Results 1 to 18 of 18

Thread: Archers

  1. #1

    Default Archers

    Im having a big problem with archers, before I destroy the gates I usually use up my archers ammo, the problem is the enemy retreats then after a bit they come back, but as soon as they are out of range, my archers move forward, and this is bad only because the walls of the town im attacking have archer towers and they slaughter my archers. So how do I make the archers stand thier god damn ground?

  2. #2
    Seleukos's Avatar Hell hath no fury
    Patrician

    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Vancouver, Washington, US
    Posts
    8,866

    Default

    Give them the order to halt. The units still think they need to presue the enemy, even when out of ammo. So either move them back manually or tell them to halt.

  3. #3

    Default

    or, you can put them on guard mode.

  4. #4
    Zuwxiv's Avatar Bear Claus
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    California
    Posts
    4,361

    Default

    What I do is put my archers in range but never tell them to fire. If you click on a unit you are essentially telling the archers to attack that specific unit... if that unit retreats, the archers follow your command and run into the wall.

    Instead, try puting your archers in range (move them closer until the arrow on the cursor turns green when you put it over the enemy troops). Then put the archers in fire at will mode. They won't move, just shoot at anything that comes close enough.

    Currently worshipping Necrobrit *********** Thought is Quick
    I'm back for the TWCrack

  5. #5

    Default

    Do as eastsidehighrise stated. Put your archers in guard mode, and when you tell them to attack an enemy within range, they stay put, even when that enemy goes out of range. While fire at will mode can be helpful, you can end up wasting valuable ammo on pointless targets. For instance, shooting at a unit of Greek hoplites head on will yield few kills. However, shoot them from the side or back and your kill tally goes up dramatically. Also, units such as cavalry auxilia deserve special consideration from archers. If your archers are wasting their ammo, you might as well have brought another unit to the battlefield.

  6. #6
    Templedog's Avatar Biarchus
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    underground
    Posts
    698

    Default

    what are you talking about wasting ammo? I thought these archers have unlimited ammo....?

  7. #7

    Default

    no they havent

    but the first type of archers got more ammo then the auxilia (after marius) archers right?
    Last edited by Avator; September 20, 2005 at 11:51 AM.
    Inter arma enim silent leges. — In times of war the law falls silent


  8. #8

    Default

    what are you talking about wasting ammo? I thought these archers have unlimited ammo....?
    if you click "arcade style battles" in the options menu, you will have that. Otherwise they are limited to 30 or 40 i think?

    but the first type of archers got more ammo then the auxilia (after marius) archers right?
    But they(auxilia) are more capable, and also able to rain arrows down in a big arch and fire farther. They can also stand their ground with their knife better in meele. They have a bigger range and also, somehow their arrows are just more accurate or does more kill.

    Otherwise, follow the previous post's recommedation as putting the archers close to the gate, then putting them in guard mode (and i also remove the "skirmish mode") and anything that comes into their range, they will shoot them.

    The best archers in RTW are
    egyptian bowmen
    and the huntsman

    they are even half descent in meele, if they need to.

  9. #9

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Archer
    The best archers in RTW are
    egyptian bowmen
    and the huntsman
    I don't give **** if my archers suck in melee, I think I used them in a few battles (of the hundreds) as melee fighters. I always take care of their safety. Cretan archers are the best for me.

  10. #10

    Default

    Why Cretans? Their range attack isn't even close to Foresters or Pharoah's Bowmen. Vanilla of course.

  11. #11

    Default

    But they(auxilia) are more capable, and also able to rain arrows down in a big arch and fire farther. They can also stand their ground with their knife better in meele. They have a bigger range and also, somehow their arrows are just more accurate or does more kill.
    Ok, thx btw Ive got like 2/3 or even half my army of archers when i attack another arme in the fields.. is that good or does it suck?
    Inter arma enim silent leges. — In times of war the law falls silent


  12. #12

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by crazyhorse
    Why Cretans? Their range attack isn't even close to Foresters or Pharoah's Bowmen. Vanilla of course.
    Okay, they don't have the range of the foresters and bowmen, but they come close. Their big advantage is that they're recruitable in Greece, Anatolia and some other places. So every faction can hire them.

  13. #13

    Default

    my basic army always has two groups of skirmisher and two groups of archer. i try and put in artillary, but if i need more man power, ill substitute the artillary for troops.

    archers are good, but dont waste em. you need to know how to use em right, and archers are my favorite unit. One thing that might be helpful for you, in a battle, not a seige, is to tell your archers to fire at the rightmost or leftmost group of the enemys line, thus weaking the flank. always tell your achers to focus fire, otherwise they not too usefull. with the flank weakened, you can rip through that side, and routes usually start to happen. my skirmishers usually guard my archer becuase they can go into mellee. i also use them to harrass flanks.
    if water was chocolate and i was a duck, id go to the bottom and swim back up, but waters not chocolate and im not a duck, so why dont u just st*u

  14. #14

    Default

    I love the chosen archer warbands. I do end up using them in melee so that's why, I really suck as a tactician because I am clumsy at keyboard controls. Anyway, I try to limit my use of archers to sieges but on the open field I simply place a couple units of crappy meat puppet infantry to use as protection and just move them up to the point where the archers are in range. Turn fire at will mode and have a unit of light cavalry protecting each flenk. I never use flaming arrows either. Archers are really most useful when taking out phalanxes because they can out maneuver them. Anything else and it gets dicey unless you have a height advantage or some cover.

