Gondor Archers outperform Ilithien Rangers?

[Lavalya]

In my Gondor VH/VH campaign, my gondor archers score at least double the kills of ilithien rangers, every time. I thought the northern and southern rangers had much better accuracy? What's going on here?

On a different note, I am incredibly annoyed at all the generals Gondor has.. Do I really have to send most of them to their death every game I start up just so I have an economy that actually has a chance to survive for 40 turns on VH/VH?
Also, why can't I destroy siege towers with 6 groups of archers emptying their incendiary quivers on it? Literally? I had to wait for 10 minutes one battle because a unit of orcs were stuck in their siege tower..

[Roma_Victrix]

In my experience, I've only been able to burn up siege engines by having ballista towers installed as a building for my large cities/fortresses or at Umbar (huge city). As for Gondor Archers, their range is nowhere near as good as Ithilien Rangers and for that matter their accuracy and kill count shouldn't be as good either. As for the economy, yeah, I hear you on that one. Usually my campaigns don't start picking up speed economically speaking until after the 100th turn, which can take quite a long time to get to. In the meantime you basically have to "turtle" by slowly building up your infrastructure on a national level, building farms and waiting for the population to rise high enough to build a suitable tax base for an expanding empire and further armies for homeland defense and offensive campaigns. This is just one of those games where that takes eons of time, if you're not willing to be a little cheater with the "create_unit", "process_cq," "add_money", and "add_population" cheats.

[Ngugi]

In my Gondor VH/VH campaign, my gondor archers score at least double the kills of ilithien rangers, every time. I thought the northern and southern rangers had much better accuracy? What's going on here?

No, the Ithilien rangers have the same accuracy as the Gondor Archers, but the Rangers have 190 range instead of 'only' 170, and an attack value of 9 instead of 7 as the GAs have, and both have 35 arrows. Which makes it clear its not a matter of stats but how they are used.
My assumption is that you let the Rangers fire at will, meaning they start to fire at the quick, but single, vanguard units of the enemy, where stray arrows goes to waste; while the GAs more often fire at units in the main host, so that stray arrows hit the units next to, behind or in front of, the unit targeted, increasing their hit rate.

On a different note, I am incredibly annoyed at all the generals Gondor has.. Do I really have to send most of them to their death every game I start up just so I have an economy that actually has a chance to survive for 40 turns on VH/VH?
Also, why can't I destroy siege towers with 6 groups of archers emptying their incendiary quivers on it? Literally? I had to wait for 10 minutes one battle because a unit of orcs were stuck in their siege tower..

No, use them to win victories so you take settlements and improve your economy. And do not accept new generals unless you need them, in case you usually do.
All in all TATW is a hard game done by hardcore gamers for hardcore gamers, economy included, and if it is to much, then lower campaign diffuclty to H (I seldom set campaign to VH in TATW any longer, to decrease the AI stacks), as there're no penalties for that and you're meant to have fun after all.

Realism on one hand (towers were constructed to withstand fire arrows), but probably more to negate the advantage good archer factions gets from this, who usually have better units across the board than weak archer factions.

[Lavalya]

You guys are why I love extensive mod forums. All of you go into the detail I expect you to go into, and it warms my heart.

In my experience, I've only been able to burn up siege engines by having ballista towers installed as a building for my large cities/fortresses or at Umbar (huge city). As for Gondor Archers, their range is nowhere near as good as Ithilien Rangers and for that matter their accuracy and kill count shouldn't be as good either. As for the economy, yeah, I hear you on that one. Usually my campaigns don't start picking up speed economically speaking until after the 100th turn, which can take quite a long time to get to. In the meantime you basically have to "turtle" by slowly building up your infrastructure on a national level, building farms and waiting for the population to rise high enough to build a suitable tax base for an expanding empire and further armies for homeland defense and offensive campaigns. This is just one of those games where that takes eons of time, if you're not willing to be a little cheater with the "create_unit", "process_cq," "add_money", and "add_population" cheats.

I didn't know that their accuracy was the same. Are Elven archers just more accurate then all human archers? I was under the impressions the Rangers were considerably better, if their damage and range are the only variables, I think I'm just gonna spam cheap archers because I only use them to thin out the herds anyway. It's a great thing to see gondor archers net up to 400 kills in a siege, especially when they're dirt cheap to recruit and keep and can beat orc warbands in melee after thinning them out. Against heavier armed troops, I'm just going to use my elites, cavalry and shock troops. Archers are very ineffective against those anyways, so I personally don't see much need in paying so much for recruiting and upkeep of archers that have a little extra range and damage, the only niche I see them fit are for lazy wall defenders.

