Problem with Crossbowmen shooting from walls when defending or is it?

[Heliion]

Hello this is my first time posting here ever so i just wanted to start by say that i just love Stainless Steel and Medieval 2! so much creds to the people that made it.

Now to my issue or is it?
Im wondering if there is a fix so that crossbowmen can use their powerfull bolts to shoot from the walls when u are the defender.
Cuse now they are just standing there and looking like "oh the enemy is comming i´d better stare them to death".

Thanks for any help in advance.

[Navajo Joe]

Firstly welcome to SS Forum, sadly its not fixable, its an old age MTW2 failing, as the battlement get in the way of Line Of Fire.

[Heliion]

Damn thats sad to hear since MTW2 is the total war i prefer playing.

Thanks for the help Navajo Joe much appreciated.

[Navajo Joe]

Don't despair, they can still cause mayhem to the enemy, position your X-Bows, so that they can fire direct at enemy units after they come thru the gatehouse. If you place a spear unit or other infantry unit on the wall, place x-bows down below or an adjacent wall and they will cause havoc.

[+Marius+]

Could this not be fixed by giving crossbowmen the posibility of shooting at a much greater angle like the archers do?

I have been testing some units from the Magyar mod and their crossbowmen perform amazingly well precisely because they can basically shoot straight up in the air if needed.
Adds a nice immersion to the battlefield as well as the notion of crossbowmen being very useful on the walls during sieges(which was their primary purpose after all).

Now I am curious, what are exactly the files that have to be modified to allow crossbowmen to shoot in the same range of angles as archers?
I would like to tweak around this a bit and see what can be done.

[Heliion]

Don't despair, they can still cause mayhem to the enemy, position your X-Bows, so that they can fire direct at enemy units after they come thru the gatehouse. If you place a spear unit or other infantry unit on the wall, place x-bows down below or an adjacent wall and they will cause havoc.

Aye have been doing it that way and they are very good at making a killingzone.

[WarlordEXE]

Firstly welcome to SS Forum, sadly its not fixable, its an old age MTW2 failing, as the battlement get in the way of Line Of Fire.

isn't the real issue that crossbows can't volley fire in SS like they can in vanilla? Cause i noticed most crossbow units don't volley when there's an allied unit in front of them

[gsthoed]

Could this not be fixed by giving crossbowmen the posibility of shooting at a much greater angle like the archers do?

Check this http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...amage-in-siege and especially Lusted's answers.

[+Marius+]

Check this http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...amage-in-siege and especially Lusted's answers.

Thank you.
Nice find.

I just returned a bit to Stainless Steel and will try to tweak around this a bit.
Who in their right mind would handicap the crossbow in such a way while disregarding the sources describing them firing at angles;



It is not rocket science, you shoot a projectile slightly in the air...and it comes down at an angle.

[Boogie Knight]

I won't ask on there because the last post was six years ago, but has the 45 degree angle been fixed into the game now? And is it in SS 6.4?

[mtnman2008]

Ughh yeah this is REALLY frustrating. I love Stainless Steel, the AI is actually pretty smart and really tries to kill you! But whenever I put crossbowmen up on my walls they basically do jack . First I think it has something to do with skirmish mode being enabled or "fire at will" or a handful of other reasons, every so carefully trying to position them so that maybe, just MAYBE more than like one guy will be shooting his crossbow at the horde of enemies in front of me.

It sucks because I really don't know if I can use crossbowmen now, sure they're great for pitched battles but once you're in a city they are practically useless!

Some people have talked about altering the preferences .txt by changing the angle crossbowmen fire at. How do I do this? When I go into the preferences I don't see a projectiles_.txt anywhere and I don't know how to input a different angle without messing up the game.

Or maybe there is no fix, will be no fix, this game is almost ten years old, I should shut up, and go play some Rome II, which is ONLY ok now because you can mod the out of it to replace all the failures of the game: ie bugs, glitches, stupid game rules.

Thank you all modders for the great work you do, you make us able to actually play games!

[teks]

They are far from useless on walls. There are two strategies for crossbows which continue to work with great effectiveness.

First, placing crossbows a decent distance surrounding all three sides of the gate. When the enemy streams in they get crossbows from three sides. keep some cheap units in there to keep the enemy in place.

