Any way to increase the damage of ranged units?

[angryhashbrown]

Hi, I've been playing RTR for a while now, and I can't help but notice how bland the ranged units in the game are. How they are practically useless, unless you shoot your enemy from behind. I don't think it's very realistic for an entire unit to survive from a hailstorm of approximately 1000 arrows with a total of two casualties and a shield the size of a childs bicycle wheel. It honestly looks pretty stupid, if you ask me.

Any modifications out there that allow me to up the ranged damage for archers?

[sumaznguy]

Really? My archers kill alot quicker than my infantry despite the fact that the infantry has vastly superior stats.

[Brusilov]

Range units (slingers and archers) are quite effective in the game.

If you are using them against a heavily armoured unit then there will be less casualties than against a lightly armoured unit.

If I have archers that are firing on heavily armoured troops I will use fire arrows. These are less accurate than normal arrows but they do immolate the unit nicely (I am sure there is a further effect on lowering the morale as well).

I tend to leave my missile troops behind the front line of my armies so they don't waste time on skirmish mode. On some occasions I do use slingers against the right flank (my left flank) or the enemy army.

If I have horse archers I use these on the flanks and rear of the enemy.

Which ranged units are you using? The quality of ranged units can vary within the game (have a look at the stats).

You will also find that the missile attack will change for the amount of experience that a unit gains. For instance, bog standard Funditore has a missile attack of 3. A same sized unit with two silver chevrons has an missile attack of 9, with three gold chevrons 12.

It looks like each additional chevron (bronze, silver then gold) will add 1 to the missile attack rating.

Having looked at the javelin armed troops they have a base missile attack rating of 11 (they won't be able to fire as often as the slingers or archers will).

[Ashantus]

well, at the beginning i also thought, archers are useless. after a while a find out how use em best way.
let me tell u, when archers are fine.

1. best time is: using fire missiles against elephants
2. during a siege. archers on the wall are great, first to destroy enemie´s siege instruments (e.g. the bock)
when the enemy sends his groups to the ladders.
3. in open battles, they are fine against light infantery.
in other cases use fire missiles to get out some damage.


when are archers useless?
on heavy infantery; Principles, Hoplitai --- no chance.
either.....u use cavallery to turn enemies hoplitai around, so archers can attack em in the back. "smile"


cu

[CiusFortius]

I find both archers and slingers highly effective, but not as good as they were in vanilla. This is also due to many of them having smaller unit sizes now hence less missiles in the air. Horse archers are by far the most deadly as their arrows seem to do more damage than regular archers for some reason, especialy for their numbers.

Whenever I play as an eastern faction I aim for Cyrtian slingers. They can be recruited in some areas with a silver chevron which gives them good morale and damage. They are my Hypaspitai killers of choice. I have about 6-8 of them in an army and focus fire from the flanks on one unit. Takes out those 2 hp bastids in a few vollys, especialy when they start getting gold experience. The best part is that if you have cities in that region they can be retrained. The upkeep on slingers is also very very low which is why I use them a lot as garrison units.

I must say that while the temple bonuses in vanilla where cheap they were fun. I once had a setup as spain where I had a +3 exp templed city producing basic slingers (base dmg 4). I would then move them to the city next door which had the +3 missile damage temple and retrain there. So basically my normal, never faced battle slingers would be doing 10 damage instead of 4. Was very usefull against the low armoured Gauls etc. As Scythia I would keep macedon as live as long as possible. Eventualy I would have elite horse archer armies with gold experience. Once my spies told me that a macedonian city had a pantheon of Dimetre I would take the city and retrain all my horse archers there for the +5 missile damage. Can you say 26 damage horse archers

Still, I prefer the realism of Platinum.

[Spawncaptain]

I think that javelin-armed troops are much more effective than in vanilla. In RTW my Velites killed only a few enemies when facing a warband. Now, they kill around 50 carthagian phalanx-units when placing them in the second line.

[Oldgamer]

Go into the exp_descr_units file, under the data directory, find the archer or slinger units you wish to change, and increase their damage stats. However, do so carefully, as the mod is carefully balanced. Uber-missile units will result in massive casualties, while your melee units ... which are the heart of the game ... stand around, happy to be spared face-to-face combat.

A clue to if your ranged units are too powerful: Try them out against Principes. If they kill them in droves, they're too powerful.