  15. #15

    Default

    But they(auxilia) are more capable, and also able to rain arrows down in a big arch and fire farther. They can also stand their ground with their knife better in meele. They have a bigger range and also, somehow their arrows are just more accurate or does more kill.[/QUOTE]

    auxila are trained normal archers are from the peasents as they can use bows

  16. #16

    Default

    I've just played with Sarmatian archers. Dang, these guys are good!

  17. #17

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by eastsidehighrise
    or, you can put them on guard mode.
    thats what i do

    {}---------) (----------{}
    (===) (===) < Velts Guard Mode fire at will

    (===) (===) < Archers Guard Mode fire at will
    (==) cav (===) <= (INF) (==) cav
    (===) <= (INF)
    (===) <= (INF)
    (===) <= (INF)

    (===) <= (Gen)

  18. #18
    NobleNick's Avatar Artifex
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    Huntsville, AL, USA
    Posts
    1,602

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Avator
    Ok, thx btw Ive got like 2/3 or even half my army of archers when i attack another arme in the fields.. is that good or does it suck?
    I am officially declaring myself a noob; so take this for what it is worth. In my short campaign (played as Julii on Med/Med). The archers consistently racked up the most kills, especially later in the game and especially on offense during sieges. I maxed out at 5 archer units in a full stack army of 20, but that is cause I love to use Equites and Wardogs, too. My rule is take no more archers than my heavy infantry can defend in the field.

    Archers (as is also the case with Onagers, Ballistas, etc.) very definitely have limited ammo on the mode I play. Look at the blue bar on the unit's card.

    During sieges, I knock down three (3) holes in the wall with the rams, as close together as the game will allow, And try to make sure that one hole is lined up with a road leading into the city. The defenders get riled up and march to and from the town center and along the road next to the wall. (Why do they never come out and chase me?) I move heavy infantry to the sides of the openings, protected by the walls but ready to attack the flanks of any emerging enemy units. Archers go directly in front of the openings. A typical placement might look sort of like the diagram below. (E= enemy; T = enemy wall towers, which are either destroyed by your onagers, or you have picked your assault site and arranged your troops so that they are too far away to get picked off; H = Heavy infantry; C = Equites/General's Calvary; D = War Dogs; O = Onager, which I only had for maybe 20% of my sieges.)

    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Town
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Center

    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | . E . |
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | . E . |
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | . E . |
    _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _| . E . |_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
    . . . . . . . . . . . . E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E
    __T________ . . ______ . . _______ . . ____________T__
    . .. . . . . . . . . . H . . H . .. H . . H
    . . . . . . . A
    . . . . . . . C . A . H . . . . A . . . .H . . A . C
    . . . . . . . D . D . . . . C . A . C . . . . . D . D
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O

    Leave Archers on "Fire at Will" and "Skirmish" modes, but do not direct them to fire at anything. The enemy will run around town like headless chickens. Whenever they come within archer range the archers fire at will. The enemy units either stand there in range and get totally obliterated, or they eventually decide to retreat. Typically, after losing 2 to 4 men, they retreat; typically losing 4 to 8 more men (out of a band of 50 light infantry) during the retreat. Each enemy unit seems to feel the need to repeat this performance 3 or 4 times, so the losses add up. A bonus is that the enemy troops that are left are exhausted from running all over town.

    If a lone skirmisher band tries to whittle away at my force, I can either let the overwhelming force of my archers cut them down, or (to save arrows) rush the Equites in for a quick end to that non-sense. (Remember to hit pause and temporarily disable the fire at will mode, or your archers will cut down your own cavalry.) The Equites virtually always draw a response from the defenders, trying to come to the rescue of their skirmishers. But by the time they respond, the Equites are back outside the gates, and the response team meets up with a hail of arrows.

    By the time the main assault starts, the defenders are typically at less than half strength; and of those that are left, 1/2 to 3/4 of the defenders are tired or very tired.

    After several sieges, your archers will have racked up oodles of chevrons, making this tactic even more lethal.

    I love archers in siege mode!

    In the field, I've had success.... and failure. The trick is to be able to:

    A.) Shoot at enemy units from the enemy's flanks/rear, and
    B.) Protect your archers!

    It is easy to do A or B, but doing both simultaneously is a bit tougher. (Anyone with novel tactics, I'd love to hear about them.) Out in the field, especially when opposing a superior force, I find light calvary much more useful than archers.

    I like an infantry-to-archer ratio of 3-to-2. With all archers behind a wall of infantry, I focus fire on the enemy's flank units; not because they are the enemy's flank units, but because doing this directs fire at the enemy unit's flank. (See the difference?) For this reaon, you typically want your left side archers to focus fire on the enemy units on YOUR right side; and vice versa for your right side archers.

    Hope that helped.
    Last edited by NobleNick; February 13, 2006 at 02:38 PM.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •