcoming or future patches.

Really? Did not know that. If it's not too difficult, could you quote exactly what they said?

I agree it's definitely something that could use looking at for future patches, in any case. For the moment though, provided it works like I expect (can't test ATM), then it's probably better to have secondary-weapon-wielding archers with nerfed charge bonuses running at the enemy, than it is to have desperately-trying-to-draw-secondary-weapon archers standing still when the enemy smashes into them...

[Whacker]

I can't directly link to the article, but it's at http://www.totalwarblog.com/

Click the December 2006 archive, and scroll way down towards the bottom. Search for the text "Regarding the new charge mechanic, there are two charges available to a cavalry unit". That should take you directly to the start of that section. The gist of it is, double-click charging will stop after 10% impact. Single-click charging (formed charge, they call it), will keep it's momentum much longer.

Personally, I absolutely hate this mechanic, I thought the RTW method was great, single or double click and you're good to go. I guess there were enough people complaining about how "overpowered" cav were in the game so they got nerfed. I guess I can understand that, but heavy cav charges really were utterly devastating against all but braced heavy spears/pikes, and as such they should kill as many on impact. This isn't even going into the unit cohesion problem the game still has, albiet fixed somewhat in the 1.1 patch, somewhat being the key word. /shrug My $0.02.

[Foz]

Oh okay, you meant the cavalry charge mechanics. Yeah that I had heard about. While the cavalry seem to stop a little bit when you single-click charge them at something, they seem to do so for less time, and have a greater charge distance too, which more or less means the pause doesn't matter. I was primarily suggesting a double-click charge for foot troops, where the charge distance is considerably shorter and the pause often longer too, making it a frequent problem - I've experienced my troops being hit before they begin to run with many kinds of troops, not just the archers mentioned here by the OP. Especially problematic against enemy cavalry. Considering that the article only applies the dual charge mechanic notion to cavalry, and that there'd be no reason for them to have used it on regular infantry (they don't trample each other like cav do when charging), it seems rather unlikely that the foot soldiers (melee or archer) I intended the strategy to apply to will be adversely affected by alt-double-click charging.

[Whacker]

Damn, you made me go back and re-read when I was all sure of what was in that article. I could have sworn that this charge mechanic applies to all units, not just cavalry, but obviously cav was the main focus back when the game was out. I certainly can't prove this, it's just what I recall.

You're right on though with the foot troops. It almost seems to me to be a rock-paper-scissors game. If you single click charge with foot units, you'll get that delay, and if the opposing unit double-click charges they'll just keep plowing on and you'll lose all momentum and get hammered. If you double click then you'll (theoretically I guess, I'm still assuming the same mechanic applies) get the full charge bonus. Wonder if anyone else can jump in with the official word, now that Foz mentioned it I'd really like to know if that's the case or not.

[Agent Smith]

So I'm messing with some archers and I tried to get them to charge properly, when I found that by ctrl+click attacking they don't ACTUALLY switch weapons until they charge... thus putting them at a disadvantage because their opponent does not have the same issue.

Is there something I can mod to get around this, or perhaps a different type of attack command?

This may sound silly, but is it possible that this is just an animation issue? Could it be that archers aren't animated with swords until a charge begins and then until they switch back to firing arrows?

[Daykeras]

It's not an animation issue, unless the animation only happens when "Melee"/Charge radius has been reached.

As for the double clicking/running... they still stop. They will run to their target, get to charge distance, stop, switch weapons, then attempt to charge.

Try it yourself. It's very silly.

No archers, I'm not telling you to run at the enemy so you can bash them with your bows... but if you could do that without having to stop I'd gladly let you.

[Agent Smith]

It's not an animation issue, unless the animation only happens when "Melee"/Charge radius has been reached.

As for the double clicking/running... they still stop. They will run to their target, get to charge distance, stop, switch weapons, then attempt to charge.

Try it yourself. It's very silly.

No archers, I'm not telling you to run at the enemy so you can bash them with your bows... but if you could do that without having to stop I'd gladly let you.

I'm jsut mentioning that because it was the same issue with phalanx charges in RTW. When you disable phalanx formation and tell them to charge, they would approach with pikes in the air, and right when they charged the pikes disappeared and their swords were drawn.

It wouldn't seem to be a problem so long as there swords are out when they first take a whack at the enemy ;)

[Foz]

Yeah I tried it too and was just coming on to post about it. Stoopid archers!!!

I agree that the bow beatings would be better than their current odd behavior. Maybe they could use the bow string as a choke wire in combat. At least the various Italian units should be well entitled to do so

So I guess we really have no recourse, it seems out of our power to control. Someone else had an interesting point though: what on Earth could be making you charge your archers at knights or other units who intend to take on the archers head-on? I'd strongly recommend against doing this, even the best archers around have fairly piddly combat stats for melee - mostly you'll notice their low AC gets them killed fast. Best practice I've seen is to pin enemy units with one of your higher AC units even if it's some crappy town militia, b/c that unit can live longer when up against a frontal beating. Then you can flank-charge with the archers, or simply enfilade the enemy unit once you reach flanking position.

[Daykeras]

Well... I've been playing some of the more agressive archers when I realized they had charge bonuses. So instead of me trying to get one last salvo in before I'm ripped to pieces, why not charge them and get more kills + bonuses.

This is mostly concerning the mongol unit Sabadar. Sabadar militia for instance is a roughly even match against Noble Swordsmen (no bonuses) in a pure melee battle (no arrows fired). If I could get them to charge properly it may be possible to beat the noble swordsmen head on without even firing an arrow (though this is clearly inefficient and stupid)

[Whacker]

[blatant thread promotion]

Daykeras, something to consider... Instead of charging in to melee after spending all your ammo, you might want to consider a tactical retreat and withdrawl from battle so you can come back ammo replenished and fight another day. I started a thread last week on this, located here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=79728 Might be worth your while to check it out and weigh in, Foz and a couple others have already jumped in and there's been some good dialogue. My opinion hasn't changed as a result, but at the very least I hope CA takes a honest look at that and takes it into consideration for future patches or the next TW title.



[/blatant thread promotion]

[KHPike]

Depending on the unit, I agree with Daykeras that some archers can charge. One example is Danish Archers who have att 11 and def 18 (post fixes). Think of them as superior Mongol infantry. Placing them on good ground will massacre enemy troops before I order a charge to finish the job. While they can hold their own against dismounted feudal knights, they however will falter against chivalric level troops and mounted knights cause of the rps thing...

Another thing that has been noted is that you must charge them early or they'll get massacred instead due to the changing weapons problem.

Hence, such units are indeed useful early in the game. As time goes by one has to switch to heavier stuff.

[Daykeras]

Yes... and I like the fact I can send archers into melee with a complete disregard for their bows :P.

Really, I think all archers should just use their bows in combat :P