Help with archers and artillery.

[Kadagar_AV]

Ok, first of all, archers: I just dont get the point of having them. The ONLY time I have found that they can turn the tide is at the end of the battle when there are little troops left and only allready weakened units, but in that situation, having X more numbers of melee troops from the start would have meant the battle wouldnt have been as close!

I found that they just dont rack up any kills, even against lightly armoured troops archers only have time to inflict very few casualties before the enemy engage in melee.

To make horse archers viable I found that I had to position my main force WAY back and then micro the HA as the enemy advanced, however, the same amount of light cavallery would inflict the same amount of kills, and shortens the battletime by half.

Lately I use one or two archers ONLY for the flaming arrows, so I can choose where to give the enemy some lower morale. Apart from that I see no reason what so ever for archers, soemone enlighten me?




Same goes with artillery... Sure they are nice against walls, but siege battles are to bugged for fun anyway, so I autocalc and then you dont need anything but a ram.

I have yet to see an artillery unit cause any worthwhile impact on the enemy troops, even in bridge battles (should be optimal).




Do I just suck or are the ranged elements just inferior? I found that if I go melee only I can just steamroll the enemy into a quick rout.


Thankful for replys mates!

[Slug For A Butt]

I agree with you about artillery, I've never got a result from them yet that makes them more valuable than other units. Even when I'm attacking and the enemy just sit there I get better results from misile.
Can anyone explain where I'm missing the point with artillery? I want to use it, but it causes bugger all casualties. So I stick to bows/xbows to cause casualties, and they can fight melee too.

[Budwise]

I agree with you about artillery, I've never got a result from them yet that makes them more valuable than other units. Even when I'm attacking and the enemy just sit there I get better results from misile.
Can anyone explain where I'm missing the point with artillery? I want to use it, but it causes bugger all casualties. So I stick to bows/xbows to cause casualties, and they can fight melee too.

I love archers, but just a version of Longbowmen. A few groups of Longbowmen will just chew up a unit of something as it comes close and those stakes are really to die for. Plus, when you are defending in a seige, you will wish to have as many as you could get. For help on using archers though, keep them no deep than two deep and put them in the front of your line so they can "SEE" their target. In a melee, think of them as light infantry and you should be fine.

Artillery is good when it comes to forcing the computer to come to you or just hit them over and over. I think that having two Catapults, Balistas, ect was a HUGE improvement over MTW and if used right they can cause major havoc toward the enemy. They aren't Battle Winners but then again, they never were supposed to be. I guess in history, 10 soldiers in an artillery piece could kill more than 10 men while in combat. I guess thats a major limitation of any TW game is the Squad cap. If it was unlimited that you could control, then Siege Equipment would be a lot more beneficial.

[imnothere]

i disagree. artillery is part of the fun of MTW2 - without guns, big onagers (yes i still love my RTW) and giant crossbow, it would not be the same.

as Budwise said, artillery are there to support other elements, not to win battle on its own. try to think of two elements: toys and tools.

it is the tools that gets you going, but toys gives you the most FUN

as for the bowmen - i found that it is tough without them unless you choose to mass-spawn the peasants/grunts. afterall, there are some nasty units that i dont want to touch with my units (housecarls, janissary). plus they provided good firing support AND diversionary target for the enemy archers against my nice expensive infantry/cavalry. afterall, who likes their swisspikemen stir-fried by trebuchet fires and flaming arrows?

[Kadagar_AV]

against huscarles and JHI, I still prefer extra melee to perform flanking manouvers.

I'll run a quick test to see the effectiveness against said units.


And sure artillery is fun, or as my friends serving in the artillery says: "You cant spell PARTY without ARTY", but fluff reasons aside what are their use on the battlefield.

Forcing the enemy off a hill is the only thing I can think of, and that's only if they dont have artillery of their own (and AI usually has).

