Archers

[Kayslay]

Need some advice with archers
Playin England and well trying to play with mass archers firing on 1 unit at a time.
The thing is i found this not to work as well as Id like
Had 5 units of 3stripped Longbowmen firing from flanks of my battle lines to cause about 40 kills from 5 units

I thought firing head on would be best rather than firing over my men but still not great result

Any time on using Archers, and i guess missle units in general
Would it be better to get merc Xbowmen for extra attack?

[Neige]

Mercenary crossbows are slower to reload and their range is smaller than longbows. I say make more longbows! At least it is what I usually do.

[Silent Assassin]

The thing is with Archers to have better ones you will need to trin them in battle let them shhot at will, the more men they kill the more experienced they get. The more experience they have the more accurate and deadly they are. They only thing which I find a bit hard in training them is that it takes twice the time to gain one badge of experience compared to a sword or a spear unit.

[General Nuisance esq]

I am not a huge fan of longbowmen either, personally I prefer crossbowmen or archer militia as they both have long range too
Archers seem to work better when they are just firing on advancing units or defending against a siege
I sometimes turn them off when the infrantry fight begins as they seem to do more harm than good (especially against my generals)
In RTW Multiplayer the advice is to have your archers select one unit each not all on the same unit and I suspect the same applies here
Once the infrantry fight begins have your archers fire at any enemy unit not involved in the fight (enemy archers) OR the enemy general and if possible get them to the side or behind the enemy units in the infrantry battle BUT beware of enemy cavalry

[Kayslay]

Hmm seems i should just disband all my units of archers lol.
More knights i guess

[Silent Assassin]

Hmm seems i should just disband all my units of archers lol.
More knights i guess

I wouldn't do that I love archers as I love defending, train them in each battle that you can they will get better

[Light Brigade]

Fight against rebels, they will not normally move from a defensive position, just pick them off and have good victories for your generals and exp for your archers!

[General Nuisance esq]

You can always use them skirmish style against an army with beaten or no cavalry
I regularily will siege a town with a small army so that ai sallies and then kill off the enemy cavalry and run my infrantry away whilst my archers pawn the enemy infrantry, this works very well at Antwerp and Bruges in particular

[Agent Miles]

In RTW massed archer units could shoot AI units to bits. I find that in M2TW this is no longer the case, perhaps because the units have more armor. However, units do still take a hit to their morale if they are fired on and I have routed units with missile fire. I don’t use fire at will, because then the AI is aiming my archers. However, I do use pause, so perhaps this wouldn’t work in MP.
I target those units that are the immediate threat. Usually, not every AI unit engages me at the same time, so I fire at those melee units that are moving to attack me now (my cavalry can disperse the AI’s skirmishers so I don’t waste shot on people who are shooting at me). If I am the attacker, then I fire at those units that are the point of my attack until they are engaged by my melee units. Then I fire at the units that can do me the most damage. Shift fire around so that each AI unit gets a hit to its morale. Of course, if you can shoot at the AI general, then that takes priority. If a unit has broken and then rallied, I use flaming missiles because they will rout again more quickly.

[Jianadaren]

Need some advice with archers

I thought firing head on would be best rather than firing over my men but still not great result

Firing head-on is better than firing over your men, but it is still your second worst option. Ideally, you want to fire into the enemy rear and side. The perfect angle would be with your archers nearly perpendicular to but just slightly behind. This is so that you hit the enemy in the back, but still hit them at an angle where you achieve maximum accuracy.

Why you want to hit them in the back.

a) No shield so higher damage
b) Higher morale penalty

Why you want to shoot from the side

a) archers are pretty accurate left to right, but not as accurate with depth. So when you shoot a unit from the side, your depth target is a lot bigger and thus easier to hit. (Say they keep their units in 5 rows and 15 columns. When you shoot from the front, you only have five rows to shoot at, but when you shoot from the side, your target has lengthened and now you have fifteen rows to shoot at).

b) Horses are massive targets from the side

Also, you always want high ground. It just shoots better.

Furthermore, try to keep your archer lines as thin as possible, this ensures that less archers have to shoot over the archers in front of him. (When you shoot over something, it's an arc-shot with less power than a direct bolt.

