Fire arrows?

[Jasper9080]

I believe they can cause fear or routing(?), but what is the side effect? Less accurate? Less arrows?

I searched but "fire" came up in like a hundred posts

[Arvedui01]

Fire arrows are generally less accurate, but they do hurt the enemy's morale and will speed up a rout process.

[Jasper9080]

Ah, thank you.

[Brusilov]

They are also very useful in making enemy elephant run amok. If you manage to get them to do this in the enemy armies ranks it's very funny to see.

Basically, against light units I will use non-fire arrows, against heavy armoured units I will use fire arrows.

[Holy Harry]

I typically wait until the enemy gets to "shaken" or if their generals just died and then hit them with fire arrows. Great for chain routing as well.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

I typically wait until the enemy gets to "shaken" or if their generals just died and then hit them with fire arrows. Great for chain routing as well.

Certainly in vanilla you get through the ammunition faster if you use fire. I don't know if that's changed in RSII?

[Primo]

Certainly in vanilla you get through the ammunition faster if you use fire. I don't know if that's changed in RSII?

What do you mean? That you can fire less arrows if you use fire arrows?

If so: I tend to disagree; Fire arrows use 1 arrow ammo per arrow, as they should, and the unit has X arrows no matter whether they are burning or not.

Additionally, in Vanilla using flaming arrows takes way more time for the archers to shoot, so you think your ammo depletes less fast than while using normal arrows.

In RSII they are perfectly identical; apart from the impact on the enemy unit and the texture, of course.

[Ferdiad]

Using Fire ammo halfs your ammo I think.

[Primo]

Using Fire ammo halfs your ammo I think.

This would be highly illogical, and I have never seen it happen that way.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

Using Fire ammo halfs your ammo I think.

Indeed, that's exactly my memory of vanilla RTW, although I thought it was something like 2/3rds if pushed to give a figure.

[Enyalius]

Less accurate.
Same amount of ammo, but takes longer time to reload. Leave 1 unit using flaming arrows and one unit using normal arrows, the unit using normal arrows goes empty first because of faster rate of fire.

I only use flaming arrows against elephants.

[RafoutRoud]

Yeah.

Fire for elephants, nothing more.

[Disco]

I take a large amount of friendly fire by being overactive with archers, so I turn on flaming arrows to monitor what they're shooting and kill fewer of my men. They feel less accurate and fire much slower. But they're very good against horses and elephants, and it is sometimes a sound strategy to fire more slowly and preserve ammo. Too often multiple archers will fire redundant volleys at the same time, and with fire arrows, that effect isn't as draining on your ammo supply.

[dvk901]

I must say....I have no idea.

[TheDarkKnight]

From my experience:


Same amount of ammo
Takes more time to reload
Less accurate (not that big of a deal when having all your archers fire into a mass of enemys)
More damage + more likely to rout.

[Lord Dakier]

Jesus some just go and bloody test it already.

As far as I'm aware using regular arrows is quicker and more accruate but fire arrows cause generally more damage and more loss of morale. Using fire arrows when an enemy is wavering or shaken can quite often force a rout.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

Jesus some just go and bloody test it already.
.....

I did just this yesterday with 2 archer units next to each other (the battle was at night - pretty)

It was interesting to see that the ammunition bars were now different sizes (width), but that the fire arrows lasted longer. So it does seem that it's the same amount of arrows, but it does take longer to prepare and fire them.

[Anthropoid]

In reality or . . . how the hell would a highly mobile bunch of archers just spark up a bunch of arrows? if they were all set up with pots of burning oil up on the ramparts or even in a well-prepared battlefield sure, but an encounter based battle out in the hinterlands somehwere? Seems hard to believe that they'd be set up to switch to fire arrows that quick.

Still, it is a lot of fun to shoot elephants with fire arrows and then watch them trundle around on top of their own troops.

[LoGaL]

mmm i think arrows were simply covered in oil or something else and then ignited

[Jasper9080]

On the subject of Night Battles (rather than start a new thread), other than looking cool is there any other benefit?