No, the Ithilien rangers have the same accuracy as the Gondor Archers, but the Rangers have 190 range instead of 'only' 170, and an attack value of 9 instead of 7 as the GAs have, and both have 35 arrows. Which makes it clear its not a matter of stats but how they are used.
My assumption is that you let the Rangers fire at will, meaning they start to fire at the quick, but single, vanguard units of the enemy, where stray arrows goes to waste; while the GAs more often fire at units in the main host, so that stray arrows hit the units next to, behind or in front of, the unit targeted, increasing their hit rate.

No, use them to win victories so you take settlements and improve your economy. And do not accept new generals unless you need them, in case you usually do.
All in all TATW is a hard game done by hardcore gamers for hardcore gamers, economy included, and if it is to much, then lower campaign diffuclty to H (I seldom set campaign to VH in TATW any longer, to decrease the AI stacks), as there're no penalties for that and you're meant to have fun after all.

Realism on one hand (towers were constructed to withstand fire arrows), but probably more to negate the advantage good archer factions gets from this, who usually have better units across the board than weak archer factions.

I do let them fire at will for the initial charge. Then again, this is was true the same at the start of the game where the orcs pretty much only field the same units but it might be that they just have whacky targets and I just need to micromanage them better but in very prolongued battles I usually put all my archers on the same blob of troops I funneled the enemy into, for some reason my gondor archers still score more kills. Perhaps they just had a lucky good angle as most of these battles took place in the same two areas and I have a golden standard formation and tactics I use for archers and their positioning is just the difference.

What do you do with all the generals gondor has? Surely they're absolutely expendable and deserve death to save you a buttload of bucks.

Is it possible to just implement a panic button so that I don't have to play with battle timers and wait them out when a siege tower bugs? Or is there an easier fix than shooting it down with proper units?

[Roma_Victrix]

I didn't know that their accuracy was the same. Are Elven archers just more accurate then all human archers? I was under the impressions the Rangers were considerably better, if their damage and range are the only variables, I think I'm just gonna spam cheap archers because I only use them to thin out the herds anyway. It's a great thing to see gondor archers net up to 400 kills in a siege, especially when they're dirt cheap to recruit and keep and can beat orc warbands in melee after thinning them out. Against heavier armed troops, I'm just going to use my elites, cavalry and shock troops. Archers are very ineffective against those anyways, so I personally don't see much need in paying so much for recruiting and upkeep of archers that have a little extra range and damage, the only niche I see them fit are for lazy wall defenders.

That makes sense for the early part of your campaign, when your short on cash and can only afford cheap units. As your economy and military budget grows, however, you'll realize that even the most elite archers available aren't that expensive in terms of recruitment and upkeep when compared to your most elite infantry, such as the Fountain Guard, or the super expensive elite cavalry (Swan Knights and the Knights of Minas Tirith). Personally I love using the Dol Amroth Archers and Dol Amroth Marines, they look awesome as far as archers go, and Blackroot Vale Archers (which look awesome once you've upgraded their armor to heavy chainmail and padding) are useful for recruiting in offensive campaigns against nearby Isengard. Ithilien Rangers, once you've built advanced blacksmith infrastructure to deck them out in chainmail armor with and iron-plated greaves for better melee defense, are very solid standard missile troops for your campaign against Mordor proper (since they can be recruited from the castles of Cair Andros and Ostithil, as well as East Osgiliath and Henneth Annun).

The Gondor Yeomen Archers are good throwaways for cheap spamming against your enemy. Trust me, though, sooner or later you'll be using these other archers in addition to the heavier Gondor Archers. With their final armor upgrade, they become absolute monsters and can act like real heavy infantry when they're not firing. The only drawback, of course, is that they suck compared to any of the Elves and, like I said earlier, simply do not have the range of their Ithilien counterparts.

[Ngugi]

Well, if they become to many and fill no purpose (a.k.a fight in you armies), put them on boats and let Harad sink them (if Harad is alive; really should not be, as the best strategy is to sail down and take out Umbar ASAP, hehe) or kill them of, sure.
Spoiled, no good brats are no loss, after all.

