Any tips to leading archers ?

[Ishmael]

On a related note, has anybody else found that turning fire at will off for matchlock units does absolutely nothing? Particularly when they're defending walls, I've found that matchlocks will fire at any enemies within range even if fire at will is off, which is a pain considering their long reload times.

[Poulp']

The "firing arc" isn't. They will shoot dead center of the arc and apparently nowhere else.

The only way to avoid FF seems to be turning Fire at Will off and targeting them on your own. Sometimes they will follow your directions (usually actually) but I have "stopped" archers, re-targeted them and had them go back to pounding the unit I switched off of.

Except that during siege, I've seen archers firing at "strange angles", usually dead left or right from their position. Maybe because they were "locked" in place manning the walls. I stress "locked", because that's probably the only occasion they stay put in one place, I lost a number of archers sortiing and getting hacked down. There's no "Hold your position" button, alright, then, why doesn't that advisor shout "My Lord, we've opened the gates!"

Yeah this has always been an issue in TW games. Archer auto-target AI could use some improvement. In the meantime you just have to micromanage them or turn them off.

Sometimes it is good to leave them on, though. If the units in melee are clearly divided instead of it being a giant clusterfudge, most of the arrows will hit the enemy.

2 problems;
- the pace of battle is so fast that any micromanagement means you're letting a part of your army getting butchered/pincushioned somewhere else. Or that horrible slow motion or a pause fest...
- I've yet to see two units clashing at each other as units... once you double click, it turns into a giant brawl. Especially sad for spear units whose strength resides in cohesion.

On a related note, has anybody else found that turning fire at will off for matchlock units does absolutely nothing? Particularly when they're defending walls, I've found that matchlocks will fire at any enemies within range even if fire at will is off, which is a pain considering their long reload times.

I've seen that too. Matchlocks need a giant finetuning. Fire by ranks on, the first ranks fire and the whole unit reloads.


To carry on over archer's behaviour, I wish to know, when you order a group of archers to shoot at a specific target, do they aim at it, or as I saw, do as they "damn well please" ?

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

No,That is to inaccurate

Matchlocks need a giant finetuning. Fire by ranks on, the first ranks fire and the whole unit reloads.

That was european style,the Japanese tended to fire in line,on walls ,Matchlocks or archers would need to keep on firing,they're defending a bloody castle for gods sake!

[Poulp']

I'm just reporting what I saw; it was a pitched battle, on top of a slope, I could see my general and the unit of matchlock in front of him; normally, the first rank fires, then kneels and the second rank fires. That time, the whole unit reloaded as one and I was like, "I'm not even mad..."
And yes, fire by ranks on. Maybe that free matchlock unit is that special.

It was not a siege battle that time, Ishmael's post may have confused you.

[aimlesswanderer]

I normally tell my missile troops to walk in the opposite direction when the melee starts in a field battle.