Janissary Musketeer Deployment

[SuperAnt]

I find musketeers pretty useless in this game, they don't inflict heavy casualties compared to good crossbowmen or even javelinmen if you use them correctly.

[MrHenry]

What's the best way to deploy these guys? I always place them in front, but once the enemies reaches my battle line, I fall them back and they become pretty useless.

I like to spread my musketeers out as a thin line and put them at the front to fire off a couple of volleys before the enemy reach ur main line. Then I retreat them.

Or!

Place ur musketeers at the sides of your main line on both ends and put their formation in an angle to the main line so they get to fire off volleys at the enemies as they're heading for the main line. Then I retreat them before an enemy unit gets into melee with them, if an enemy unit starts chasing ur musketeers I attack with cavalry from the sides. The enemy unit gets destroys and flees and then I bring my musketeers back to fire again

Either way, I hate musketeers in M2TW Best used against slow enemies

[Aeratus]

If you're on a hill, you can place them at the back of the army in the beginning, since they can fire over the shoulders of your units.

[Aeratus]

On flat land, you'll just have to spread them out in a long line of 3 ranks deep.

You can also use a serrated formation by rotating each unit. This looks like /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ and allows you to fit more units in the same space in the front line of fire.

[Aeratus]

For example, if you just make a straight line of 6 janissary units, they look like this:

_ _ _ _ _ _

But if you rotate each of them and place them in guard mode, you can make a line that looks like this

/\/\/\

This allows you to fit in more units in the same space, while each man still has a line of sight toward the enemy.

[MrHenry]

For example, if you just make a straight line of 6 janissary units, they look like this:

_ _ _ _ _ _

But if you rotate each of them and place them in guard mode, you can make a line that looks like this

/\/\/\

This allows you to fit in more units in the same space, while each man still has a line of sight toward the enemy.

you could potentially fire at ur own troops

[Chromium]

you could potentially fire at ur own troops

Hmmm...I use the serrated formation all the time with crossbows or gun units and I can't say I've ever faced this problem. I've encountered friendly fire many times but never with a properly set-up serrated group.

Maybe I'm just lucky!

[Chromium]

Using musketeers is usually a waste unless you plan out your battles carefully. I've been a lurker on the forums for quite some time( >4 years!) and one thing I've always noted is the propensity of most players to drag arquebuisers & musketeers everywhere- including America. IMO (And I might be mistaken, guys) it's usually a waste of money & units. The Aztecs, in particular, can be dealt easily with crossbow militia. Musketeers are useful only in the following cases-

1- If you're facing troops with heavy armor.

2- You lack longbows and are dealing with ultra-heavy cavalry like Lancers or Serbian Knights.

3- The opposing army lacks a proper general or has many but low-morale units (like peasants or militia).

If none of the above conditions are met, you're better off using crossbows or longbows. The Janissary archer is, after all, one of the best in-game units.

As for your question:-

The Janissary musketeer is hamstrung by the simple fact that proper pike-and-shot is impossible while playing without SS. Also, enabling skirmish reduces the efficiency for some reason; I've tested them and disabling skirmish will give you faster rates of fire and significantly better outputs. I can't give you the details-I ran the tests ages ago but I'll repeat it and report back if you need particulars. I generally use Musketeers as such:

1- High ground: Park them behind your main line. Switch off Skirmish. They'll knock off 15%-25% of the enemy before the lines even met.

2-Flat ground: You need to bring at least two Janissary archers for this. Plant stakes, put musketeers slightly behind the stakes, disable skirmish. Seconds before the lines meet, move your main line abreast of the stakes while keeping your musketeers stationary. The under-fire enemy will receive a final morale-sapping volley, get the formation distorted by the stakes and will be met by your main line- while the muskets are still firing. They'll rout in seconds, I assure you.

3- Sieges (attacking): They're useless. Forget about them.

4- Sieges (defending): They'll behave like deer; they spook easily! Use them like you'd use a Byzantine flame thrower. Park them near the gate parallel to the wall, switch off skirmish and watch them tear the attackers apart while your defenders hold them. They don't perform well on walls though- They don't seem to do anything if I give them commands; however, I've seen them firing (and getting 50-70 kills against Timurrids) if I set auto-fire on.