[General Nuisance esq]

It really is a matter of taste with who you fire at, personally I like to spread my targets (and not gang bang one unit) I think it's more effective and I tend not to prioritise an enemy general as you could use a lot of ammo for very little killings (my aim is to kill off as many enemy units as possible before they engage my infrantry) but whatever works for you is best
Only point I would add NEVER fire at an enemy unit that you are attacking with your general that is suicide

[Ascarona]

Do what I do:
Build an entire stack of archers with only one melee unit (preferbly one with High morale and that can pin the enemy for as long as possible).
Then attack a rebel army (preferbly one with no cavalry) and just shoot them while they run at you, when they come close enough then pin them down with your melee unit and watch those suckers die

[Angrychris]

archers are good counters to horse archers, but i only really use them when defending from a siege. In open field battles, I would always keep them in the rear with skirmish off in hopes of maximising damage or die trying (they are fairly inexpensive). Towards the end of my MTW2 days i started to incorporate missile units in siege attacks. Breach the walls (take down) and use ur missile units to coax the enemy out or pick them off while they try to hold there ground. You need a sufficient amount of siege weaponary though to take out any type of wall resistance. Once your inside, get your men on the walls and solidify your control. Against the ai i would aim all my siege weaponary on two adjascent wall portions then rush my archers in onto the walls while my calv and infantry secured the bottom. This worked only if i attacked from an unorthodox direction that was unexpected and looked geographicaly promising. They have the potential to be very flexable but it does take alot of time (trial and error) as well as experience on both them and yourself.

[Muagan_ra]

It's best to fire at units sides, the side that the shield isn't on. You might want to get creative with ambushes or flanking forces, with a melee unit or two behind to protect them.

[Viking Prince]

I tend to concentrate the fire when I need to quickly weaken a unit before engaged in melee. I tend to spread the fire and also use flame when weakenng morale. Both of these are special cases. Most of the time it is one unit on one unit and ass suggested at an angle and on the open/ nonshielded side (facing on the left?).

In castle defenses, I do not worry about flaming unless there is only a ram or some other single vulnerable siege equipment. And even then, only when I have several archers to give the flames a chance to do their work. It seems to me to be better to kill as many as possible before they melee in the breeches or at the walls. Unless they are good defensively like the Genoveese Crossbows, I will then withdraw them near the center where they will continue to fire until out of ammo and then fight to the death in the center of the flags where they will not break.

btw -- I have never figured out an effective use of the crossbow units in city/castle defense. Their effctiveness declines quickly as the enemy closes in toward the wall.

[General Nuisance esq]

btw -- I have never figured out an effective use of the crossbow units in city/castle defense. Their effctiveness declines quickly as the enemy closes in toward the wall.

I think that crossbowmen are better defensive wall fighters than normal archers, I seem to rout the wall attackers quicker and can get back to firing on the enemy below

OK archers vs Horse archers, very effective when the horse archers are just standing there but totally ineffective when the horse archers start circling

[Kayslay]

Hmm maybe i could pin some units with cheap spearmen and then rain death on the enemy? hmm might work i guess

[General Nuisance esq]

Hmm maybe i could pin some units with cheap spearmen and then rain death on the enemy? hmm might work i guess

Think of it as 3 mini battles

1) Archer war (archer or use cavalry to rout archers)
2) Cavalry war (try to take out as much enemy cav as possible whilst keeping your cavalry away from enemy infrantry)
3) Infrantry meat grinder (engage and pin down enemy infrantry with your infrantry whilst charging cav into his rear and archering him from the side if possible)
In the 3rd stage infrantry meat grinder you are looking to try to rout enemy end units and then move your victorious units to help the next unit along, literally folding up his line piece by piece

[Angrychris]

archers do little to route by melee, even the archers who are supposed to have some sort of melee offense usualy fall flat. Even archers exhaust after shooting all there arrows. Thats why i go all or nothing with them.

[General Nuisance esq]

archers do little to route by melee, even the archers who are supposed to have some sort of melee offense usualy fall flat. Even archers exhaust after shooting all there arrows. Thats why i go all or nothing with them.

Totally agree, they do OK on walls but the best melee units are of course infrantry, if archers run out of ammo and you need to use them, then attacking from the rear of the enemy and surrounding them will speed up the routing and of course if you have no cav left then archers are good for chasing down routing units (turn skirmish mode off)