Archers are great, some better than others. if you run out of arrows, simply wait out the time, and it will be a draw, and you keep your base while have taken out a few hundred enemy soliders at the minimal cost too you, making the future siege fight more easier. Sally forth, let your archers pepper your enemies, once they attack your archers, retreat. You can withhold any starting to mid game siege with a few good archers and a cav unit.

1 unit of 5 units, only needs to be providing fire arrows to damage moral, and the rest need to be firing normal to fire quick as possible. When you have an abundence of archers, they do not all need to be firing fire arrows. Most spears and such climbing ladders will break to an archer unit on the wall, after being peppered with arrows then chopped down as they climb onto the wall. When they get tired of getting shot and attack your archers, your archers retreat leaving their men exposed to a cav attack. When your enemy won't make the first move, your archers make them pay for it. They provide morale damage to your enemy and they might not disable a sqaud like a charge of knight can, but they widdle donw your enemies forces. Meele, Cav, and Archers are 3 legs of a tripod.

The devastation above was caused by two average experience longbow units, at medium range. There are many accounts by Crusaders of the sheer volume of fire they were subjected to. Be aware of the pattern of archery, overlapping zones of fire will create a kill zone. Obviously for different nationalities, different tactics are required, but for the Turks, for example, massed archery was a specific tactic in the modern sense this would be based upon 'Time on Target' (TOT) rather than accuracy by 'saturating' the 'kill zone'.

If you are having to move your archers away from contact with the enemy, you are not using them properly. In the game even Peasant archers can be very effective if deployed and utilised properly, they are the mainstay of the English army until Longbows become available. Reason why it was the highpoint for melee and cavalary which were rendered obeslete with time as ranged combat became actually effective.Ĭrecy and Agincourt and Poitier proved the dominance of archery over cavalry. And the early guns were more meant to scare while art primary meant for buildings/forts. Originally posted by Inquisitioner:Archers were very inaccurate and ineffective historically, especially at the time this game represents.

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