5-Bridges, fords: The serrated formation as described above is king.

Janissary musketeers are actually pretty good at melee. But then, you only get them late in the game and probably use them to fight Timurrids and heavily armored European infantry. Using musketeers as melee would be a waste when you already have the amazing Janissary units available.

[Janisssary]

They are best infantry in melee 1.0 this true you can try

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

The best thing about musketeers is if the computer player has them because the battle AI is useless when it comes to musketeers.
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My three short AARs:
[BC] The Maharajah and the Guild of Thieves – a Chauhan Rajput AAR
[1648] Thirty Years' War
[Kingdoms] Antioch Crusaders Mod campaign
and something not so short - [FKoC] Times full of Distemper
Reviewed by robinzx at the Critic's Quill, Issue 31

[Sitalkes]

Read this well illustrated guide: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...83#post4246883

If you use that serrated formation, doesn't the AI just attack the points of the teeth (with a massive local advantage in numbers plus a possible flank attack) instead of wandering into the gaps between them?

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

It is indeed a nice guide Sitalkes but Astaroth has gotten a couple of things wrong. The fire-by-rank animation IS bugged, also in Kingdoms. This animation actually shows a fire-by-countermarch. It was a technique developed in the 1590s by the Dutch and, therefore, outside the timeframe of this game. The first rank fired then walked to the back and the second rank fired and the third and so on. With every rank firing it would go to the back. There was a drill so that everyone took a step forward every time a rank went to the back, so that the entire formation stayed more or less stationary.

What that meant was that the firing rate was multiplied by the number of ranks, so they could keep up a high rate of fire in a short section of the front and devastate the enemy. But as the tutorial points out, the men behind the first two ranks never fire and moreover the first two ranks are slowed down by those walking to the back. So instead of the firing rate going up, it goes down. Worse still, as Astaroth also points out, this animation sometimes stalls if used by the computer player and the musketeers do not start reloading until they have to brace in response to an enemy unit coming close. So not only does it not work as it should but the animation biases battles in favour of the human player, since the stalling only happens to the computer's musketeers.

As in fire-by-rank historically there was no countermarch, to get units to fire by rank (only the two front rows) without stalling, you actually have to remove the fire-by-rank attribute for that unit from the EDU.

Another serious problem is that indeed the musketeers end up too often behind the pikemen, often when they have only fired just once. Then they are quite useless, the computer's musketeers especially struggle to find a free field of fire because their own melee units walk in front of them in all kinds of random directions all the time. When they get a chance to fire, half the time some friendly melee unit walks in front of them and get shot in the back. M2TW is not made for musketeers and it may be why it stops at around 1530. In my opinion it should probably stop before handguns were invented. A different hard code is needed for the battle AI when firearms are introduced, quite simply because firearms cannot fire over the heads of your own troops like archers. Therefore the melee units have to stay behind the ranged units but really very close. This is near impossible to achieve with what is available code-wise in M2TW. I have not tried ETW, where it may be less of an issue since it concerns a period when nearly all infantry is ranged.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My three short AARs:
[BC] The Maharajah and the Guild of Thieves – a Chauhan Rajput AAR
[1648] Thirty Years' War
[Kingdoms] Antioch Crusaders Mod campaign
and something not so short - [FKoC] Times full of Distemper
Reviewed by robinzx at the Critic's Quill, Issue 31

[Steward Denethor II]

I find musketeers pretty useless in this game.

. I agree, a good unit of Longbowmen or Crossbowmen are far superior to gunners. Especially because the guns are useless in a melee, with few exceptions.

[Aeratus]

The only advantage bows have over gunner is the ability to fire over other units. If it's just frontal firepower, musketeer are far better.

So for that reason, if you have high grounds where musketeers can fire over your infantry, musketeers are much better.

[Gimnbo]

Still can't figure out on how to use them in sieges.

I tend to use them for taking potshots through holes in the walls. It's a good way to soften up dudes plugging up entryways. Once inside the settlement, they aren't good for much.

[Gimnbo]

Skirmish mode on makes gunners do kneel-and-volley shots. The disadvantage, if you consider it as such, is that the fire isn't synchronized by line. Dudes kind of just shoot whenever. With skirmish mode off, they do the countermarch thing where the front line does a synchronized blast then marches to the back to reload.