Archer's Targeting System

[PointOfViewGun]

I think archers should be able to target an area instead of only being able to target a single unit. This becomes very important in choking points were you have stacks of enemy troops attacking your front line. When you try to target the soldiers farther away from your front line to avoid collateral casualties the archers will still fire towards your front line killing your own troops in the process as well. As a bunch of units stretches from your front line towards back of the enemy lines there is no possible way of only targeting the soldiers that are left behind.

It's a simple addition. Instead of having the circular area with the artillery we could have an adjustable rectangular area for archers to target. Places where this would be extremely useful is:

- When enemy breaches your gates and are stopped right inside your city or castle where they're fighting in mass.
- Bridge crossings.
- Narrow slopes.

What do you think?

[Confederate Jeb]

Seems reasonable, though I doubt it'll actually be implemented.

[The Unknown General]

I just want to add this in, but I want them to tell you if you are in range for them to attack. In Rome they didn't tell you, but in Medieval 2 the red arrow meant not in range while the green arrow meant in range.

[athanaric]

I just want to add this in, but I want them to tell you if you are in range for them to attack. In Rome they didn't tell you, but in Medieval 2 the red arrow meant not in range while the green arrow meant in range.

Huh? RTW had the same system...

[The Unknown General]

Huh? RTW had the same system...

Really? I have yet to see it any time I've played it.

[Drtad]

I just want to add this in, but I want them to tell you if you are in range for them to attack. In Rome they didn't tell you, but in Medieval 2 the red arrow meant not in range while the green arrow meant in range.

Well since empire there are incredibly obvious reddish range indicators for all ranged units so...

[The Unknown General]

Well since empire there are incredibly obvious reddish range indicators for all ranged units so...

Only got Rome and Medieval 2 because to be honest, Empire's time period didn't interest me.

[Grimbold]

Well, few days ago i was browsing fall of the samurai battle videos on youtube when i noticed that when you toggle riffle men units you see all of these red fields or something which mean that as soon as an enemy unit is inside of it, they'll start firing.

I haven't played other TW games, but this would be a nice addition to Rome, for archers, javelins, slingers and siege equipment.

[Adufka]

Only got Rome and Medieval 2 because to be honest, Empire's time period did interest me.

Me too..i don'l like Empire,Shogun period...a didnt play much these games....only Rome and Medieval

[DividingSolid]

I think it's a great idea and it makes it easier on me by not having to worry if the arrows hit my own men.

[Adreno]

Yes i want to be able to kill my own routing cowards

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Yes i want to be able to kill my own routing cowards

I have wanted to do this for forever.

This is a great idea.

[Rewjeo]

Having started up RTW again after the announcement, there have been many, many times I have wanted this feature. You could do this with artillery in at least NTW, right? It shouldn't be hard to implement it for archers, I would assume, then, since this engine is a[n] (r)evolution of the Warscape engine.

[alQamar]

good idea Seth i will put that in the MP idea competition on totalwar.org okay?

[PointOfViewGun]

good idea Seth i will put that in the MP idea competition on totalwar.org okay?

Sure. This encompasses both MP and SP though.

[Senchiro]

ok

[Armatus]

So hold position or guard mode with fire at will off doesn't work?

[PointOfViewGun]

So hold position or guard mode with fire at will off doesn't work?

Not in the way I want it to work. The archers will cause a lot of friendly casualties while trying to target the enemy.

[Ichon]

I think this makes the most sense as historically the most effective missile armies using barrage fire did not aim at individual units but at a certain range and area. That allowed the rapid volleys that were so dangerous as the affected men in the target zone never had a break for 2-5 minutes at a time every 3-6 seconds being hit with a massive amount of missiles. Sometimes such a storm was enough to break those men without anything else being done since they couldn't respond and were basically helpless. Especially combined with a rapid advance against the men receiving the missile barrage who had a ragged formation and knew resisting a determined attack is unlikely could produce a rout without even any melee. The large shields of Romans and others were designed in fact mostly to counter such attacks more than for melee fighting where such large shields are as often impedance as help not to mention heavy.

When distances closed where archers/slingers could pick out individual targets there were usually a much reduced volume of missile volleys because of picking out individual targets and not as much parabolic volleys where men in the rear ranks could aim very well and also within 1 minute or less the opposing ranks would be close enough that risk of friendly fire increased.


Of course the target area should be a bit innaccurate with perhaps 3 concentric areas where the middle receives 50% or more of the missiles the next area receives 30% and the widest outer area received 20% of the missiles. It shouldn't be possible to aim very close to the friendly ranks from a far distance and hit only enemies. Javelins and darts being such close missiles would be the most able for that type of near range accuracy as many ancient battle accounts talk about velites or other types of javelin skirmishers going to the flanks of enemy or even between the ranks of Roman maniples and turning to fire horizontally down the lanes at attacking enemies.

[Rogue Ares]

I think they should too. I just don't agree with the arrows that follow the enemy like a homing beacon is attached to the arrow or something lol. Its very unrealistic. I think you should be able to tell your archers to shoot at a certain area manually. Or have the captain of the unit of archers automatically pick out the area where an enemy unit stands. I don't think the arrows should trail to the specific unit but rather the area. and an arrow "might" hit an enemy ai.
What would also be cool is to have an ability to tell your units that have shields equipped to hide behind the shield kinda like how the Spartans did in the movie "300". So that your infantry doesn't just have to take that arrow crap lol. Now this may be asking for a lot but to have the actual arrows stay it the shields throughout the entire battle would be awesome!