Archer Collateral Damage

[HAL-9000]

I'm currently playing as the Silvan Elves, patched up to v1.2. I've never really been heavily into the archer-heavy factions, such as Byzantine, Turks, Russians, etc., on the original Medieval 2 and I am struggling a bit with keeping my own guys, specifically the spearmen or forest wardens who keep the infantry of the enemy away from my more valable archers, from getting slaughtered by my own men.

I just had a defensive battle, an OotMM full stack (with 2 units of trolls... my first fight against trolls and I'm not too sure that melee is the way to go!) relieving a 2/3 stack inside a castle which I had besieged. I won very well, as I seem to do often with the Silvans, but I lost more than 500 men, almost half of which were from friendly fire. Allow me to illustrate:


(Click on the thumbnail then click on the "full size" link on the right hand side just below the image in the window that pops up. I prefer to put images on here like this because I hate having to scroll across to read all the rest of the messages in the thread.. I'm so lazy!)




As you can see I lost 520 men, only 314 of which to the orcs. The next picture shows it more clearly:



So does anybody have any suggestions as to how I can limit the number of my own men that I use as pin-cusions? I tend to use a double-line formation on my archers (general included in this) with spearmen making a line in front of them with about the same spacing as a double-line gives you from the first row of archers. It seems to be working well aside from the friendly casualties. Thanks in advance for any advice!

[Warmaster Tibs]

When you fire into a meele your going to hit your own guys its a fact. The best way you can limit friendly casulties in my opinion would be to manuver your archers to higher ground so they fire down ino the enemy mass or farther away. So they will aim higher and over the heads of your men. Trying to fire at units in the back can also help limit the casulties a bit. Some times putting your infantry and loose can reduce the friendly casulties but they will take more from the enemy and be less effective pinners. Sacrifices must be made.

[CBCRonin]

When you fire into a meele your going to hit your own guys its a fact. The best way you can limit friendly casulties in my opinion would be to manuver your archers to higher ground so they fire down ino the enemy mass or farther away. So they will aim higher and over the heads of your men. Trying to fire at units in the back can also help limit the casulties a bit. Some times putting your infantry and loose can reduce the friendly casulties but they will take more from the enemy and be less effective pinners. Sacrifices must be made.

That works very well, one of the reasons to get your archers/javelins on the wall as soon as possible to cover your advance into the city. Their accuracy is ten fold from up high and hits to your own men when engaged in melee is slight.
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I've noticed the elves do much better than orcs when set on auto target from behind the lines, they shift to a high arc fire (which still causes some casualties if your men are poorly armored); whereas the orc just continue firing into the backs of their own ranks .

The best bet would be to do as others have suggested though, turn of auto target when troops melee engage and manually target more distant enemies (or shift archers to the flanks and fire into their rear/side).

[eugenioso]

i obviously see that you are a bit unused to the whole archers deal in mtw2 and for that matter TATW.

your archers are not melee units. at best they will be above average, at worst snaga skirmishers will kill them. keep the archers away from the enemy at all times, and only use them in melee if you want to chase down enemies (archers run very fast, and are usually fresh even after a full battle) or encircle troops.

archers have 2 ways of targeting: concentrate fire into a single unit, or spread out arrow fire. use the concentrated arrow fire to weaken units that are really strong (trolls for example) and to target the enemy's archer units first so you wont suffer arrow damage to your archers. use the spread out fire to target large masses of infantry units. so, if the enemy advances 20 hordes of snaga skirmishers, let your archers fire at will at the mass of warriors. also, concentrated fire is a great way to weaken and sometimes outright kill an enemy general.

the ideal battle tactic is to set your archers right behind the infantry, with cavalry on the flanks to cover the archers (archers are very vulnerable to cavalry, especially if charged). the enemy will advance most of the time straight towards you. this is the prime time to target enemy units. target the enemy from closest/most dangerous unit to farthest/least dangerous units. target cavalry units if you can, they are very suceptible to arrows. eventually the enemy archers should get into range of your infantry and/or archers. shoot a few concentrated volleys onto their archers to weaken them and gain archer superiority. when both infantry lines meet, concentrate your fire on any units which are not engaged in melee: archers, cavalry trying yo flank you, skirmishers, and the enemy general. if the enemy has a siege weapon in range (it has happened to me before) concentrate your archer fire on it quickly before it can fire on your archers. its not necessary to kill all the crew, just enough crew to make sure they cant fire. once your infantry and cavalry rout the enemy tell your archers to hold their fire and to chase down the enemy. being faster than infantry and being almsot certaingly not exhausted, they can cut down and capture many opponents.

of course, this is the basic battle tactic. some advanced techniques consist of:

_at the beginning of battle, find an enemy unit of the enemy that doesnt have shields (not necessary, but better), even the enemy general if you wish. concentrate all your fire into this unit, perhaps launching a few volleys to weaken enemy archers first. keep pelting them with arrows. by the time both battlelines clash the unit will have taken some heavy casualties and should be panicking, so they will rout first, causing a chain event of fear amidst enemy ranks allowing you to win the battle easily.

