Using non-English ranged units properly

[Poradain]

Hey all,

The delima I face when not playing England is that range units, namely archers/crossbows, are very vulnerable to cavalry charges. To be effective however, they have to be in the front to aim properly.

My current strategy is to place archers in the front row followed by spearmen in the second. When their cavalry are almost within charging range, I send my spears forward. All well and good for protecting the archers, but from then on, they just sit in the back redundant for the rest of the battle with almost full ammo.

Can anyone suggest a better way of using archers?

[GaussSoldier]

This sounds very similar to what was happening when I played RTW.

Try moving the archers farther back behind the line or assigning them targets.

You could also try moving the archers instead of the spearmen when the cavalry gets close.

[Xenomorph]

on open terrain battles that always happens. still, archers can be on the back line and still fire at the enemy, even if you have some friendly fire casualties, on the enemy ranks there will probably be more. still, archers will be useful if the enemy retreats to regroup, as they will be under missile fire. just leave them to fire at will, disable skirmish, enable guard and make sure they are safe behind your infantry line. you always have the option to not take any archers at all and instead add more missile cavalry and infantry.
one tactic that can work fine in some situations is doing a square with your infantry, and retreat your archers inside that square when the enemy charges. cavalry is still mobile and the enemy will be very vulnerable to charges from the rear.

This sounds very similar to what was happening when I played RTW.

Try moving the archers farther back behind the line or assigning them targets.

You could also try moving the archers instead of the spearmen when the cavalry gets close.

if youre using line formations, its better (if its possible and reasonable) to move the infantry and leave the archers firing.

[cave sexte]

Also, when using line tactics, concentrating archers on the flanks with an infantry unit or two as backup is helpful, because you can then deploy them out in front of your lines once the main battle has been joined. This allows you to deliver enfilade fire from one or both flanks into the flanks or center of the enemy line. This is particularly useful against infantry-heavy enemy armies, as they experience great difficulty in redeploying rapidly to engage your missile troops. If they do in fact send a unit or two to engage your missile infantry, just set the targeted unit to skirmish mode, wait for the enemy to go by, and then bring another missile infantry or regular infantry unit up behind them to sandwich them. They'll usually rout quickly, or at least chase your missile infantry unit all over the battlefield, and thus weaken the enemy's main battle line. regardless of what happens, it's better than your archers sitting out the fight in the rear with full quivers.

[Xenomorph]

using higher ground


heres a simple tactic that will help keeping control of your troops in a battle, while using your archers to great efficiency



as you can see, archers are on a slightly higher ground. theres spearmen on the flanks, just in case, and they are often useful, and fresh troops can be moved from the back (i had bad experiences with my spearmen being owned by town militias, so better always have something else useful in case you couldnt spy on the enemy troops before the attack) . this works better if there is higher ground on the red line of the deployment area (you can just leave them whatever and move them when battle starts), as you can pull them back to keep your rear safe. this will give you time to go deal with enemy artillery with your cavalry while they move. just make sure they are all in guard stance, achers off skirmish and all you have to do is move your cavalry and order the archers to shoot stuff.
above all, have fun

If you can, do what the English do in braveheart. Have a reserve of good infantry, a line of peasants, and then charge the peasants into the enemy line, which is hopefully solid infantry. Then fire away, if you get ff casualties, who gives a damn, they're freaking peasants.

thats a good one but the thing is that, in the game (and you know it) peasants will be owned really quickly and rout even faster. in some cases its much better to have more decent infantry, which can be retrained in any town, to serve as fodder, and may even do some damage. anyways, peasants are so cheap it doesnt matter if they rout or not very good to use on a siege outside the walls, to draw enemy archer fire till they run out specially against the freaking mongols that are all about arrows and little armor.


Please refrain from double posts.

Sher Khan

[Lucius Vorenus]

If you can, do what the English do in braveheart. Have a reserve of good infantry, a line of peasants, and then charge the peasants into the enemy line, which is hopefully solid infantry. Then fire away, if you get ff casualties, who gives a damn, they're freaking peasants.

[Poradain]

Great ideas guys. I am now using Xenomorph's higher ground idea with spearman in front so crossbows can shoot over them. Going to try cave's idea of flanking with crossbows next time I play. As for peasants, I tried using them but they chickened away almost on contact. Well..the bolts from behind wasn't exactly reassuring

Side note: Now that my crossbows are firing most of the battle, they are killing better than the longbows I used with England. I think I'm now a crossbow fan!

[Xenomorph]

crossbows really rock more ammo and damage. some archers may have longer range, but are less accurate, and i havent seen flaming arrows doing any difference in the enemies morale . i still use the desert archers while crossbows are retraining, but crossbows really do much more. if well deployed to shoot through a hole in a wall, they can take out 2 units of infantry before they run out of ammo, and archers cant. thats value.