I really really want to use Arquebusiers as the English. But how can I?

[Stoofer]

Hi,

I am really interested in using the English Arqubusiers in my army but as far as I can see in my battles my Retinue Longbowmen are far better at dealing out death with projectiles and melee.

As the Arqubusiers are the highest level unit from a city I was expecting them to be pretty useful, however I am yet to find a situation where they offer any advantage over a longbow (bar causing fear).

Am I missing some vital tactic for these gunpowder units or should I just stick with the archers?

I've read about Pike and Shot armies which sounded promising, but unfortunately England do not get pikemen which kinda puts an end to that (unless it's easy to give them some pikes?!? sort of add Scottish pikes to form team GB??)

[Seppuku]

I've found the longbowmen a bit too useful myself. Arquebusiers might be devastating from close range, but then again, they will only fire once or twice before the enemy gets too close. And I'm having trouble controlling those damn gunmen too. They fire when they feel like it. So, needless to say, I'm sticking with retinue bowmen until the arquebusiers prove to be more useful.

[TWoxy]

Well, using this tutorial, it is possible to give them Pikemen or Pike Militia, or any other unit in the game for that matter. There is a way to have them use England's colours as well, but you should probably just try to get them in the game using France's colours before attempting something more ambitious like that. And no, you don't have to do any skinning, just text editing. If you're interested, PM me.

[S4ndyMan]

my opinion:
use arquebusiers for
- armoured enemy troops because gunpowder units negates 50% of the armour of the target (and def skill)
- other gunpowder units
- general units

the rest just use archers.

[Incomitatus]

I recall reading once that gunpowder units also ignore the shield stat. Archers don't.

It's worth noting, though, that England used longbow throughout the timespan covered by the game precisely because of their usefulness. Historically, the deforestation of yew trees throughout Europe to make the longbows (England had to import bowstaves from an early date, since they used up their own yew resources) is what finally led to their abandonment. It just became too hard to keep them equipped for a reasonable cost, added to the fact that it took about seven years of training to make a professional longbowman, while an arquebusier could be trained in two weeks.

However, since none of that is modelled in the game, there is no reason to stop using longbowmen unless you want to limit yourself to historical role-playing.