Nope, it's either on or off; though I must say that bug is not common, so it should not force you to change your settings.

[Ngugi]

You're talking about quite a few MOS-units now, and he's for all we know playing clean TATW

[Roma_Victrix]

You're talking about quite a few MOS-units now, and he's for all we know playing clean TATW

Oops! Good catch. I sometimes forget that some people are still playing vanilla and not the submods. It's been a very long time since I've played a vanilla campaign. He'll still have Blackroot Vale Archers, though, along with the Ithilien Rangers and Gondor Archers. Gondor's archer militia is basically the equivalent of the Yeomen Archers.

[eugenioso]

In my Gondor VH/VH campaign, my gondor archers score at least double the kills of ilithien rangers, every time. I thought the northern and southern rangers had much better accuracy? What's going on here?

On a different note, I am incredibly annoyed at all the generals Gondor has.. Do I really have to send most of them to their death every game I start up just so I have an economy that actually has a chance to survive for 40 turns on VH/VH?
Also, why can't I destroy siege towers with 6 groups of archers emptying their incendiary quivers on it? Literally? I had to wait for 10 minutes one battle because a unit of orcs were stuck in their siege tower..

I believe that Gondor archers have slightly less range than Rangers, but their armor gives them more survivability. Are you sure this is a 100% thing happening to you?

The generals in southern gondor and beyond are good for 2 things: killing haradrim stacks with your own general stack, and maybe for garrisoning Dol Amroth with the general with the most chivalry (except imrahil cuz he needs to be out there killing). If used offensively, they can not only stop the harad spam before it starts, they can expand southwards and provide you with new money bases for your units.

Siege towers are almost immune to frontal fire arrow fire. If you want to kill siege towers, then fire at the side of it with many fire arrows, and that should do it. It is almost always a waste however, and youre better off just firing away at the attacking units rather than the siege equipment.

[Lavalya]

Yes, I'm playing vanilla. I actually only recently picked up this mod after playing the EB2 mod (for which I bought MTW2 since I loved the EB mod on RTW) and I fervently believe that one should always learn to thoroughly know the basics to truly understand the depth of everything so I'm doing just that!

That one time that siege tower bugged, I actually sallied out all of my archers, surrounded it on all angles and shot at it from all sides, managed to get it to 72% but then they were all out of ammo. And that's four archer units with ~80% of their arrows left! The enemy units were sitting inside of it, so I couldn't kill it.

I lost that campaign due to two full stacks of mordor and haradrim units invading me by turn ~20 (After I already just killed a full stack in the north and left e. osgiliath understaffed to deal with the stack about to siege cair andros) I tried to form a general stack and any other units fast cavalry units I had left in the west as I had no idea what to expect there and wanted a mobile strike force to react to suprises, but I suffered a Pyrrhic victory on the harad front and lost my w. osgiliath stack from which I already knew I wouldn't recover so I decided to end that campaign. Am I correct to assume that archer accuracy is just flavour text (for example with the hobbit archers having great eyes for it), and their real accuracy depends on the angle(height) and line of sight? I read some campaign guides talking about archer accuracy and that some archers had better stats in it, but I personally don't see the rangers perform much better than gondor archers or hit their targets more true as confirmed by one of the first replies in the thread.

I also just started an Eriador campaign, my hobbits were committing mass murder on their brothers by firing into their backs. Terrible sight to behold, and I am blaming their incompetent hobbit commander, not myself, the one who issued their commands. On that note, I felt terrible and almost wanted to quit when my Dúnedain rangers got massacred by enemy archers, but after the battle literally all of them recovered, miraculously. Quite peculiar, are they all superhumans, perhaps? Aragorn's gray company are also insane. a group of 80 really quite heavy horse archers, just running around destroying everything. I mowed down so many orcs with this replenishing group you don't even know. charge rinse repeat and fire at their backs in the mean time, massacres. Their range is amazing too. But leave them unattended for a while, and they empty their arrows uselessly or lose in melee. I like how this mod does a great job at unit balance, and doesn't try to fix the vanilla bugs with horrible solutions (The phalanxes in EB2 are terrible.. Just to overcome them from breaking they made a sort of loose formation phalanxes, it's still a spear wall but functions in literally any formation, density and angle) so this is now by far my favourite mtw2 mod. I also like how every faction just completely lacks good cavalry with a few exceptions, who basically have nothing but cavalry. Combined with the limited availability of units this forces me to really change my tried and true tactics and adapt to what I have, much akin to how ancient generals had to fight their wars, which is why I love this mod so much already!

