The Missile Thread - Hints, Tips and Information

[Greyblades]

That was how they worked in shogun. Will have to test.

Edit: yes it does, even when you are shooting the enemy in the back while in melee the whistling arrows will affect your troops fighting them.

Incidentally I found that my fears of crossbows not being able to arc over infantry were unfounded, for some reason I had gotten it in my head that they were like firearms.

[JeromeBaker]

That was how they worked in shogun. Will have to test.

Edit: yes it does, even when you are shooting the enemy in the back while in melee the whistling arrows will affect your troops fighting them.

Incidentally I found that my fears of crossbows not being able to arc over infantry were unfounded, for some reason I had gotten it in my head that they were like firearms.

I had the same impression. I thought crossbows came around because they shot bolts with increased velocity to provide armor penetration compared to a traditional bow. To arch a crossbow shot would mean you are shooting from too far a range wouldnt it?

At least with the velocity of modern crossbows when hunting, you definetly are not arching a shot up in the air and hoping it comes down on the buck.... You are indeed shooting it much more similar to a firearm based on the range you should be shooting from.

The crossbow units later on in the WRE campaign I had were awesome. I wasnt using them like traditional archers, but now that I know they can shoot over a line of infantry I am going to use them more (plus they get flaming shot and heavy shot options like regular archers do, and I dont remember previous TW games having those options on crossbow units)

[Greyblades]

I had the same impression. I thought crossbows came around because they shot bolts with increased velocity to provide armor penetration compared to a traditional bow. To arch a crossbow shot would mean you are shooting from too far a range wouldnt it?

At least with the velocity of modern crossbows when hunting, you definetly are not arching a shot up in the air and hoping it comes down on the buck.... You are indeed shooting it much more similar to a firearm based on the range you should be shooting from.

The crossbow units later on in the WRE campaign I had were awesome. I wasnt using them like traditional archers, but now that I know they can shoot over a line of infantry I am going to use them more (plus they get flaming shot and heavy shot options like regular archers do, and I dont remember previous TW games having those options on crossbow units)

Hrm, it worked for me, but the arches were rather shallow, I was surprised there wasnt any friendly fire among the palatina guards they were shooting over. Obviously I stopped the crossbows when they collided with the enemy germanic nobles, but I suppose it could be that the whistling arrows were so weak they just bounced off the palntina's armour, will have to experiment with weaker units.

Edit: yes crossbows can fire over infantry, but it gets a bit messy the closer the enemy and your infantry get. I havent seen them do anything as extreme as the english longbow's "shoot right upwards and hit something 400 yards away" or anything, but they seem to be able to aim high enough that the infantry doesn't yell at them.

[Oleander Ardens]

Yes friendly fire is not only so very friendly with damage but also with all the other penalties. Be aware of this before letting your troops happily shoot into a big melee.

As clever way to get the most out of your missile troops is obviously good positioning and micro. With shields being more important then ever, at least in my view one should use the most effective missile units on the left flank. Depending on the situation they will of course move vertically. This focus on the left has a couple of advantages beside have the unshielded enemy side to aim for, for example having your own troops protected by their shields. Cheap archers on the right on the other hand do very little damage with whistling arrows so if they do even less so it doesn't really matter.

The long-ranged Germanic longbows are great at skirmishing so they are usually the guys provoking the enemy into the attack. As they can cover a large area they are also less inclined to wander around if I have forgotten to switch manually targets from those out of range which can happen in the heat of battle. Far easier to use then javs for example.

[Bramborough]

Disclaimer up front; nothing particularly revelatory or unexpected here. Mainly just reinforcing from a separate perspective what others have already observed.

I did several custom battles' worth of testing yesterday with various missile troop types. Used Ostrogoth units: Germanic Hunters (short bow), Germanic Archers (long-range bow), and Germanic Crossbowmen. Was my first time experimenting with crossbows, hadn't used them in campaign yet (because Saxons don't get any, lol). For infantry "test subjects", used Germanic Spearmen on both sides (53 armor).

1. Confirmed my already-strong impression that the cheap short-range archers (35 damage) are pretty much garbage as far as killing power is concerned. Even when using Heavy Shot. They do have the flaming and whistling capabilities, of course. Overall, my impression is that slinger/hurler type units are better early-game, with perhaps one unit of archers for their flame/whistle capabilities.

2. The longer-range archers (45 damage) are more useful. The 200 range is awesome, of course. Killing power a little better, although still not as good as the higher-end archers in R2.

