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Thread: Archers vs Crossbowmen

  1. #61

    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    As other members mentioned it depends on a lot of things, the first and most important one is which faction your are playing with, for example if you choose Milan, their Genoses Crossbowman are extremely powerful and they can recruit them early in the campaign. See below the ups and downs of each:

    Archers:

    Some may deploy stakes (England higher end archers, Turks Jannissary archers, etc...)
    They can use falming missles
    They shoot faster then Crossbowmen

    Crossbowmen:

    They have Piercing Armour bonus, this means in late campaign they are stronger then archers
    They are better in melee then most archers
    They have a better defense as they have the shield bonus
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  2. #62
    Old Geezer's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    Well, when I was 6 and made my first bow and arrow, I used to pull it back different distances so as not to hurt my friends. Maybe that is why Jean of Arc survived battles - the English archers didn't have the heart to kill the witch.

  3. #63

    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    Quote Originally Posted by Silent Assassin View Post
    As other members mentioned it depends on a lot of things, the first and most important one is which faction your are playing with, for example if you choose Milan, their Genoses Crossbowman are extremely powerful and they can recruit them early in the campaign. See below the ups and downs of each:

    Archers:

    Some may deploy stakes (England higher end archers, Turks Jannissary archers, etc...)
    They can use falming missles
    They shoot faster then Crossbowmen

    Crossbowmen:

    They have Piercing Armour bonus, this means in late campaign they are stronger then archers
    They are better in melee then most archers
    They have a better defense as they have the shield bonus
    Only goes to show my reasons to use both.

  4. #64

    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    The rate of fire difference would even out in a long battle as it required less effort to pull back a crossbow string than a bow string, and pulling back a 100 lb bow string over and over again gets tiring even if you have trained for it all your life (and have deformed bones as a result). By the way I love crossbow cavalry as despite the low rate of fire, they seem to absolutely murder any other cavalry.

  5. #65
    FriendlyThing's Avatar Civis
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    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    Guns!

  6. #66

  7. #67
    sickpeople's Avatar Semisalis
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    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    IMO, any peasent with limited training could use a crossbow with success, because it could penetrate almost any armor. However only trained and skilled archers could succesfully use longbow.

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  8. #68

    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    Aside from the English, Crossbowmen are *generally* better in the damage/range/melee/armor categories (so basically everything aside rate of fire, and flaming arrows), of course it comes down to factions which you should use. (Personally I think Archers do better defending sieges while Crossbows do better on open fields)

    For example the French only get regular Crossbowmen that do not have long range missiles, then they get Scotts Guard Archers that way outclass them.. While Poland can get Pavise Crossbowmen that outclass their Lithuanian Archers (granted they get stakes which is brutal).

    I can't think of any faction that gets BOTH a high class Archer and Crossbowmen aside from Venice, in that case I use both of them because neither is that much better then the other (I don't mean i mix them in armies, but I just recruit both as I go along and use them).

  9. #69

    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    I would add the following:
    Quote Originally Posted by Silent Assassin View Post
    As other members mentioned it depends on a lot of things, the first and most important one is which faction your are playing with, for example if you choose Milan, their Genoses Crossbowman are extremely powerful and they can recruit them early in the campaign. See below the ups and downs of each:

    Archers:

    Some may deploy stakes (England higher end archers, Turks Jannissary archers, etc...)
    Longbowmen get the armour piercing bonus
    They can use flaming missles
    They shoot faster then Crossbowmen
    They use plunging fire, so can fire over other troops and walls

    Crossbowmen:

    They have Armour Piercing bonus, this means in late campaign they are stronger then archers
    They are better in melee then most archers
    They have a better defense as they have the shield bonus and can use pavises
    They use direct fire, so can only fire from walls up to a certain distance, and don't find it so easy to shoot over terrain or other troops
    Don't crossbowmen only get the shield bonus if they have pavises? I think you also have to be more careful with the crossbowmen formation - only put them in a few ranks?

  10. #70

    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    Quote Originally Posted by NoobaLoob View Post
    For example the French only get regular Crossbowmen that do not have long range missiles, then they get Scotts Guard Archers that way outclass them.
    At tier 3 (archery range), French only get regular crossbowmen, but at tier 4 (marksman's range), the French get aventurier, who are long-ranged and possibly the game's best crossbowmen.

    Quote Originally Posted by NoobaLoob View Post
    While Poland can get Pavise Crossbowmen that outclass their Lithuanian Archers (granted they get stakes which is brutal).
    Poland doesn't get pavise crossbowmen, at least in vanilla. Might you be thinking of Hungary, which gets pavise crossbow militia? (Which are better than its Bosnian archers or its regular castle crossbowmen (the same ones France gets before aventurier).)

    Quote Originally Posted by NoobaLoob View Post
    I can't think of any faction that gets BOTH a high class Archer and Crossbowmen aside from Venice, in that case I use both of them because neither is that much better then the other (I don't mean i mix them in armies, but I just recruit both as I go along and use them).
    Well, France gets aventurier and Scots guard, two of the games best archers and crossbowmen. I would say that Sicily gets very good archers in addition to pavise crossbowmen/pavise crossbow militias. Muslim archers may not be top-grade archers in the sense of Janissary archers or Scots guard, but for when you get them (practice range, tier 2), they might be the best archers in the game. They're certainly up there, along with English longbowmen and Byzantine trebizond archers.

