Archers in RS2

[Pavlik the Rus]

I've played Sparta and Seleucid campains for a small time, but after i changed to Roman one.
So, imo now archers are allmost useless/ They can not hit any troops except lowest defendless slingers, skirmishers, not bad damage to light cavalry and that's it.
My suggestion to increase missile attack to the archers (2-4 points) and increse their cost/upkeep.

If they are so weak, why so many people in all times was archers?

[Brusilov]

I've not encountered this problem. I've used archers against all types of units. Don't expect them to be as effective against heavily armoured units compared to the lighter ones.

A lot depends upon who you attack with the arrows. Fire at a unit from their right hand side - they won't have a shield bonus then.

[Siegfriedfr]

Isn't shield value doubled against missile from the front as well?

[DarthLazy]

Depends,

Archers rip slingers apart which most people use to weaken an enemys armored troops

Archers are almost as effective as slinger when put on the left flank attacking the enemys shieldless side or rear.

Archers have flaming arrows, which cause a devastating fear effect.

In short, skirmishers and slingers are more dangerous to your army than you would imagine, and archers do a good job of disposing them without tiring out your main line.

[Chernish]

Archers are good, like in Europa Barbarorum, especially the Parthian and Sarmatian! Horse archers the best! ...

In Ancient Times bows are not strong, so archers do not could cause serious losses to the armoured enemy

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

Depends,

Archers rip slingers apart which most people use to weaken an enemys armored troops

Archers are almost as effective as slinger when put on the left flank attacking the enemys shieldless side or rear.

Archers have flaming arrows, which cause a devastating fear effect.

In short, skirmishers and slingers are more dangerous to your army than you would imagine, and archers do a good job of disposing them without tiring out your main line.

Exactly, one just needs to pick their targets and being able to own slingers makes the archers very useful indeed.

[frontier-auxilia]

In reality, normal metal crafted defensive equipment such as chainmail offers adequate protection to arrows. Shields as well. There are bows that have better penetrating powers then others such as composite bows from nomadic tribes, levy greek archers don't get those. Even these composite bows need to get in certain effective range to properly kill armored dudes with a shower. Thats why turkic horse archers prefer to shoot enemy horses rather than that heavily armored dude riding the horses. Nevertheless they will wound not always kill but on the ancient battlefield a wounded man is as good as dead.

Anyway use them on lighter troops and they will wreck carnage amongst them. Very good to stop those cheap arse slingers from molesting your badass legionnarie cohort with casulties before the dude even hit hand to hand.

If you really want to shoot things with armor, try shooting heavy infantry on their exposed sides without the shield. Either the flank, the rear or only unleash them when they are close. Dunno about RSII but it work wonders for me in medieval total war. For all that your cheap ass unit will still manage to score 20 kills in a unit of elite infantry 3 times their price.

[Merula]

One thing i found when i was playing that really annoyed me is that ALL THE TIME my archers seem to kill my own men who are standing in formation and not even being attacked by the enemy yet!! This has gotten to the point where i have almost given up on using them, which is saddening me cause they were my favorite units....

The archers somehow fail to realise that they are only shooting a metre above my back line, thus killing a whole lot of my men with stray shots. Now i know this is realistic and 'friendly fire is on' but it just gets rediculous when my CRETANS (supposedly the best archers at the time) shoot half my leggionaries to death!!!

I know this is occurant in all RTW games/mods but i was just wondering whether there is any way around this??? has it happened to you and what have you done about it?? Is there any way to elevate the angle that archers shoot at???

Thanks

[Visarion]

my favorite archers are Dismounted Getic Archers because they have long range missiles and can hide anywhere! Try them!

[Limskj]

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a way around this. Either move your archers a little further back or pick their targets for them personally.

[Frost, colonel]

I have found archers to be fine in this mod. I usually get the archers on my left to fire to the right, and the archers on my right to fire to the left. I look out for any unit with it's back exposed, and don't waste arrows on the front of heavy troops.

In one of the above posts, someone said bows at this time were poor, well in the West yes, but not so much in the East, there it was prudent to keep up with the jones's!

[Merula]

Thats the problem!!! Im getting to the point where im positioning them 20-30 meters behind the main army!!!!
And the ai archers are super accurate super marksmen, they never hit thier own troops and its like they have rifles that curve bullets they kill that many!!!! (ok im exagerating a bit....)

Anyway if it is hardcoded and you cant increase the angle, ill just have to live with it, work out a system or something...

By the way im not nocking the mod cause its AWESOME, i just get annoyed at RTW and i guess im used to M2TW and the longbowmen that shoot straight up into the air.

[Visarion]

fire in the right or back of the enemy because units are vulnerable... they can't protect themselves with shields... actualy that was in MTW, I don't know if in RTW is the same!

Edit: If you find archers shooting and harming your men too so annoying disable fire at will and use normal amo instead of flaming arrows... normal arrows are much more precise... also avoid having units too close to archers or putting them in front of archers! fire at the enemy troops until your units reach them and then stop... concentrate on their missile units and so on! it's all about the way you use them! or if you're that guy from Braveheart and don't care about your infantry... sacrifice some... I usualy fire at the enemy when I'm in a fight only if I have heavy units engaged... enjoy!

[Medkirtys]

Try to shoot at some barbarian people, they are decimated by ranged attacks

[Maximus Macro]

archers are just fina as they are.use the german machinegun tactics of WOI. archers on each flank.let the archers on the right schoot on there left flank and the left on there right. you will get massive kills.atleast i do

[Striker]

Once all the enemy infantry is engaged and it's cavalry destroyed move the archers to the enemy back, i did it against an elite unit of carthage ( i think it was sacred band) and it worked very well

[cupoftea]

If you really want some good skirmishers get some javelin throwing units, place them behind an unit and they wreak havoc.

[TTRouble]

try and recruit some merc archers if you really need them - various celtic or Cretan's would be really handy. Have you tried building a mercenar barracks to see whether you can recruit any better archers ? They're definietly not as deadly as in RS1.6 but thats a good thing, although I make sure that I have at least 3 Syrian Archers for my Selecuid armies and lots of horse archers!

[Leeham991]

It was always my understanding that archers in ancient time were mainly anti-peltast infantry that could maybe be used to hit the flank of an enemy line. Unless they were the ridiculously good archers like the Persians or the Cretans.

[Thorn777]

Their deadly when besieging city's without stonewalls. Enemy units just run around crazy from place to place and you can easily kill loads of Athenian hoplites and the like by shooting at them in the side or back.

I actually find them overpowered, cuz in RS2 it takes forever to kill entire elite units in melee. With archers it can be done with 10 volleys.