Sherwood Forest Archers - Woodsmen Guild

[Kaiser Nonsense]

Oi, those Sherwood Archers are so great, I suppose this Woodsmen Guild is England exclusive? And if so, which are the other exclusive guilds for the other factions?

[PapaRosario]

Yup, it is England only. I don't remember Sherwood Archers being all that great though because of their small unit size.

The only other guilds that are restricted from certain factions are the Knighthood Orders. Only HRE can build the Teutonic one, and I think Spain and Portugal get the Santiago one. Other Catholic factions get Templars/Hospitallers.

[Kaiser Nonsense]

Yup, it is England only. I don't remember Sherwood Archers being all that great though because of their small unit size.

The only other guilds that are restricted from certain factions are the Knighthood Orders. Only HRE can build the Teutonic one, and I think Spain and Portugal get the Santiago one. Other Catholic factions get Templars/Hospitallers.

Well, that is true their unit has only 60 longbowmen, while the others have 120 (in the huge unit size setting), until I can build Retinue Longbowmen, I'll use the Sherwood Archers. But still, their missile damage is very high, higher than any other, which makes up for the fact they are less men.

[Vipman]

Well these are not quite exclusive guilds, but still:
-islamic factions have Hashashins guild, equivalent to assassins guild for the other factions, but it allows recruitment of Hashashins, a small unit of deadly infantry with very high attack, defense, and it has 2 hit points, it has option to hide from enemy anywhere on the battlefield or something, like sherwood archers I think
- Hungary gets from assassins guild unit of Battlefield assassins, similar to hashashins
- Horse breeder's guild is probably available only to islamic factions because it can be built only in cities, it can be gained by training cavalry units, and only islamic factions have racing tracks building which allows some cavalry to be trained in cities.

[Kaiser Nonsense]

it has option to hide from enemy anywhere on the battlefield or something, like sherwood archers I think

I still couldn't figure it out how to hide using this special feature.

[Sar1n]

It's been a while since I played vanilla, but I think Spanish and Portugese can train Jinetes via Plaza del Torro, and many European nations eventually gain some cavalry unit from Military Academy buildings. But I could be wrong and these things might be exclusive to some mods....

[Kaiser Nonsense]

It's been a while since I played vanilla, but I think Spanish and Portugese can train Jinetes via Plaza del Torro, and many European nations eventually gain some cavalry unit from Military Academy buildings. But I could be wrong and these things might be exclusive to some mods....

No, it's not that mate, I asked about guilds.

[Vipman]

It's been a while since I played vanilla, but I think Spanish and Portugese can train Jinetes via Plaza del Torro, and many European nations eventually gain some cavalry unit from Military Academy buildings. But I could be wrong and these things might be exclusive to some mods....

Ah yes you're right. It's more possible for islamic factions because it's easier to get, building racing tracks gives 50 points, when you need 100 to get level 1, and each cavalry unit trained gives 10 points.

It's ironic how building stables also gives points when this guild is available only to cities, not castles

About sherwood archers, I was wrong, they can hide in forests, not anywhere like hashashins do (I think?).
You just put them in woods on the battlefield and they will "kneil" and hide, it's shown by a tree symbol on their unit card. Disable automatic fire, let enemy pass by, then shoot arrows in their back-side for example

[Kaiser Nonsense]

About sherwood archers, I was wrong, they can hide in forests, not anywhere like hashashins do (I think?).
You just put them in woods on the battlefield and they will "kneil" and hide, it's shown by a tree symbol on their unit card. Disable automatic fire, let enemy pass by, then shoot arrows in their back-side for example

But that all units can do (except siege weapons such as trebuchets), so what's special about their hiding skills? There should be an unique unit called Robin Hood, after developing the Woodsmen Guild to the maximum, it would have even more missile attack, faster than normal units to run/walk and doesn't tire so easily, it also would need to have 120 archers instead of 60, it would be like the Marshal unit of the knight orders.

[lgoodin101]

well hungary could get the horse breeder's guild as when you get a huge city you can recruit hussars from the walls and so could iberian factions as stated above

[painter]

I don't like recruiting Sherwood Archers because the negatives outweigh the positives; not only is their unit size half of most archer units, their maintenance cost is almost twice that of a regular longbow unit and you need to go back to a Woodmens' Guild to retrain them. Also do note that the Woodmens' Guild is only available in castles, so as your game matures and more castles are converted into cities, it'll be more expensive to keep the Sherwood Archers (turns spent on encouraging the guild to build at a castle of your choice and turns wasted on moving your units for retraining and redeployment). I have since simplified my logistics and strategy by ignoring that guild (and the Knights Templar and the Hospitaller Knights) altogether, preferring the Swordsmiths. (Mailed Knights and the ability to retrain them at any castle and the Swordsmiths' Guild bonuses do just fine for me.)

As for the Horse Breeders' Guild, a lot of the factions do have cavalry that you may recruit from cities. But I tend to build mine at Egypt because of the bonus from an existing racing track.

[Vipman]

Oh you're right, how could I forget

Well it says "Expert at hiding in woods", maybe it means they can remain hidden even if enemy comes very close. For normal units the enemy can see them if they come close enough.

[Akodo]

do sherwood archers have 2 wounds rather than one?

I know in my experience they have half as many guys as the average unit BUT they do twice the damage, making it even out. I don't recall if they have 2 wounds or not but in my experience they don't loose hardly any men ever.

Because they pack the punch of a full unit in half the size, I like to have at least one unit of them to fit in the spot right above castle gates.

While I have never done this, if you have 8 units of regular archers it is hard to position them all so they are getting good shots at the attacking enemy unless your castle is totally surrounded. Having 8 units of Sherwood allows the same damage output but you can fit more of them in the same stretch of wall, so more total damage per foot of structure.

[PapaRosario]

They also have an incredibly high upkeep for archers. Same as Feudal Knights.

Edit: Looking at the cost per man on huge unit settings, it is 250/60 = 4.17 florins per turn for Sherwood Archers and 150/120 = 1.25 florins per turn for Yeoman Archers or Retinue Longbowmen. 4.17/1.25 = 3.33. Their stats are definitely not 3.33 times as good to justify that high cost.

[SuperAnt]

I agree, very expensive and not always useful. I used to take them due to their original skins.

[Sitalkes]

Actaully you can hire the men of Sherwood as mercenaries even if you are not English - I had them in the Welsh army, just for fun, and they were like battlefield assasins, despite their small numbers, nothing could stand up to their arrow fire. their small numbers also make it easier for them to hide. Often you will see trees on the battlefield but they are too well separated to hide anything - maybe the guys from Sherwood can hide in that situation. The ability to hide though is often not useful as it requires you do deploy defensively and wait for the AI to come at you , which it may not do. Moslem factions can build race courses that allow cavalry recruited in the same city so the ideal combination is a race course and and a horse breeders guild. Maybe a Robin Hood character would be a spy with enhanced ability to open the gates, since he seems expert at getting into and out of fortifications and rescuing prisoners.

[PapaRosario]

Actaully you can hire the men of Sherwood as mercenaries even if you are not English - I had them in the Welsh army

I think most people here are talking about Vanilla. Sherwood Archers are only available as mercs in the British Isles expansion campaign.

[Kaiser Nonsense]

Maybe a Robin Hood character would be a spy with enhanced ability to open the gates, since he seems expert at getting into and out of fortifications and rescuing prisoners.

Well, he might be expert at getting into and out of fortifications, but his true high skill is the longbow.