    For a faction which has decent-but-not-great archers and decent-but-not-great crossbowmen, there are the Moors, with their desert archers and peasant crossbowmen. (Moorish peasant crossbowmen mustn't be confused with everyone else's peasant crossbowmen; Moorish peasant crossbowmen are better than the standard crossbowmen of Denmark, France, and Hungary.)

  11. #71

    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    Quote Originally Posted by Maklodes View Post
    At tier 3 (archery range), French only get regular crossbowmen, but at tier 4 (marksman's range), the French get aventurier, who are long-ranged and possibly the game's best crossbowmen.
    Yeah, I wasn't thinking about the aventurier, and they are better then Scotts Guard imo though I do like Scotts Guard for defending Sieges.

    Quote Originally Posted by Maklodes View Post
    Poland doesn't get pavise crossbowmen, at least in vanilla. Might you be thinking of Hungary, which gets pavise crossbow militia? (Which are better than its Bosnian archers or its regular castle crossbowmen (the same ones France gets before aventurier).)
    Yeah, again i don't know what I was thinking - Poland is like my 3rd favorite faction so idk why I was thinking they got pavise crossbows... I was failing yesterday lol

  12. #72
    shikaka's Avatar Domesticus
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    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    Which are the countries for which this archer vs. crossbow actually comes up?
    I mean there are not many which have both top crossbow and archer. What I remember is:

    Sicily: muslim archers and pavese crossbow militia
    Moors: desert archers and peasant crossbow
    France: Aventuriers and Scots Guard
    Hungary: Bosnian archer and pavese crossbow militia


    Whenever I play these factions I seem to use both their archers and their crossbowmen (for different tasks), except for Hungary. (with Hungary I use all cavalry armies so I skip both units)

  13. #73
    SonofaBooyah's Avatar Vicarius
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    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    I find Crossbowman quite useless on M2TW to be honest. Not just on the walls when your defending (they don't perform properly for me, always fire facing upwards so they kill about 2 people per volley) but on the field as well. Because the AI usually come for you in a 1v1 fight, crossbowmen never have enough time to fire all their arrows, I only get off about 3-4 arrow volleys with them, compared to archers where not only can I get off more shots (about 6-7 before the AI armies arrive) but they can then fire over their own me safely and properly, unlike crossbowmen.
    They also have other useful traits, like stakes and fire arrows, so all in all, I find archers to be much more effective in M2TW. Real life is obviously different, but that's for another time.

  14. #74

    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    It depends, You cant pick anything whenever you want. For example Crossbowmen have longer range, need a flat trajectory And Cant use fire arrows or fire overhead However they are quite deadly under the right conditions, their Bolts are armor piercing and They fire Quite fast and can engage and defeat heavily armored knights

    for Me I Prefer bows, They are Extremely effective in any condition, Especially sieges, This is where archers are best at, sieges, they can fire overhead and use fire arrows, though their accuracy is worse and their Kill rate is worse they are generally better support units, they still Are dedicated to providing Fire support for the most part, unlike Superior crossbowmen such as genoese Crossbowmen, who can engage and defeat Dismounted Knights after softening them up with bolts

    At the last. if its A 1 VS 1, Crossbowmen can easily engage and defeat bowmen in a Head-on duel for the most part.

  15. #75
    eXistenZ's Avatar Praeses
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    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    maybe a bit unrelated, but why is there actually armour in the game? since a lot of archers (and all crosbowmen) can ingore it. I always build armoury factories as soon as possible, but castle trained units never get higher than bronze shield. City units can get gold,but i never use them, and if i get an armoury factory in a city its because i conquered it

  16. #76
    shikaka's Avatar Domesticus
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    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    Quote Originally Posted by eXistenZ View Post
    maybe a bit unrelated, but why is there actually armour in the game? since a lot of archers (and all crosbowmen) can ingore it. I always build armoury factories as soon as possible, but castle trained units never get higher than bronze shield. City units can get gold,but i never use them, and if i get an armoury factory in a city its because i conquered it

    That's true, most of the time high level armory is a perfect waste of money.

    You can upgrade maybe 1 or 2 units (which is already heavily armored like Gothic knight) and maybe get a 'fine armor' ancillary, but it is not worth it.

  17. #77

    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    Quote Originally Posted by eXistenZ View Post
    maybe a bit unrelated, but why is there actually armour in the game? since a lot of archers (and all crosbowmen) can ingore it. I always build armoury factories as soon as possible, but castle trained units never get higher than bronze shield. City units can get gold,but i never use them, and if i get an armoury factory in a city its because i conquered it
    Crossbowmen don't ignore armor completely. They only ignore a percentage of the armor, as specified in the descr_projectiles file. Most armor piercing projectiles ignore around 50%.

    As for the armory factory, it was originally intended for the heavy versions of general bodyguards. But this unit never made it in the game, so the armory factory is essentially useless except for the broken lance unit of the italian faction.

  18. #78
    eXistenZ's Avatar Praeses
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    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    And is there any way to alter the files to make armour/ the armour factory a bit more effective without resorting to heavy modding?

  19. #79
    BM309K58SMERCH's Avatar Centenarius
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    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    Crossbows all the way.
    Although I use guns, I definitely prefer using crossbows, or "crausboows" in the words of the over-common Merecenaries.

  20. #80
    Engie's Avatar Ordinarius
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    Default Re: Archers vs Crossbowmen

    It depends on the situation, I prefer archers in open field battles because they're more flexible but when it comes to defending settlements I like to mix it up a bit with crossbows which means I can have my archers concentrating on siege equipment with their fire arrows while the crossbowmen (with their massively better range) can attack enemy troops.

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