[k/t]

"I like how this mod does a great job at unit balance"

[Ngugi]

"I like how this mod does a great job at unit balance"

TATW 3.2 does a decent job; good unit balance has nothing to do with realism

[Withwnar]

Infantry can attack siege towers, can't they? They can attack catapults. If the bug happens again then you could send out all of your troops to chop it down.

[Joseignacio]

Infantry can attack siege towers, can't they? They can attack catapults. If the bug happens again then you could send out all of your troops to chop it down.

Can they? OMG

I knew they can attack those carrying towers, but towers themselves?

On second thought, maybe you mean attacking those carrying towers, which I already knew...

[k/t]

I know they can attack ladders, so probably towers too.

[lolIsuck]

Yes, you can attack siege towers, ladders and artillery.
Don't you lose men when you've destroyed the tower though? I think some around/behind the tower die when it collapses.

[Påsan]

In my experience, and I get this only from numerous sieges, I got no code-backup on this one, if the enemy has loads of siege equipment, its easy to burn down one or two of them. If they have only one siege equipment, its damn near impossible to burn down.

Anyway Ithilien rangers: Let me guess, you put them in front of the infantry while the gondor archers are behind? If you do that, dont. In any case its not that Ithilien rangers are worse, its how you use them.

As for generals, keep them in the towns. They provide population growth which ultimately aids your cause. (Unless he's a squalid corrupt , in which case send him on a one-man expedition to mordor)

Unfortunately Osgiliath and Moria is pretty much impossible to rebuild without cheats so dont waste 'em there. (Or at least I tend to finish the game before getting halfway)

[Roma_Victrix]

In my experience, and I get this only from numerous sieges, I got no code-backup on this one, if the enemy has loads of siege equipment, its easy to burn down one or two of them. If they have only one siege equipment, its damn near impossible to burn down.

Anyway Ithilien rangers: Let me guess, you put them in front of the infantry while the gondor archers are behind? If you do that, dont. In any case its not that Ithilien rangers are worse, its how you use them.

As for generals, keep them in the towns. They provide population growth which ultimately aids your cause. (Unless he's a squalid corrupt , in which case send him on a one-man expedition to mordor)

Unfortunately Osgiliath and Moria is pretty much impossible to rebuild without cheats so dont waste 'em there. (Or at least I tend to finish the game before getting halfway)

This is a perfect assessment of v. 3.2 if not submods like MOS. I agree, it's a common rookie mistake to put unarmored archers in the front and not your heavier, armored archers. Crappy governors should be sent into the field as commanders, because they don't help or even inhibit growth. And by all means use the "add_population" cheat for East and West Osgiliath in order to rebuild it quicker than the snail's pace of the regular game.

[Joseignacio]

I used to have "skilled bureaucrats" as Governors, to increase cities' output, but it did not pay, they costed (500?) a lot but increased maybe 100 gold.

I use "population increasing"governors for strategic cities, like for (Annulond?) the city you need to reconstruct to create Arnor. However, the best ones are very few and usually the main characters (Aragorn, Gandalf, ...).

So, I prefer to increase city growth from minute one, through Caravans, Chicken farms, improvement of farming, ..., in all the cities except the ones where I can recruit higher tier units, where I prioritize armor and barracks without forgetting growth when possible.

This means I have not too much money for armies, so I use them aggressively at first (when I have too many troops), but keeping a group of well seasoned medium tier units from the initial deployment for slow sieges. Since the Generals pay the same maintenance in or out of a city, don't increase much money and I get the growth through improvements, this army/armies use to be rich in them. Once I get to a smaller army size level, I use mostly this smaller stack for defense purposes.

This reduced itinerant army deployment, allows me to have a minimal maintenance of armies, which results in 2-3-4-5.000 gold from the beginning (depending of the faction), left for improvements.

This allows to reach turn 60-80 with all cities growing at 1-2,5% many times from many turns earlier, depending of the possible improvements and other factors, most 1,5-2% and have a sound economy that allows to have several stacks of armies when you want to extend your borders again.

I have already won with all the factions in the Vanilla game, if i don't recall wrong, being the harder ones OotMM and Dale.