Help with archers and artillery.

[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

[Lamprey]

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.

This is wrong. You are thinking of gunpowder troops. Archers have no problem whatsoever firing over the heads of infantry in front of them, hill or no hill. Play a battle like this, with archers behind infantry and then look at how many kills they got to convince yourself.

Xbows are more effective with a clear line of sight, but they too can fire up in an arc. They're less accurate but when you have 5 units of xbows firing into a mass of attacking infantry, believe me, they'll get kills.