_basically the same as before, but instead of the weakest unit target the enemy's flanking units, such as cavalry or isolated enemy units on the flanks. concentrate your fire onto them. if executed properly your own flanking units will be able to beat theirs much more quickly and give you complete flanking superiority.

_after both infantry lines clash, and you have flanking superiority, move your archers around the battling infantry to the enemy's rear, as close as possible, then unleash concentrated volleys onto the enemy's ranks. this tactic is an absolute killer when used correctly, and will cause a ridiculously high amount of casualties in the enemy ranks in no time

i hope i helped.


PS. i just checked something below my name there's this yellow points. what are those? reputation points? i dont get it. do you get more by posting more?

[saglam2000]

lose the infantry and spam archers, nothing runs out into the enemies and dies like an idiot, or single line your archers with the infantry right behind them, when the enemy gets really close run your infantry into the enemy infantry, your archers can afford a few losses cant they

[vanmiztri]

I suggest you try to block ennemy infantry with one or two low level infantry (let's say militia spearmen). So u can afford loosing some low value man while raining down ennemy line. When your first unit run just throw another one so ennemy wont reach your archer.


BTW, i have observe that archer WONT rarely target ennemy behind the line (they tend to hit nearest target) even when i disable fire at will and direct them to shoot farther units. So i suggest, when archer dont get usefull because all infantry is at hand to hand(and you cant spare troops), press ALT and charge with archer to suppoort infantry line.

[Leonidas480bc]

I try for a 4 or 5 to 1 ratio of missile to melee units its not cheating or UN lore. The main city improvement the Elves get is the Marksmanship buildings so having less than that really nerfs you. As Saglam2000 has said keep a line of infantry behind your archers and charge them through, if the enemy get to close. As the Silvans besieging is very easy. The more archers you have the less casualties you take. When attacking the scripted settlements bring along a second army to keep any reinforcements from triggering a counter attack. Then just starve them out to whittle them down.

[Jacobi19]

You could always go the cheap route like I do, by adjusting the accuracy ratio of elven_arrows in the descr_projectile file, I have it set to the point where the elves seem to actually aim, and hit the target, like the lore describes. around .001 ratio or so. Some tips if you are to use this method. The lower the decimal, the more accurate, and for the cavlry archers, change thier ammo type in the export_descr_unit file to elven_arrow, so they recieve better accuracy as well. Try not to overkill it, though they may be elves, they're not quite gods (at least not your elves)

[Swanny777]

I adore the Silvan Elves, but I thought that they were way underpowered. RR/RC is far too extreme for me, so I did this:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=283914

[Shifty11]

who needs melee units whe your playing the elf faction. Usually i disable skirmish mode and have my archers firing arrows when the enemy are charging more often than not they rout or die before they get to me

[Swanny777]

who needs melee units whe your playing the elf faction. Usually i disable skirmish mode and have my archers firing arrows when the enemy are charging more often than not they rout or die before they get to me

Until about turn 25 when the enemy doesn't suck.

[tesb]

you can alway postiton most of your archers on the flank and when your troops are in melee go araound and shoot the enemy in the back. this only owrks of course when the enemy cavalry is nullified.

[Zikko]

So there is no way to "disable ff"?, Imho that kinda feature to elves would be nice

[Muffer Nl]

TW is REALISTIC and not like PJ's Legolas...

[Jacobi19]

Says the hobbit... Do hobbits even know how to use a bow?

[saglam2000]

Hobbit archers...

[Shocked]

Playing as High elves (which have archers and soldiers with higher stats then silvans)

I always minimize deaths from my archers by taking them off fire at will after the soldiers have engaged in fighting and aim at the units that aren't too close, or at units that are beating my army, I sometimes move my archers to the side of the army and fire at them sideways.

I just seem to naturally be good at avoiding friendly fire.

[axnsan]

The key is watching where your archers shoot. Always try to have a reasonable distance between your infantry and archers so they can shoot over the heads of the infantry. Where your infantry is loosing, attack with the archers behind. Also try to manuever around and to their backs.

[Dava2710]

Hi,
you think thats too much? How bout this one?
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/821...9080916073.jpg
I've got Ents in this battle but it was the first battle I had 'em. This is how it always looks. (btw, those 2 Ents were slain by balistas - 1 shot 1 kill)
Seriously, playing as Silvan Elf is the easiest campaign I've ever played in TW series :-/
I play VH/VH (never play easier) and I seldom have any losses at all. Only some bodyguards cause I put them to the first line (cause after 1 or 2 rounds they are back on their original number). I used to be pissed about 50% losses but now I am pissed when 2 archers die :-/

[axnsan]

As far as I can tell you didn't have any friendly fire casualties there...