[Kadagar_AV]

Ok, after some quick testing:

First of all, DAMN the controlls are bad/retarded. You just seem to notice it much more when you play with only 1-2 units. And DAMN the battle AI is stupid, even more evident when you play against 1-2 units.

Anyway, test showed that 1 unit of men at arms combined with 1 unit of retinue longbowmen did did come out better than using 2 units of armoured wordsmen against 1 unit of JHI.

However, mainly thanks to the computers love of the tactic "rush in, withdraw, and stand around and look stupid as you are peppered with arrows".

So in this very controlled setting, yes indeed longbows were worth it.

HOWEVER, you are not commonly attacked by JHI, but rather troops with shields and first and foremost mounted troops (knights).

And that's the main problem, knights (and their muslim counterpart) are just too fast so you dont get many volleys off.

My problem still stands, I see little or no reason to bring archers along except 1 unit for morale issues.

[imnothere]

as i said, diversionary target for AI if nothing else

[DVX BELLORVM]

I have 3-4 archers in every army and they usually inflict heavy casualties. The key is to keep them on a higher ground and concentrate their fire. Their ideal targets are units with high defensive skills, and low armor and shield values (missiles ignore defensive skill). English longbows are particularly good since they can pierce armor.
The worst missile targets are heavily shield units, especially when attacked from the front.

As others have already stated, artillery is not very effective against troops, and I hardly ever use it. Besides it slows your army down.

As far as horse archers are concerned, this is a result of the battle a fought with 4 HA against a full stack army (not high quality though, mainly militia, some archers and few artillery)



When HA ran out of ammo, most enemy units were decimated and demoralized, and they routed on my first charge.

[Per Ole]

Archers and arty must be the two things I like to use most of. Archers can practically win a battle by themselves if you use them right.

Also, people say that arty isn't any good? I've won countless battles becouse my arty has taken out their general and/or their heavy cavalry (or other elite units for that matter). If you can't find a use for them, you don't apply them correctly

[4th Dimension]

Any rangend unit has to aquire these things in order to be effective.

1) Hight advantage (self explenatory)
2) A good direction (Use archers from rear, and from sides on which thay don't carry shield. Ultimatly, if you realy have to use them from the front, try to place them as far as you can to the left of you battle line, so they have a chance to hit the side of enemy that doesn't have any shields).

My usual setup is to have a battle line od infantry and then to wheel around the enemy flanks with archers protected from enemy by my heavy calivary (only if enemy has less of it.). Shower the enemy with arrows and their morale shoud drob considerably even without fire arrows. Also idiotic AI hleps when he places himself stationary ad doesn't want to atack so he's just asking to get encicled by archers and sent to death by arrows.

This is done a lot easier with HA. Shure, don't let them get into fights with normal archers but then again if you place your battle line on the other end of the map, enemy will likely leave the archers alone to deal with your HA, which exposes them to HA charge (which isn't much powerfull, but it's strong enough to disperse archers (is they are not havy Superman Dvor archers, who can rank as medium infantry and have a devastating arrow attack, as strong as srossbow and has aq fire rate of a bow)) and rout, and then proceed to destroy other enemy problematic targets (Light Calivary (the have small defence, so the fall like flies when exsposed to heavy HA fire), spearmen (dangerous to your all calivary army, but weak from the rear, and ideal for destruction by HA. Peper them with arrows untill they start to get scared and then harge into the rear)), and in teh end everything else untill you run out of arrows. In the end battle ends with a devastating charge of all your troops after which enemy will break and start fleeing and it is up to your HA to catch them and put them to death (even a general will have problems escaping superlight HA).

Just my 2c. But tis is on Medium dificulty. On higher the enemy gets bonuses.

