Using Archers effectively.

[King Swietopelk]

Good day to you all, I have been playing Total War games since Rome, but I would not consider myself a veteran. I normally play on Medium/Medium difficulty, and when ever I play battles with a balanced army, my statistics screen usually looks like this:
Bodyguard/Heavy Cavalry: Very High Kills, Low Casulties, Low Prisoners
Light Cavalry: High Kills, Medium Casulties, Very High Prisoners
Infantry: Medium Kills, High Casulties, Medium Prisoners
Archers: Low Kills, No Casulties, No Prisoners

I never seem to be able to use archers effectivley. Do I use them infront or behind my infantry? Do I use flaming arrows or not? Do I keep them firering at Infantry in combat with my Infantry? The way I use they generally fire off a few volleys before they are charged by infantry or cavalry. I find they are virtually useless to me when in a seige, though they are effective when defending a settlement and it is not often that one of my settlements is seiged with many archers inside it. Any help you could give would be great, Thanks

[shazam]

they are the best id say if u have a dread general or in lower number then ur enmey use fire cuz u will want to raout the enmy if not then ur normal arrows

and if u use archer please them in a long thick line behinde ur infentry

and as for fireing into ur infentry in the back depends on ur general will u do it lionheart way ( fire .. but sir we will hit our own men ... yes but we will hit theres too ) i would only recomend shooting when ur infenty has high armor so they wont get effected my the arrows or the enmy surruned ur troops with calvery

[Kylt]

If you're confident your infantry line will hold against the enemy infantry then consider turning skirmish mode off on your archers - they'll spend more time firing and less time running back and forth trying to safely position themselves.

[Zhou]

Good day to you all, I have been playing Total War games since Rome, but I would not consider myself a veteran. I normally play on Medium/Medium difficulty, and when ever I play battles with a balanced army, my statistics screen usually looks like this:
Bodyguard/Heavy Cavalry: Very High Kills, Low Casulties, Low Prisoners
Light Cavalry: High Kills, Medium Casulties, Very High Prisoners
Infantry: Medium Kills, High Casulties, Medium Prisoners
Archers: Low Kills, No Casulties, No Prisoners

I never seem to be able to use archers effectivley. Do I use them infront or behind my infantry? Do I use flaming arrows or not? Do I keep them firering at Infantry in combat with my Infantry? The way I use they generally fire off a few volleys before they are charged by infantry or cavalry. I find they are virtually useless to me when in a seige, though they are effective when defending a settlement and it is not often that one of my settlements is seiged with many archers inside it. Any help you could give would be great, Thanks

Your archers should really be dealing more casualties, certainly as much or more then your infantry. While this general strategy will vary depending on terrain and type of battle (assault or defense), I think it will still allow you to utilize your archers more effectively. Generally, here's how an army formation looks for my battles:

H = Heavy Cavalry
L = Light Cavalry
G = General
A = Archers
F = Line Infantry

      H H H H G H H H H
L L A A               A A L L
F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F

I use my Heavy Cavalry to scatter the enemy's archers so that they can't inflict casualties on my own missile units and initially charge the enemy's main line before pulling them back behind my infantry force. I also take off skirmish mode for my archers and set them to loose formation. Fire at will mode is turned on initially as well. As the enemy approaches, I shower them with regular arrows. When they are near charging distance, I first withdraw my archers behind my line infantry units. I then shift them to my left and right flanks AFTER battle is joined with them facing perpendicular to my battle line:

(X = enemy)

A->       X X X      <-A
A->     X X X X      <-A
A->   X X X X X X    <-A
A->    X X X X X X   <-A
F F X X X X X X X X F F
F F F F F F F F F F F F F

This will allow you to inflict casualties on the flanks and rear of the enemy infantry engaged in combat with your own battle line. The only real worry you'll have right now is if the AI decides to send their cavalry units take out your archers. This is where your cavalry comes in to try and negate the AI's. If the AI doesn't have any cavalry, then simply manuever your cavalry into position behind the enemy battle line and charge in to finish the battle.

It is also advantageous sometimes to stack archer units on YOUR left flank as that is the side where enemy troops don't have shield protection and will suffer more casualties from missiles.

