How to switch to secondary weapons?

[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