3. Yes, the Whistling Shot does affect own troops' morale...which is rather annoying to me. Same with Flaming Shot. I guess I can understand the rationale. If fiery arrows are raining on you out of the sky, I guess you don't really give a crap exactly whose bow they came from. Even so, using archers to tip the morale balance in a close melee fight strikes me as a dubious proposition, as the morale effects seem to cancel each other out.

4. Crossbows obviously best of all, particularly against armored troops. They can indeed fire over the heads of troops directly in front of them (although not if already engaged in melee). With the flat trajectories, however, they do seem much more sensitive to minor undulations in terrain...even areas that look reasonably flat with the camera panned out, and you can't really see the folds in the earth unless you zoom in close for the eye-level view.

5. None of the missile troops were effective at firing from directly behind the infantry line at targets already in melee. About a 30 degree offset seemed enough to at least let them fire at such targets with some effect, but full 90% needed for full effect without friendly fire.

With my playstyle, I usually like to go with a 4-unit missile complement in a 20-unit stack. Right now, I'm thinking the way to go early-game is 3xSlinger / 1xArcher, and then later when crossbows & higher-end archers are unlocked, to go with a 2x/2x split. I'd generally use the archers to go after the enemy's own missile line, and use crossbows on the flanks vs their infantry.

Again, I don't think I'm saying anything new here.

[Hooahguy]

So I tested the Elite Scattershot Slingers for the Burgundians, they are really good, mainly because they can hold their own in a fight, and then can do serious damage when the enemy flees from them, because slingers from the back are quite devastating.

The archers still leave much to be desired though.

[Oleander Ardens]

[I]

With my playstyle, I usually like to go with a 4-unit missile complement in a 20-unit stack. Right now, I'm thinking the way to go early-game is 3xSlinger / 1xArcher, and then later when crossbows & higher-end archers are unlocked, to go with a 2x/2x split. I'd generally use the archers to go after the enemy's own missile line, and use crossbows on the flanks vs their infantry.

When I played with the Franks very early I split the already recruited archers and added some slingers and rather quickly crossbows which are available with the level 3 goat farm and fields. Frankish skirmishers joined also in due time and with rich income the longbows are not difficult to unlock.

For those Germanic tribes which get good slingers and crossbows that way it is an attractive mid-ranged combination as it requires just one building slot and combines very well. One cheap (mercenary) archer adds whistling shot and you have pretty much all the tools till the longbows are able to join the party.

[Slaists]

Anecdotally, I've noticed that skirmishers (javeliners) tend to get insane amount of kills in field battles. Not exactly the very lowest tier but the ones right above: their javelins have 90 damage and all of that damage is armor piercing. So, unless they hit a shield-block, they kill instantly.

[Oleander Ardens]

This is part two in the discussions about missiles:

5) Javelineers: All skirmishers armed with javelins have a range of 80 and have a fairly high shooting rate compared to archers. Most do a damage of 90 with a large ap component and a +15 bonus damage against cavalry and elephants. In general more expensive skirmishers have more javelins, a higher rate of fire as well as special abilities while the rest of the range-specific stats remain the same. The Burgundians have special ones, which inflict 105 damage, almost all normal with the usual bonus and are thus devastating with precision shot. The Franks on the other hand have good quality skirmishers which have a range and melee bonus of +30 against cavalry which makes them quite devastating in this regard. Avoid the Brigands with their lowly 4, although one might be fun to play around with.

Their lethality in typical field battles can be high, as Slaists already noted, and is typically only outmatched by crossbows. Be however aware that a large portion of their kills can be friendly troops, which requires together with their short range more attention to them. If they can shoot it out with enemy missiles they tend to win cost-efficiently, the problem is getting in range.

a) Personally with the Franks I liked to have two-three on the left flank with cavalry support. This way you concentrate your short-range firepower on one flank which enables you to win the cavalry fight if the AI offers any and to wheel your skirmishers as one unit into the enemy's shieldless side*. With relative little micro you can devastate engaged melee troops or enemy skirmishers. If charge into a cavalry duel they do actually surprisingly well, rather similar to standard spearmen. Archers, Slingers and Crossbows were usually later part of the ranged mix.

b) With the Nordic factions you get amazingly cheap and low-upkeep javelineers and some higher quality ones, but you lack good long-range skirmishers. In single-player it pays off to mass low-cost troops, among them those cheap javs as you can easily outnumber the enemy with two or even three such stacks. With a lot of cheap javs you have a vast amount of javelins which will rather quickly take down even heavily armored units out of testudo or shield-wall.

*I'm usually defensive on my right and aggressive on my left as I have an easier time to micro and can attack the shieldless side of the enemy center.