Janissary Archers vs Janissary Musketeers - Thoughts on Their Practical Uses in Game

[Zhou]

The Turks, as a faciton, have one of the most impressive unit rosters in M2TW, most notably with their Janissary armies. From the perspective of this article however, I will only be looking at Janissary Archers vs Janissary Musketeers. While both are excellent ranged units, and Musketeers may theoretically do more damage to enemy troops, the Archers, in practice, appear to be more tactically useful due to their ability to plant stakes and the fact that they have an arcing trajectory.

So here's the quandry, while Janissary Musketeers require the highest level barracks available in a city (Royal), Janissary Archers are available in the second to last barracks structure (Army). Given that Royal Barracks take 8 turns to build and cost 15,000 florins as opposed to 7 turns, 12,000 florins for Army Barracks, one would expect Janissary Musketeers to be at least marginally superior units. Theoretically speaking, of course, they are, and here are the custom battle results:

Note: All tests conducted on M2TW v1.1 (Vanilla) on Arsuf, Medium Diff, Huge Unit sizes, no upgrades. The numbers represent number of men left upon initial CONTACT with the test case.

Janissary Musketeers vs Noble Swordsmen (Scots)
1) 83
2) 81
3) 83
4) 82
5) 77

Average = 81.2
Average number of shots fired before contact = 3
Average kills per shot = 12.93

Janissary Archers vs Noble Swordsmen (NO FIRE)
1) 107
2) 98
3) 105
4) 103
5) 91

Average = 100.8
Average number of shots fired before contact = 4.4
Average kills per shot = 4.36

Janissary Archers vs Noble Swordsmen (FIRE)
1) 107
2) 108
3) 101
4) 100
5) 108

Average = 104.8
Average number of shots fired before contact = 3.4
Average kills per shot = 4.47

Of course, one must take these figures with a grain of salt. This was tested in "ideal" conditions for the musketeers in that they were located on perfectly flat terrain. In addition, while the musketeers kills per volley numbers were fairly uniform, the archers did signficantly better when the target was in closer range (probably due to number of hits on target being lower at longer distances).

Now let's take a look at the practical applications of Muskteers vs Archers in the campaign game. In terms of cost, Janissary Muskteers are only minutely more expensive to recruit, coming in at 830 florins per unit with the Archers coming in at 780 florins per unit. Both units require 175 florins of upkeep per turn. This seems acceptable. In terms of combat effectiveness, however, I think Janissary Archers are vastly more utilizable. Musketeers require line of sight in order to function 100%, and given all the bumps on the campaign map, it is often hard to find an ideal spot to deploy them. Archers, on the other hand, have a ballistic trajectory so they can be placed virtually anywhere, granted, they do suffer a tremendous accuracy bonus when firing in a very high parabolic arc, but that's still better then not being able to fire at all! Also, there's the point that Archers have stakes while Musketeers do not. The biggest threat that I see on the battlefield against my ranged units come from enemy cavalry. I can utilize Janissary Archers' plant stakes ability to basically negate that threat. With Musketeers, on the other hand, I don't have that ability and must rely on other means (say, Dismounted Sipahi Lancers) that may require including a different unit into my army composition and making my overall (re)training structure more complicated. Musketeers are able to do a significant amount of damage to enemy cavalry before they hit the line, however, it is still not able to rout the enemy unit for the charge hits home, which is a crucial aspect to the equation. Now, what about the morale effects that gunpowder has on enemy troops? I don't claim that it's not significant because it is, and if you can manage to fire 4 shots or more with Musketeers (which is not unfeasible), enemy morale will drop to "Wavering" before initial contact is even made, at which point you could send in your Janissary Heavy Infantry to mop up. However, once again we come to the problem of finding the ideal situation in which muskteers are able to fire off 4 times before enemy troops engage in combat. This is often a very hard to find circumstance, especially if the enemy army has a considerable amount of cavalry, in which case your musketeers will be pretty much negated.

Given these aspects, and from my experience in-game, I find Janissary Archers to be vastly more useful, especially against cavalry-heavy armies such as the Mongols and Timurids. Janissary Musketeers, do serve in my armies, but often only in conjunction with the Archers (eg having 2 units of musketeers and 2 units of archers in conjunction with the rest of the army). So how can CA make Musketeers much more useful? Well, simple really, they could remove the plant stakes ability for Janissary Archers.