And one of my tests. I used an army of 6 Dvor archers [dismounted] + General (only ther to chase routers. Will not participate battle), and I pittet against them all kinds of infantry in the same quantity. The result was allways the same. If the Dvor get a hight advantage, put a line of dvor on a hill and have two flanking Dvor units away from it. The fire from those flanking units (they fire in the exposed sides) and the autofire from the battle line will withle down the enemy to 70% or even 60% untill they approach teh line. And I didn't retreat. After they come into combat Dvor is still a god inf unit and will inflict still considerable losses on the enemy, while flanking units fire in the backs of the enemy with flaming and normal arrows (3 normal: 1flaming is a good ratio). The battle usualy ends with Dvor taking not more than 30-40max% of casulties, while enemy is simply beaten to the pulp.

[TeutonicKnight]

If I have to use non-armor piercing archers against armored targets, I usually turn the flame on if it's safe enough (meaning small chance of friendly fire). I tend to get better results trying to burn them down than to shoot them.

Just something to keep in mind. :)

[WhiskeyGhost]

i like using artillery to force the enemy to bring his archers forward, then charge them with the 1-3 cav i keep in my army. After his archers route or die, it forces them to come to me in order to attempt to keep me from peppering them with arrows from a safe distance. Then, i merely set up an infantry line, take whats left of my cav onto the flanks, and have my archers 'focus' fire around the middle of the enemy formation before actually engaging them. Even if my archers only cause about 30 casualties among 2 units, thats still 15 less people my infantry have to worry about, and even with only 5 men left in 2 cavalry units, when flanking, cause a serious morale/damage problem for the enemy lines on the sides, usually causing it to start collapsing.

If i have access to some nifty things like Xbows, i'll have em focus on priority targets while the melee goes on, like the enemy general or that annoyingly deep bulge of enemy troops in one part of the line.

[Matty]

Simple - general killing.

Good artillery especially, but also archers, can take out a general that can in some cases pancake morale in the remaining army.

Defensively, especially at a bridge, they are devastating. In an open field battle archers are less effective but the concentrated firepower of three or more cannon can really take the wind out of massed enemy troops. When the first lines engage you can continue to pummel the enemy by firing over their heads.

[Ramses II CP]

There are some excellent archer units in the game. As the English I often field armies of just a general and Yeoman or Retinue longbowmen. The enemy has to come to you, because of your range superiority, they can't effectively charge through your stakes even if they aren't a cavalry unit, and just by wrapping one unit on either end of your line you'll break the moral of any of the much reduced troops that make it into melee.

When they break and rout, your arrows go in their unshielded backs, and few of them will make it back out of range. If you want to annihilate an enemy army, bring a full stack of Yeomen or RLs.

As a general rule, though, I don't use bow units that can't at least be used effectively in a melee as a flanker. Peasant archers are IMHO, as noted, only good for a few volleys of fire arrows and soaking enemy arrows up.

[atheotes]

Any rangend unit has to aquire these things in order to be effective.

1) Hight advantage (self explenatory)
2) A good direction (Use archers from rear, and from sides on which thay don't carry shield. Ultimatly, if you realy have to use them from the front, try to place them as far as you can to the left of you battle line, so they have a chance to hit the side of enemy that doesn't have any shields).

My usual setup is to have a battle line od infantry and then to wheel around the enemy flanks with archers protected from enemy by my heavy calivary (only if enemy has less of it.). Shower the enemy with arrows and their morale shoud drob considerably even without fire arrows. Also idiotic AI hleps when he places himself stationary ad doesn't want to atack so he's just asking to get encicled by archers and sent to death by arrows.

This is done a lot easier with HA. Shure, don't let them get into fights with normal archers but then again if you place your battle line on the other end of the map, enemy will likely leave the archers alone to deal with your HA, which exposes them to HA charge (which isn't much powerfull, but it's strong enough to disperse archers (is they are not havy Superman Dvor archers, who can rank as medium infantry and have a devastating arrow attack, as strong as srossbow and has aq fire rate of a bow)) and rout, and then proceed to destroy other enemy problematic targets (Light Calivary (the have small defence, so the fall like flies when exsposed to heavy HA fire), spearmen (dangerous to your all calivary army, but weak from the rear, and ideal for destruction by HA. Peper them with arrows untill they start to get scared and then harge into the rear)), and in teh end everything else untill you run out of arrows. In the end battle ends with a devastating charge of all your troops after which enemy will break and start fleeing and it is up to your HA to catch them and put them to death (even a general will have problems escaping superlight HA).