Now, the walls. Three angles is fine, but why not hit the enemy from 5 angles? put the crossbows on the far end of the walls. Here they can shoot at enemies storming the walls with ladders, and they can also shoot the enemy below who have already stormed the gates.

Javelins and siphonatores work similiar but must be closer, espesially on the ground. experienced javelins are decent in melee and can throw javelins at enemies outside the gate. Placing javelins on the near walls with crossbows on the far walls with three units of crossbows on the angles facing the gate Is a recipe for pain.

You could try to fx tye angles but it wont work right, it never did. Good archers are better at firing from angles. Crossbows reload slow and wont get many kills with indirect fire anyway.

[Coldfire88]

Crossbows are great, and there are great tips here on how to use them, I almost totally replace archers with crossbows in all my games for its stopping power.

[teks]

Thank you.
Nice find.

I just returned a bit to Stainless Steel and will try to tweak around this a bit.
Who in their right mind would handicap the crossbow in such a way while disregarding the sources describing them firing at angles;



It is not rocket science, you shoot a projectile slightly in the air...and it comes down at an angle.

Ok this might be a little corny but I can't help it.
I think if I asked a rocket scientist "What exactly is rocket science?" I think he may casually respond "You shoot a projectile slightly in the air...and it comes down at an angle."

[DeathtoEgo]

I don't know man, that illustration looks like solid scientific evidence and is therefore completely historically accurate.

[mtnman2008]

Where are these tips?

[mtnman2008]

I'm confused. Its not about them being unable to fire at a really high angle to hit guys right next to the walls, it has to do with them not firing almost at all from the wall. It almost seems like the wall is blocking a large majority of the crossbowmen from firing. So they just stand there doing nothing.

[teks]

The tips are my previous post, at least the ones specific to castle defense. There are other tips here for open battle.

Yes crossbows won't shoot over the walls.

They are far from useless on walls. There are two strategies for crossbows which continue to work with great effectiveness.

First, placing crossbows a decent distance surrounding all three sides of the gate. When the enemy streams in they get crossbows from three sides. keep some cheap units in there to keep the enemy in place.

Now, the walls. Three angles is fine, but why not hit the enemy from 5 angles? put the crossbows on the far end of the walls. Here they can shoot at enemies storming the walls with ladders, and they can also shoot the enemy below who have already stormed the gates.

Javelins and siphonatores work similiar but must be closer, espesially on the ground. experienced javelins are decent in melee and can throw javelins at enemies outside the gate. Placing javelins on the near walls with crossbows on the far walls with three units of crossbows on the angles facing the gate Is a recipe for pain.

You could try to fx tye angles but it wont work right, it never did. Good archers are better at firing from angles. Crossbows reload slow and wont get many kills with indirect fire anyway.

[Dekhatres]

you can make crossbow shoot like archers, what you need to change is in descr_projectiles, found in the Data folder

--original--

projectile crossbow_bolt


effect crossbow_arrows_new_set
end_effect bolt_impact_ground_set
end_man_effect man_impact_tiny_set
end_package_effect bolt_impact_wall_set
end_shatter_effect bolt_impact_ground_set
end_shatter_man_effect man_impact_tiny_set
end_shatter_package_effect bolt_impact_wall_set


damage 0
radius 0.075
mass 0.1
accuracy_vs_units 0.0625
min_angle -80
max_angle 60
velocity 50 55
display aimed
effect_only


--after changes--

projectile crossbow_bolt


effect crossbow_arrows_new_set
end_effect bolt_impact_ground_set
end_man_effect man_impact_tiny_set
end_package_effect bolt_impact_wall_set
end_shatter_effect bolt_impact_ground_set
end_shatter_man_effect man_impact_tiny_set
end_shatter_package_effect bolt_impact_wall_set


damage 0
radius 0.1
mass 0.1
accuracy_vs_units 0.0625
min_angle -80
max_angle 70
velocity 22 44

display aimed
effect_only


the changes i did were to radius, min/max angle and velocity, idk if velocity by itself changes anything but hey it works so who cares right ? there are more types of crossbow bolts so you will have to edit them all if you want all crossbow units to shoot like that, they are not that many anyway,now your crossbows will also shoot from behind walls
oi and dont forget to make a backup before starting (just in case)

[Henriquemarcos5]

Doesn't work. I modified everything, on every crossbow type on the text file but it still doesn't work.

Could you send me your file?