[Brenil]

As the Byzantines, I typically have my archers behind the front shieldwall in defensive circumstances. This works great if you know how to use the terrain. Most battle maps have a small hill (if not a large one or mountain) where you can deploy your troops early on. If you have a mostly infantry based army (which I almost always do), it's best to use terrain to your best advanage, as well as morale, formations, and lastly and sometimes most important, archers.

Archers are one of my favorite units and I use them to fantastic effect. These are my basic principles of using archers (crossbows are a different story):

1) Never use skirmish mode.

It seems to unreliable. Far too often when your archers are charged by cavalry or infantry, a couple idiots will stand still while they get charged... this makes the entire unit stop and start fighting... and usually dying. It's best to do it manually.

The most efficent way to retreat archers is to immediately cancel fire at will mode, hit cease fire, give them a rear move order and tell them to run. Almost always this will work. Once they're at safety, give them new targetting orders.

2) Only use flame arrows for morale effect in mass or to attack siege equipment (or wood-based artillery).

The morale effects of flame arrows are only really useful when you have other factors against the enemy morale (numbers, dread general, they have milita units)... flame arrows sort of boost this flaw, especially in great numbers. One unit of archers firing flame arrows won't do much. Five or six... will, but still won't break a real army on their own.

Normal arrows are faster firing and more accurate.

Also, another time to use flame arrows is when you've been using archers for most of the battle and you want to continue raining death on the enemy but you're archers are almost out of ammo. Flame arrows can be used as an artifical 'slow down your fire' button. This means your archers will fire longer, since flame arrows fire considerably slower.

3) Use terrain to your advanage.

Terrain effects many things, but for archers the most important thing is this... angle and range.

With good terrain, archers can fire further, and have a better angle on which to attack the enemy. A good setup which I frequently use is to pick a hill, place your infantry front line infront of your archer line at a slight slope about 8 feet infront of your archers. Your archers who are standing on slightly taller terrain will be roughly 4-5 feet taller than your infantry, therefore they can fire unhindered over their heads accurately and still be protected from cavalry and infantry.

4) Don't always rely on 'fire at will' mode.

A lot of times your archers will generally pick out their right targets, so leaving fire at will mode on is typically a good idea. They will cease fire if your friendly troops are too close to their target (unless you specifically ordered them to fire, in which case they will continue to do so... friendlies be damned) and they will generally pick out infantry targets just based on the number of troops.

However, you still must monitor your archers to make sure you're getting the most out of them. If they're firing straight into the air for example to shoot at infantry on the other side of the skirmish line, you need to give them a clearer target. Another example is enemy archers firing on advancing troops unopposed... or non-armor piercing archers wasting ammunition on knights or other heavily armored troops.

Make sure your archers are always aiming at something they can do the best amount of damage to.

5) Placement is key in sieges.

Sieges are another place where archers can make or break a siege. While it depends on what type of archer unit your faction possess how effective they will be... even archer milita have their uses to help you defend.

First always keep an eye on where the enemy deploys their siege equipment. Since the attacker always deploys first, this give you the advanage of knowing where to place your troops to best effect. Always make sure you have archers on the walls initially to soften up troops or siege equipment. Make sure you place them away from areas where towers or ladders are probably going to show up.

Yet this doesn't mean place them far away from the action (say two towers down the wall). The best place to put them is on the opposite side of the wall where the ladder or siege tower will probably end up, while infantry cover that area. This allows you to hold the wall and still fire at the sametime.

Some areas of the wall are better to cover than others, so placement depends on the map and city/castle. But always try and take out at least one piece of siege equipment by focus firing all your archers on it. Odds are with 3 or more archer units (a typical city garrison for me) using flame arrows, you'll take out at least one. Once the moment for taking out siege equipment passes, start targetting the middle of their infantry cluster. Odds are you'll do great damage since the enemy is so tightly packed that they'll be much easier to hit.

Last thing on sieges. Another tactic is to let the enemy inside the city and defend the square. Keeping archers firing down streets is quite deadly as they can hardly miss and the advancing enemy will take severe casualities while just a few infantry squads can bottle up an entire army your archers can continue raining death in the infantry packed street.

Some countries obviously have better archers than others. Yet all archers can be useful in almost all situations. You just have to get a feel for on they're best utilized. I hope those (and others) suggestions help.

Crossbows are a slightly different animal I won't get into at the moment.