Just my 2c. But tis is on Medium dificulty. On higher the enemy gets bonuses.

And one of my tests. I used an army of 6 Dvor archers [dismounted] + General (only ther to chase routers. Will not participate battle), and I pittet against them all kinds of infantry in the same quantity. The result was allways the same. If the Dvor get a hight advantage, put a line of dvor on a hill and have two flanking Dvor units away from it. The fire from those flanking units (they fire in the exposed sides) and the autofire from the battle line will withle down the enemy to 70% or even 60% untill they approach teh line. And I didn't retreat. After they come into combat Dvor is still a god inf unit and will inflict still considerable losses on the enemy, while flanking units fire in the backs of the enemy with flaming and normal arrows (3 normal: 1flaming is a good ratio). The battle usualy ends with Dvor taking not more than 30-40max% of casulties, while enemy is simply beaten to the pulp.

What you say about shield defence being applied to only the shield bearing side (unit's left) is not correct. It was so in RTW. But in M2TW 50% of the shield value gets applied to both the sides. Only firing into the rear will give you maximum effect.

From the FAQ sticky:

Originally Posted by Daveybaby
You get 100% of the Shield defense at the front, and 50% at each side (nothing at the back).

Defence Skill you get 100% at front and at each side, nothing at the back.

Armour defence is 100% all round.

[4th Dimension]

What you say about shield defence being applied to only the shield bearing side (unit's left) is not correct. It was so in RTW. But in M2TW 50% of the shield value gets applied to both the sides. Only firing into the rear will give you maximum effect.

From the FAQ sticky:

Originally Posted by Daveybaby
You get 100% of the Shield defense at the front, and 50% at each side (nothing at the back).

Defence Skill you get 100% at front and at each side, nothing at the back.

Armour defence is 100% all round.

I didn't know that! So it seems it's an imperative to get behind or at least flank them.
If they have shields.

[Slug For A Butt]

I find artillery very inaccurate in M2TW, I have much better results when I pop the generals unit with LB's rather than artillery. Unlike in RTW where you could wipe out half an army AND the Generals with Artillery, I find 3 units of AS much more valuable than 3 artillery.
The only half decent way to use artillery that I've found is to send a couple of crappy units to stand well in front of my battle line to hold the enemy for a little time while my catapults kill both them and my crappy units. But then that's maybe 5 units in total that could have been quality units that will make a real difference.
I'm just wanting someone to tell me how to use artillery to justify their position in my army compared to other proven killers.

EDIT: Obviously they are justified if it is an army that is out to capture cities quickly.

[Matty]

for artillery to be effective you have to train it up. Start getting silver chevrons and its like you've given your gunners laser targeting. Takes a while and you have to kill troops not blast walls to get the experience, but I find if I make the effort to bring the cannon up through the breached walls of a settlement and pound the massed troops in the central plaza I can increase experience fairly quickly.

[Odin]

To make horse archers viable I found that I had to position my main force WAY back and then micro the HA as the enemy advanced, however, the same amount of light cavallery would inflict the same amount of kills, and shortens the battletime by half.

Well being an HA fanboy your point is valid about microing the HA's. I group them when I have them in numbers. If your using HA's you must have a different approach to combat, there quick hitters, get out and hit again.

They also do well at chasing routers, they are not designed to Melee, unless you play Russia and get Dvor (perhaps the best HA unit in the game).

Lately I use one or two archers ONLY for the flaming arrows, so I can choose where to give the enemy some lower morale. Apart from that I see no reason what so ever for archers, soemone enlighten me?

