My archers = my worst enemy?

[Anatorax]

Ok guys, here is the problem. My archers are effing stupid!!! They are standing on a wall, an enemy gets on the wall with ladders, where engages with my spear militia. Meanwhile, few units are standing in front of the gates in a tight formation. What my archers do? I give them order to shoot at those. They shoot the enemy on the wall, shooting my militia. I have tried everything already - free shooting on/off, guard mode on/off, skirmish mode on/off etc. They just don't shoot at the enemy in front of the gates.

Another thing is with my horse archers - when I tell them to get close to an enemy (but not engage), they just run back and forth - they come up to him and ran away and come back. Well, I think this is due to skirmish mode.

But what's the deal with archers?

[bɑne]

skirmish mode sucks. dont use if possible. as for the archers - tried repositioning? also free shooting is to be avoided unless in open field / clear situations.
If the situation is unfavorable you can always fall back to the town center creating a channel for your archers to shoot into ( block of the alleyway with tightly packed spearwalls and volley arrows down on the advancing enemy). If you spear milita is engaging sword units on the wall they are at a disadvantage without archer support.

[Anatorax]

Well, repositioning archers could fix their behaviour, but there are not so many good positions for them in an upgraded wooden castle. I partially disagree about the skirmish mode. So far I understand, missile units with this mode on shoot at the enemy, but automatically run away if he moves close to them. If you are harassing infantry in an open field with horse archers you can just turn the mode on and concentrate on other things and they'll do the trick.

[Skeleton Of The West]

About horse archers, I think the reason for them to get so close to the enemy is their short range, and then they run away because of the skirmish mode. Anyway because they are on horses they should shoot at the enemy while movement.

About normal archers, sometimes they cant shoot at the unit you are saying them to, resulting them to shoot at another unit as they wish. Repositioning is an option, as bane_tw offered, and sometimes when you dont have that option I just order them to ceasfire.

[Ichon]

In sieges it is difficult to find the angle archer can fire from sometimes so easiest is to leave them in the square or on a raised terrain near the wall where fighting taking place. They seem better able to get shots on more enemy that way. Although some archer with very short range you are just out of luck in the siege sometimes if the way town and wall arranged don't give them much shots.

Skirmish mode is useful for HA just they get very close and don't try it on any fast moving units like javelin thrower etc. Also nice in a large battle to have some archer or crossbow in front of main line and in skirmish they will retreat on their own while you move flanking forces/cavalry. Only time they act stupid is misjudging how fast cavalry charge they fire one last shot before cavalry get into the range which triggers retreat but then its too late as only a few of them manage to get behind your spear line.

[Ryan Industries]

bah, try defending a castle with muskets, and watch 2 guys fire once per volley 50 seconds apart. I have never seen a wrose target finding AI then for the Riflemen in TW

[bɑne]

Archers start AI shooting at about 80% of their range not 100% - combined with automated skirmish thats suboptimal at best. Some units can be left alone on skirmish & autofire (like horse archers) but depending on (foot) unit stats this can prove deadly or just ineffective. For me thats those with long load animations and shorter ranges.

[kvn_m]

Is there no way to fix this?

[Holy winter]

Ok guys, here is the problem. My archers are effing stupid!!! They are standing on a wall, an enemy gets on the wall with ladders, where engages with my spear militia. Meanwhile, few units are standing in front of the gates in a tight formation. What my archers do? I give them order to shoot at those. They shoot the enemy on the wall, shooting my militia. I have tried everything already - free shooting on/off, guard mode on/off, skirmish mode on/off etc. They just don't shoot at the enemy in front of the gates.

I think (not sure) this is your problem:

I think the few units (enemy) in front of the gates are the same units which are getting on the wall with ladders. Because most of them are on the wall, your archers will fire to those on the wall. And because your militia is between the archers and the enemy they get hit as well.

Because if the enemy is in range of your archers, your archers will always fire to them when you command it. Even if their is a building or wall between them. In that case your archers will fire in the air and you wont kill much.

Or

The units in front of the gates are just to far away. But if free shooting is off they wont start firing to an other enemy.

[Humakty]

If you give a move order to skirmish enabled units, they always try to reach their destination, even if an ennemy is standing on/near it (they move toward their destination, come in short range of the ennemy, and then fall back, and then move toward their destination...etc) . It is what causes the back and forth movement. The solution is to cancel their move order once they are where you want them to be.

[Tacitursa]

Did you make sure the units infront of the wall was a completely different unit?

It might be the same unit and half of them are climbing the ladder/already on the walls while the other half is clumped at the bottom near the wall.

If you give archers an order to attack such a unit they will only attack the units that have climbed the ladder.

You dont really want to use archers to attack units directly infront of your wall. The towers , boiling oil , spear men etc will take care of them. During the start of the seige position them on the walls and use flaming arrows to drop morale and kill. Once the AI reach your walls Either reposition your force in the tight alleyways leading to the square where archers are much more dangerous. Or send your archers through a side door and flank round and shoot the AI in the sides.

Once AI reach your walls all archers tend to shoot 90 degree angles into the sky and lose most of there effectiveness. Its always better to reposition your force or your archers so they get line of sight firing where there arrow/death ratio is highest.

What i do when the AI breach my walls with ladders is pull my spearman down and use all my archers to volley any units that climb up. Units move very slow and stupid on walls and archers just tear them to bits.

Position your spear men near the wall exit holes and any units that do make it off the wall run into deadly choke points.