[Jackster]

Archers infilict lots of damage, while taking little in return.
place them before your troops, when enemy get too close, ran back to the rear and start firing again.

[Lord_Calidor]

In my English campaign, I rely heavily on longbowmen. They r absolutely devastating to anything! Usually, they comprise 1/3 (early) to 1/2 (late) of my armies.
First, I deploy them in a defensive manner, on top of a hill, on a slope etc. and put stakes in front. As soon as battle starts, i pull them back a little, just enough to allow other infantry in 3-4 row formation between them & stakes, but leave that space initially empty. When enemy comes fairly close, rush up heavy inf in front of archers in this space, but leave archers in their place, skirmish mode disables. Then, as HI engages enemy's first rows, archers fire over their heads into enemy 2nd or 3rd rank, general, missile troops etc.

Also, some archers like Retinue Longbowmen, Byz Guard Archers or Norse Archers r quite good melee troops, so no need to protect them from enemy inf. When battle turns into chaotic melee, use these archers as flankers.

[THoR_FyreNiR]

In my English campaign, I rely heavily on longbowmen. They r absolutely devastating to anything! Usually, they comprise 1/3 (early) to 1/2 (late) of my armies.
First, I deploy them in a defensive manner, on top of a hill, on a slope etc. and put stakes in front. As soon as battle starts, i pull them back a little, just enough to allow other infantry in 3-4 row formation between them & stakes, but leave that space initially empty. When enemy comes fairly close, rush up heavy inf in front of archers in this space, but leave archers in their place, skirmish mode disables. Then, as HI engages enemy's first rows, archers fire over their heads into enemy 2nd or 3rd rank, general, missile troops etc.

Also, some archers like Retinue Longbowmen, Byz Guard Archers or Norse Archers r quite good melee troops, so no need to protect them from enemy inf. When battle turns into chaotic melee, use these archers as flankers.

Lord_Calidor says it all with Longbows - exactly the right way to use them. I find - if the enemy have plenty of cavalry - that leaving the LBs in the front line but with stakes deployed taunts the cavalry - especially french cavalry! to charge - I pull back my LBs at the last minute. However always best to have 1 or 2 units of LBs at the rear from the start - so when your other LBs are repositioning you can still put down some missle fire - Especially on the flanks - firing at enemy units on the flanks is a good way to prevent a full flanking move by the AI.

[Ippius]

Retinue Longbowman are really really good. Not only do they have awesome missile damage and range but they're decent in combat and have stakes for defence.

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

archers also tend to be fast moving so they are good at running down routing enemy troops if you don;t have enough cavalry to do the job.

[Violent Dave]

Ammo is a big thing with me. Too often I have my archers firing at corps that are small, spread out, and at a long range. Most open field battles when an enemy is attacking they'll send their quick moving archers out first to pepper your line. If you have your archers right out front when playing defense (as you should) the enemy archers will stop right when they can hit your archer line but not your infantry line.

What'll happen is a lengthy archer battle that'll waste all your ammo and when the main line approaches you'll only have a few volleys worth a crap. Instead, tell your archers to hold fire by turning off the fire at will. You can see in the distance if a line of troops is pulling off the main line during their approach so you can anticipate they are sending archers out first. Let them come and on the first volly against your archers, charge your cavalry into the center of their lines.

Your archers will have to stand there and take some rounds like men but the weight of their quivers is more important in this case. The cavalry you sent out is routing the archers and goading the main line to approach. Once the main line is in range, tell your archers to unleash hell on approprate targets.

Follow the tips above on how to use them for the remainder of the battle.

Maybe you guys can answer my question: While my archers are firing on an approaching line I've watched where the arrows are landing to ensure my archers are hitting the right target with the most accuraccy and I've seen a guy in their ranks get hit 2-3 times. Now, I understand armor plays a factor but I wonder if they take a hit if it diminishes any other attribute then moral.

I like to think a guy with three arrows in his neck, chest, and crotch is going to be a pushover now in hand to hand rather then just go "Awe man that's a real bummer." So does it affect anything else?

[Little_Mikey]

what you want to do is engage your cavalry with the fastest enemy units and combine your infantry and archers to take down the rest of the army.