When your on the defense this is where they shine, the AI will normally give you a frontal assault, you should be able to get a couple of rounds off before they reach your line, making less men for your infantry to kill. Also in defensive seiges, archers shine.

Put them on the walls and they will make plenty of kills.

Same goes with artillery... Sure they are nice against walls, but siege battles are to bugged for fun anyway, so I autocalc and then you dont need anything but a ram.

I agree with you here, artillery IMHO is only useful for sieges, not field battles.

Do I just suck or are the ranged elements just inferior? I found that if I go melee only I can just steamroll the enemy into a quick rout.

No you dont suck, your just an infantry guy (by the looks of it) nothing wrong with that. Melee is pefectly viable method of generalship, that said Range units do have value but its dependent on your style of play.

If you want to end battles quickly with one major clash on a line, then archers arent necessary at all.

[SadCat]

Jest a note on Artillery, do not target what you want to hit. Looks to me as it falls short or long but never on target. If they have 3 ranks shoot for the middle one and it works fine. Solid shot only as fire shot wants to hit your men jest for fun. SadCat

[Plebian#10]

I have found that a combined arms approach the best way for defeating the enemy. Catapults and ballista for long range death, bowen and slingers for medium range death and the trusty infantry for the close in work. With an effective spy network you should always know what your army is up against and can customize your army prior to contact for the best results. I tend to use small well trained, well lead, mobile army's supplemented by the local garrisons. It is necessary to micro manage both you ballista and your bowen but that is part of the fun......

[DesertEagle]

I've found that doubling the number of artillery pieces in any given unit goes a long way toward making them a more viable part of the battlefield, and a bit more worthwhile to lug around. More bang for the "1 unit slot" buck, as it were. Doubling this again could be interesting. However, to offset the increased firepower they bring (and to reduce the chances of those 1/2 arty, 1/2 militia armies the AI seems so fond of) I've given their cost a 10x multiplier.

Siege equipment is attainable, even for the AI, but usually only a unit or two in an army, and only a bit later. This suits me.

[ainamacil]

Even in Medieval, as soon as I could get cannons, I carried three or four in my armies. And that was when they were stationary! Now that arty moves, it's even more fun for me to play with. But maybe that's just the Napoleonic wannabe in me.

As others have said, some of the arty works like a particularly-large bore general-seeking sniper rifle. Basilisks and Serpentines are both good for this, but I've even managed to headshot generals with culverins.

And I also have a thing for ribaults. Medieval machinegun, tally ho!

Right, so, to recap: Arty is scary, snipes generals like nobody's business, and few things are as cool as letting fly a volley at 100 yards or so and watching your missile clear a line of men through three different units. And watching half of an enemy unit's first line go down from massed ribaults is cool too.

Of course, I prefer to situate the camera behind the enemy force my cannons are targeting and watch the flares of firing in the distance. "If only they knew what I knew about what's going to be greeting them in a moment...

[Lamprey]

Boy, it's amazing how many people don't know a thing about how to use archers. I had no idea. Some guy on this thread even said "put them in front to shoot a few volleys and then melee! They have to be able to SEE"

This is really very simple. Put the archers behind your line, take off skirmish and put on defensive. They'll fire while enemy approaches, while the fight is on, and while enemy retreats. Chances are, each archer unit will inflict more casualties than any other in your army. This really isn't rocket science folks.

And for God's sake, don't bring along one or two units and then whine that they didn't do much! If you're going to bring archers, bring at least 4-5 units so that they can concentrate their fire.

[Furious Mental]

Archers and artillery useless? Are you joking? In pretty much every battle I have ever played archers and artillery inflict several times as many casualties as melee troops. Artillery is fantastic in bridge battles because if you are attacking it can be used to inflict casualties on the enemy before you attack and if you are defending it will cut swathes through the enemy army as they cross the bridge. It is also great for forcing the enemy to attack you when you are in a strong defensive position. Archers with stakes are especially fantastic. If you are defending put them on the flanks projecting forward and they will not only shoot straight into the enemy army when it engages your center, they will provoke the enemy cavalry to impale itself.