/my 2 cents.

[Feliks]

Interesting, I'm glad that you found "old fashion" troops can still stand up and be effective compared to later technology.

Me, I like cheep. I like several units of cheep crossbowmen in my front, and archers that can use fire at the back of my lines. And I'll take trebuchets over cannons any day.

[Hex Khan]

Zhou you forgot to mention the seige classic on your summing up of the archers, they can set things on fire, nothing more annoying seeing rams and towers going up in smoke.

Though I do agree with what you said mostly, I've only ever played one campaign where I got as far as gun powder units and that was as the french when I decided to go full pelt and invade the americas.

The morale damage can be implemented by the use of diverse cannons, which in my experience against my wars with the hre, mongols and aztecs has them wavering before my flaming arrow scots guard even open their first salvo,

so yea archers just tend to be a tad bit more diverse, not to mention easily accessible on the most part without needing a trigger to recruit

Good work on the research Zhou

[Zhou]

Zhou you forgot to mention the seige classic on your summing up of the archers, they can set things on fire, nothing more annoying seeing rams and towers going up in smoke.

Though I do agree with what you said mostly, I've only ever played one campaign where I got as far as gun powder units and that was as the french when I decided to go full pelt and invade the americas.

The morale damage can be implemented by the use of diverse cannons, which in my experience against my wars with the hre, mongols and aztecs has them wavering before my flaming arrow scots guard even open their first salvo,

so yea archers just tend to be a tad bit more diverse, not to mention easily accessible on the most part without needing a trigger to recruit

Good work on the research Zhou

Indeed, that's very true as well, especially considering that musketeers are basically useless on the walls at times due to a bug. And the cannonade idea is also true, although I would point out that the Turks can't train the same type of cannons as the French. I take it that you made a mix of Serpentines and Basilisks which is a very effective and deadly combination. The Turks, on the other hand, would have to use something like Cannons and Monster Bombards (which are actually quite decent at taking out enemy troops and the load time isn't as long as stated), which makes it more or less hit or miss. Sometimes a couple of volleys will damage enemy morale before they reach your troops, while othertimes your cannons will overshoot and they will be able to reach your lines unscythed from cannon fire.

In any case, the problem I'm having right now is to justify subsituting Janissary Archers with Janissary Musketeers in my armies. I just don't find them all that effective unless there just happens to be a "perfect" scenario whereas the Janissary Archers do well enough overall to make up for their shortfall in that same situation. Don't get me wrong, both of these unit types are advanced troops (most of the time, you can tech up to Janissary Archers barely before the Mongols arrive), but Janissary Musketeers just don't seem to be worth the wait.

[Ulazlo the Warmonger]

Me personally I have never liked gunpowder troops since the first medieval where they had to be right next to someone to fire, could not fire in rain, and not all of them would fire so there was even less casualties. Even now archers I feel are better due to long tragetories and special abilities, and only select factions get good gunpowder where all factions get get crossbowmen, or good archers

[Jackster]

when i play England, I still use longbowmen even though everyone else is using guns.
Then when I play HRE, I used only Reiters, Pavise XBows are more useful than guns.

[Sher Khan]

Historically, I believe, the Ottomans fielded bows and muskets alongside each other since the usefullness of the bow hadn't left their military strategy yet.

I recommend having a front line of musketeers for the intial skirmishing while you pull your archers back behind the infantry lines to function well when the main fighting begins.

There's no sense in totally replacing one type for the other unless you want more space for more infantry or cavalry.

[notoriousRED]

:hmmm:with every tactic, it just comes down to personal preference. Like you said, archers can fire on uneven terrain (ie. over hills) but musketeers pretty much negate armour. Playing as turks in a custom, (Pavia, I think?) i had musketeers supporting my troops, whereas the french had some nasty lookin lancers. i was able to bog down the lancers with infantary (with massive casualties) and flank with muskets. The muskets slaughtered them. Trying the same thing with archers, and the lancers broke through my lines and cut them down.

With the problem of terrain, thats just tactics. Turks field an incredibly mobile army, so drawing the enemy's attention away from ur guns (while they get into position) shouldn't be hard. With the english, they were able to place longbowmen far longer than any other archer simply because of range. But no missile unit (except maybe missile cavalry) should be left unssuported by some melee unit.

