Help with archers and artillery.

**atheotes** · 07-19-2007, 19:29

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** · 07-19-2007, 19:51

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** · 07-19-2007, 19:59

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** · 07-19-2007, 22:17

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.

**Slug For A Butt** · 07-20-2007, 01:10

Well, I mostly play England and have 6-8 LB types in my armies, a couple of spears (one for each flank), a couple of heavy cavalry (including generals) and the rest AS. I sometimes think it is worth dropping a few AS and having some empty slots as the AI will attack you even when it is defending if it thinks it can overpower you. I will do anything to let my LB's sit behind the stakes and fire directly at oncoming infantry, I concentrate on the heavy infantry and watch as my LB's decimate them. I don't really mind if the light infantry make it to my lines as even the LB's hack them to pieces while my AS join the party.
I love missile but I really do want to know how to use artillery effectively. For instance, how can you make your artillery drive a cannonball through enemy forces at a bridge? Surely you'll only get one shot at it before they reach and overpower your artillery? Or else your artillery is useless as you have to send infantry in front of your artillery to join battle.

**imnothere** · 07-20-2007, 02:36

meatshields blocking the bridge, cannon at the side.

you wont get more than few shots if you placed the cannon on the front of the bridge. unless you want to risk some casualties with the crew. but you can try (i must do that tonight jsut for curiosity's sake) to put cannon, fire a shot or two, the pull back and let the meatshields take over the position.

IMO is that continous rate of fire on the enemy position is better than 1-2 big-damage shots then abandoning the gun to the enemy. but if what you said can be pull off, it will be great, if not amusing.

pity that horse-balista unit are only in RTW barbarian invasion were gone. and that no-one thought of harnessing serpentine to horses to give "mobility" to "artillery".

and oh, 'ware of long range missiles onto your artillery crews of course.

**Ars Moriendi** · 07-20-2007, 05:09

This thread got me into a playful mood, so I ran several battles with artillery on bridge defense, just to see how much fun I can have rolling cannonballs along a bridge like on a bowling alley...

Here's an account with screenshots from the last one :

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Conclusion : artillery can be very effective in bridge battles if you use anti personnel pieces (ie. serpentines, not bombards ; ballistas instead of trebuchets) and they have some experience. All you need to do is place them right and give them time to do their work