[WhiskeyGhost]

Boy, it's amazing how many people don't know a thing about how to use archers. I had no idea. Some guy on this thread even said "put them in front to shoot a few volleys and then melee! They have to be able to SEE"

This is really very simple. Put the archers behind your line, take off skirmish and put on defensive. They'll fire while enemy approaches, while the fight is on, and while enemy retreats. Chances are, each archer unit will inflict more casualties than any other in your army. This really isn't rocket science folks.

And for God's sake, don't bring along one or two units and then whine that they didn't do much! If you're going to bring archers, bring at least 4-5 units so that they can concentrate their fire.

archers behind your lines are only effective if they have clearance, like if your set up on a hill, where they have LoS behind your infantry ranks. However, i actually do like putting my Xbows in front of my units, especially the cheap ones, and have the volley literally seconds before they are hit with a charge. You can see tons of casualties the closer your Xbows are to the enemy before firing, regardless of their quality

[atheotes]

I use archers/xbows a lot and they rack up a lot more kills than my infantry...

Also i feel that a direct volley (units have clear line of fire) is more effective that when firing above the head of infantry in front.
When i have archers with stakes and i have more missile power than the AI (which i often do)... i deploy stakes infront of the infantry. After the battle starts i move the archers forward and start firing at the advancing enemy (if you have missile superiority the AI will attempt a full frontal assault) The AI will try to charge the missile units with its cavalry... pull back the archers on the right time and you got yourself some nice horse kebabs!!!

Even for archers without stakes, pulling the archers when faced with a charge, if you get the timing right, the enemy cavalry would go from charging to pursuing by the time they hit your infantry reducing the effect. But this is tricky to pull off though

[ainamacil]

Massed archer fire certainly is a real killer. I play a lot of England, and there are few sights quite as near and dear to my heart as a volley loosed by a longbow battalion six companies strong.

Direct fire is cool, but it can be just as bad on the enemy if you have to fire over buildings, etc. like to put indirect fire on a city square.

And while I haven't really paid close attention in M2:TW so far (preferring to look at the kill counts of my ribaults! )

[ainamacil]

Hate to be a double-posting blackguard, but that's what I get for posting while on the phone AND being unable to edit my posts.

As I was saying, I haven't really looked at the kill counts for my archers in Medieval II, but in the first game, they were far and away better than the infantry or cavalry.

In short, I don't take any army anywhere (except to defeat the odd stack of worthless rebels) without at least 3-4 units of archers. Every man downed by arrow is a man your infantry need not worry about, after all.

[4th Dimension]

I haven't used stakes much. I had a bad expirience with stakes.

I was fighting Viking style against Mongols who ocupied my conquests in the near East (Antioch), from my fortress on Cyprus. After catching couple of stacks on coast and uterly decimating them using autocalc, I decided to play one battle myself. I brought nearly the same number of Yeomen arhers and bilmen (and some swordsmen I think. But half of the army were the archers). I attacked an army of 1.5 stacks, and started battle.
I dug myself heavily on a hill (I nearly completly sorounded the hill with stakes. Also hill was near the end of the map so my back was secure and I only needed a halfcircle of stakes). First stack came and I decimated them. All HA and most of the INF and Heavy Cav died. Then the othe half came. But I was low on arrows so i killed some of them and then ran out of them.

Now the problem was. Alltough I had a strong position and enemy had no more missile troops, I also had no missilse any more. And enemy refused to attack (my general died earlier when returning from chasing some damn Mongol archers which were bothering me, by running full speed into the stakes (I didn't know they could harm my calivary)). They could avoid the stakes but they simply sat there. In the end I salied and got slaughtered by enemy on open field. Since then I allways a.calc Mongols, and never rely on stakes. Enemy simply wont attack.