[Hex Khan]

I personally do think that the gunpowder units are abit overrated, so in terms of game play you used just stick to your janissary archers, they look better and not to forget the almost priceless sharpened stakes, musketeers dont have them...

[Jackster]

why not bring both, your musketeers can benefit from stakes too.
I bring two Ret-longbowmen and two Arquebusiers, so they can both hide behind stakes.

[StickShift]

i've had experience with musketeers, crossbows and high quality archers in my venetian campaign and i have to say that the musketeers have really begun to win me over. while they are limited by their line-of-sight fire, their immense range, accurate and devastating firepower, and morale crushing abilities have proven their worth to me.

for example, the Holy Roman Empire recently declared war on me. after a few siege defenses in northern italy i gathered an army and pushed into the alps. i besieged innsbruck (the castle northeast of milan) and was attacked by an Imperial army. facing both the garrison and the relieving force (twice my number mind you) i positioned my troops on a slight rise and was able to fire off several volleys before the first troops arrived. this allowed me to inflict massive casualites on the strongest parts of their line--three units of musketeers firing one volley each into each unit of DFKs inflicting massive casualties and routing one unit. after the lines were close, i simply moved my guns behind my main line, and then to my right flank where they happily fired into the enemy troops as they charged. of course, i used my cavalry to guard them from attack. suffice to say that my gunners did horrible things to the HRE lines.

the next turn i fought a similar battle against the Danes. my army there had two units of pavise crossbows and two musketeers and the muskets inflicted far greater casualties than the crossbows. i tend to think that the muskets increased range and accuracy helped improve their kill rate, but the point was made: the crossbows were obsolete.

while i realize that pavise crossbows are not janissary archers, the point is made that when trying to kill heavily armored foes, the guns beat some of the best armored piercing arrow troops available. as archers, the janissaries probably aren't as effective against the european knights that a turkish army would likely face and would therefore be at a disadvantage in comparison to crossbows, not to mention muskets.

on the other hand, archers have the fire arrows, far greater capability in cities, a higher rate of fire, and stakes in your cas. i tend to use my venetian archers and crossbows in defense of cities, while muskets are beginning to supplement arrows in my field armies. the point is that each unit has it advantages and uses and when you get your muskets in a position where they can fire, your enemies might as well fall down and die.

my advice: do what the ottomans really did and use a mix of archers and muskets in your field armies. this will allow you to rain a constant stream of fire arrows on timurid elephants or gun down heavily armored knights all in one army.

[Zhou]

I think that quite a few people have made some very valid points here. Muskets and archers don't necessarily have to be mutually exclusive, and a mix of the two units would probably be the most optimal strategy for a general-purpose field army. Specialized armies, on the other hand, still play a part, as when you play against the Mongols or Timurds, you will need to fill up on Janissary Archers so you can use stakes against the other faction's horse-based armies. On the other hand, you could probably fill up on Musketeers when fighting, for example, the Aztecs, who have no cavalry and are quite susceptible to gunpowder infantry. Good discussion!

[Town Watch]

I think that quite a few people have made some very valid points here. Muskets and archers don't necessarily have to be mutually exclusive, and a mix of the two units would probably be the most optimal strategy for a general-purpose field army. Specialized armies, on the other hand, still play a part, as when you play against the Mongols or Timurds, you will need to fill up on Janissary Archers so you can use stakes against the other faction's horse-based armies. On the other hand, you could probably fill up on Musketeers when fighting, for example, the Aztecs, who have no cavalry and are quite susceptible to gunpowder infantry. Good discussion!

Actually the musket seems to be pretty sucky in Aztecland. The damn jungles and bushed provide some cover and block lines of sight pretty good.

Longbows are what really kills the aztecs in droves. You should try for yourselves. I had 2 musketeers and 2 free-company longbowmen in my spanish army when fighting aztecs.

Longbowmen always killed 200 or more aztecs in each battle, when muskets didn't really do that much. I was playing with normal unit scale.

Faster rate of fire, better versatility, volley fire will provide excellent amount of kills against aztecs, who have no fast troops to sweep your longbowmen away, nor any armour.