What's Wrong With My Archers?

[KarlC]

Hi.

Just as a preface, I'm playing un-modified 1.5 version Rome Total War from the Eras pack.

I'm currently playing and replaying a battle in which I'm being attacked across a bridge. I've got beaucoup Hastati (I'm Julii) to block the Gauls crossing, and I've got 5 units of Roman Archers also. However, my Archers don't seem to be firing on the enemy. I've managed to win this battle twice (I've quit partway through twice also), but in both instances my Archers have used either very little or none of their ammo. I find this odd since they have been firing constantly during both entire battles. In the two finished battles the kills for my Archers were ridiculously low. If any kills at all were listed it never went above 30.

This is puzzling to me. I'm a big fan of missle units, and have used the Archers a great deal in battles up to now. In other battles my Archers have killed hundreds, and they ran out of ammo all too quickly.

I thought perhaps that they needed to be placed in line with the bridge, like shooting through the gates of a town, but that didn't help. I also recieved a hint from the advisor I had never seen before telling me to place my Archers on the Left side of the bridge, that the enemy were less protected on that side. Didn't do any good.

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I know the Archers should be cutting the enemy to shreds, but I can't figure out why they aren't.

Thx.

[Mrtickles]

I doubt this is the issue but are you stacking your archer units on top of eachother? Stalking archer units causes mostof their arrows to never spawn even if they do the firing motion, either it's a bug or more likely it was a feature to prevent players from stacking all of their missle units to tighten their formation. Otherwise I really don't have a clue.

[KarlC]

Hi.

Thx for the tip Mrtickles. I'll try that. I do have a problem with overlapping my units, but untill you said so I didn't know that it bugged the units.

[raodox]

mmmm bridge battle.....archers on sides....scorpions on sides.....mmmm fresh meat. LOL, that's my favorite battle! 600 against 1200 and you still win with minimal losses. :-)

[Severous]

Hi KarlC

Is it 'Fire at Will' ?

Missile troops with this turned on (the default setting) will not fire on an enemy if there are friendly troops very close due to risk of killing your own men.

Turn off 'fire at will' and order your archers to fire on the enemy.

You will kill more of your own men.

Perhaps only fire on the enemy units that are not close to your own. Not so easy in prolonged bridge battles where the units get mixed up and most have some men near yours.

I am not a master of bridge battles. Only with phalanx troops do I stand at the bidge. Without them I deploy well back and kill them as they come to me using cavalry to turn the enemy units away from archers who then fire into the enemy backs.