[parvus]

well i always try to attack the enemy from behind (lol) or on the flanks with my missiles. they're always weak there

[haney591]

One critical thing to consider when using missile weapons is accuracy. You will notice that generaly only 2/3 of your missiles accutally impact inside the targeted enemy formation the remainder falling either directly behind or in front. Also only enemy soldiers directly hit by missiles are effected, which is obvious but none the less rare in video games, with the result that targeted formation density greatly effects accuracy. From these observations the following principles derive:
1. Always use flanking fire when possible. Facing perpendicular to the enemy line is the ideal situation. This will greatly increase accuracy not only because the targeted formation will be longer along the axis of your fire but missiles that are either short or long will strike adjacent formations causing "collateral damage". This type of fire is called enfilading fire incedentily.
2. Since it is often not possible to manuever into a perpendicular position, especialy for foot archers, a good secondary option is to place your archers on your flanks and direct your fire at the enemy center. He is likely to be 2 to 3 formations deep here so that your misses will likely hit nearby targets; always target the middle formation in a 3 formation deep line. Your fire will also be crossing his formations at an angle ,effectively making them bigger targets. All of these techniques work on the principle of presenting your troops with a bigger target and thereby increasing accuracy.
3. Pay attention to enemy formation density. At times while manuevering enemy formations will become disordered overlapping each other and forming "clumps". These "clumps" are prime targets and should not be neglected. It should be noted that "clumps" are also outstanding targets for cavalry charges.

[UhOhIt'sAnArrow]

Archers are your best friend, especially against the AI. I can conquer a full army with just archers and a few cavalry if I'm the one attacking. Just go shoot at them, they'll sit still. Flame arrows are rarely good. Like if 2 infantry are fixed in combat and one is shaking, I'll use it to make them route. Otherwise just shoot at them and they won't come at you if you initially attacked. Also, archers gain a HUGE bonus if they're shooting downhill. My peasant archers shot downhill at like dismounted Huscarls and completely wiped them out, even with all that armor.

Never underestimate the power of archers

[Callawyn]

I started by doing what you all are suggesting, then vastly improved my kill numbers by simply deploying my archers in the FRONT row, with my main battle line of infantry immediately behind them. Reason for the improvement = very much more effective with direct fire than if they have to fire up at an angle to clear my infantry. With crossbows, this is even more noticeable, with muskets its essential.

Leave skirmish mode on AND turn on guard mode (guard mode = if a few of your archers get caught in melee, the rest of the unit will keep firing arrows while they try to disengage and run back due to the skirmish mode). When the enemy is about to engage in melee, can either counter charge with infantry, or run your archers back (skirmish mode is nice, but don't rely on it. Immediately your archers are safely behind your infantry, turn off both the skirmish and guard mode, so they'll start shooting again asap. When the enemy begins to flee, have your archers chase down infantry (they're faster than infantry), do not want guard mode on while they're chasing, might even want to turn OFF 'fire at will enabled' once chasing routing army - I hate it when I take friendly fire casualties with my cavalry due to archers shooting at routing enemy.

Also, in battles where you don't get a deployment phase (enemy sallies from castle, or you get ambushed), if some of your archers start off in a decent line, don't move them at all, have other units run to form up around them. This way, they'll be standing ready to fire the instant enemy in range.

Doing this will greatly improve both kill and capture #'s for your missile troops. In fact, if you have sufficient archers, and a strong position, the enemy will sometimes rout from missile fire alone, or else be shaken/wavering and rout when your infantry charges them.

[Callawyn]

Oh yeah, flaming arrows don't cause nearly as much casualties as normal missiles, almost never use them. Aside from lighting up rams/siege towers, or the rare occasion when I'm trying to rout an enemy unit with missile fire alone (generally a missile cav unit that's already routed/rallied at least once before), I've found staying with non-flaming ammo much more useful.

[Cataclysm]

I just wish they'd fix that lame uber-arc thing where your archers shoot at a 89 degree angle because someone's in front of them.

[Trey Parker]

I find 'box' type formation placed on top of the hill extremly effective, especialy against lots of cavlary archers. Outshooting and putting off enemy seems to do work most of the times when you are in danger of been outmanuvered or run over by superior enemy.
So, plenty of archers in loose formation on top of the hill, sorounded by spear troops, with cavlary in the rear for intervention.





Mind that artillery also likes big boxed formations...

Archers should make 1/3 of every army in general. They were mashinguns of medieval times until gunpowder, as are in Medieval II.