Odd yet interesting find regarding missile units

[Kobal2fr]

I had noticed odd battle results a few times, so in my last siege I made a specific test to better understand the behaviour of archers.

The result is that the formation missile units are in does not make a lick of difference per se. Wether in two wide lines or in 4 wide, 15 ranks long rectangles, archers, crossbows and muskets do NOT check for obstructions in their line of fire within their own unit.

What I mean is that, while each single archer in a given unit checks wether there's a building, tree, rock or friendly unit between him and his target, and arcs his shot accordingly, the other archers in his own unit are not taken into account. Archers in the back row fire straight through the previous ranks as long as they have an otherwise clean line of fire.

In other words : to an archer, the other archers in his own unit are translucent (and intangible).

It's of course very counter-intuitive, but it does make sense to a point : ranks in TW are all one-man-behind-the-other, while archer formations IRL would probably be more staggered, either checkerboard or diagonal... Anyway, my guess is that this is either an overlook in battleAI, or a conscious decision to avoid friendly-fire when on the move, for HAs especially.

Of course, using archers in box formations instead of long lines impacts their results, because their fire will be much more concentrated and focused (ie a 4 wide archer unit firing on a 15 wide spear unit will only target the 4 men in the middle), so there is still a point in having wide archer formations.

But it's something to keep in mind in siege situations for instance : if you have breached a gate/wall, sit your archers in front of it in 4x15 instead of 30x2, they'll be more accurate this way.