Archers are useless!

[Leo]

So... Archers in games never work as they should be, in history they were able to shoot two or three arrows and after that the drop the bow grab shield and sword and run to help their mates on frontline, in my opinion it's way better solution than stand like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and watch how their friends die. I think that instead of 99% useless in battle archers i would like to just give bows to regular footman or make marksman able to fight in melee combat. Manor Lords has a great potencial and i think this idea deserves a consiederation.

[Fatherwow]

Militia bowmen are pretty useless yes, but some of the other types of bowmen have discipline and are allowed to shoot even when your own troops are in combat with the enemy units. But overall I'm super underwhelmed with archers in this game.. its like the creator didn't want the player to abuse the AI or more likely have the AI abuse the player with OP bowmen so made them weak like Ukraine.

[harbinger]

Bows are tricky but I have made good use of them. In general, a melee unit is going to be more useful than an archer unit but if you have the bows and you don't have the other gear you need for a melee unit, archers can be useful in the following ways:

1) Because they are lightly armed, they are tempting for bandits to attack. You can use archers effectively to draw the enemy units into a set ambush. To do this, I set up my melee units in the ambush area and then attack the forward bandits with a single line of archers set to Give Ground. I don't actually let the enemy engage them though, I have them run away towards the direction that springs the ambush and the enemy always follows.

2) Besides the above, I have used archer units to harass the Hildebolt army and cause him to split his melee units. I let them chase my archers around while I attack the rest with me melee units. Even if the archers get caught and killed, it will take so long that I can effectively deal with the army in parts. This is also a great use of mercenary archers.

3) Archers do a small amount of damage at range in volley and this also causes the advancing unit to hesitate and lose some morale. If you have no other plans, set up the archers in a single line behind your melee and harass each enemy unit as it approaches contact with your melee units. This will not kill a lot of the enemy but it does set up your melee to take advantage of the harassment. It seems to work sort of like fighting in home territory bonus or fighting downhill bonus. If you stack a lot of these little fighting bonuses they can wind up paying off in a big way. So you might say the ideal defense is to stand on a hill in your home territory and have archers volley the enemy as he attacks your melee. That grants three minor morale bonuses, but altogether that is a significant boost to morale. If your army is also bigger than the enemy that grants an additional morale modifier. BTW, hover over your unit and try holding Tab to see their morale bonuses and penalties. It also works for enemy units and is a great way to determine which enemy unit is the most dangerous by stats. In the middle of a complex battle I will frequently pause and check the Effectiveness of my melee units and adjust their stances to maximize effectiveness.

4) Archers do effective damage at short range in a flanking position with orders set to Fire at Will. After using them to spring an ambush as in 1), you can then run them into position behind the attacking enemy units, and switch them to fire at all. This will pepper the flank with continuously demoralizing damage that is effective at finishing off wounded troops. It seems to do more damage the closer you are to the enemy.

Also be aware that Fatigue, Rain, and low Cohesion will lower the effectiveness of the archers. You can improve Cohesion by standing at attention and clicking Hold Position and letting them shuffle about for a minute. If you are holding tab over the unit as it does this you can watch how it impacts Cohesion. I think Cohesion is your base effectiveness that gets modified by things like morale, terrain, and nearby corpses. It is extremely sensitive to Fatigue so don't run except when it's really necessary. It bears repeating, drawing your unit into formation, and then clicking Hold Position is a good way to restore lost cohesion. Fall in!

I hope this helps!

[Scaristotle]

Originally posted by harbinger:

Bows are tricky but I have made good use of them. In general, a melee unit is going to be more useful than an archer unit but if you have the bows and you don't have the other gear you need for a melee unit, archers can be useful in the following ways:

1) Because they are lightly armed, they are tempting for bandits to attack. You can use archers effectively to draw the enemy units into a set ambush. To do this, I set up my melee units in the ambush area and then attack the forward bandits with a single line of archers set to Give Ground. I don't actually let the enemy engage them though, I have them run away towards the direction that springs the ambush and the enemy always follows.

2) Besides the above, I have used archer units to harass the Hildebolt army and cause him to split his melee units. I let them chase my archers around while I attack the rest with me melee units. Even if the archers get caught and killed, it will take so long that I can effectively deal with the army in parts. This is also a great use of mercenary archers.

3) Archers do a small amount of damage at range in volley and this also causes the advancing unit to hesitate and lose some morale. If you have no other plans, set up the archers in a single line behind your melee and harass each enemy unit as it approaches contact with your melee units. This will not kill a lot of the enemy but it does set up your melee to take advantage of the harassmennt.

4) Archers do effective damage at short range in a flanking position with orders set to Fire at Will. After using them to spring an ambush as in 1), you can then run them into position behind the attacking enemy units, and switch them to fire at all. This will pepper the flank with continuously demoralizing damage that is effective at finishing off wounded troops. It seems to do more damage the closer you are to the enemy.

I hope this helps!

All of these points are valid and good advice and my experience with archers is pretty much the same. The morale damage they deal cannot be understated, as I've had enemy units break and run after a couple of volleys from a full card. When fielding armies to do battle with the enemy Lord, there is no reason not to bring at least one card of Archer Militia, simply due to the enemy making use of them--getting kited by enemy archers is a solid "Nope."

[Lord Freedom]

I'm not sure what history you're referring to. Archers historically held their place and never engaged in melee combat. They had unlimited access to arrows which were provided by supplies directly behind them, not "2 or 3". They would skirmish with the opposing force to soften them for heavy infantry or cavalry.

[Leo]

As a fan of history i've read that archers is servise of Bolesław the brave first king of Poland worked as i said. Look on it from my point, you are are a lord of the army and you pay them for fight, it is logic that no one should be usefull in any part battle.

[Lord Freedom]

Originally posted by Leo:

As a fan of history i've read that archers is servise of Bolesław the brave first king of Poland worked as i said. Look on it from my point, you are are a lord of the army and you pay them for fight, it is logic that no one should be usefull in any part battle.

I was intrigued so I did the research and I think you are mistaken on the intent of Boleslaw the Brave when he used archers to route the Russians at the Battle of the River Bug.

According to Polish chronicler Gall Anonim, the battle occurred by accident: Bolesław decided to throw a feast to boost morale of his army; Yaroslav's archers and scouts decided to stir up trouble for the Polish servants who were gutting the animals and preparing them near the river - but they only succeeded in annoying them so much that the servants themselves crossed the relatively shallow river and chased Yaroslav's much-surprised advance troops away.

- wikipedia

I couldn't find another battle that involved unconventional tactics like this. It seems like Boleslaw (and Polish military in general through most of history) tended to use a mix of germanic heavy infantry and feats of engineering that allowed them to avoid open field battles / eastern horse archers

[H0gs_tooth]

Originally posted by Fatherwow:

Militia bowmen are pretty useless yes, but some of the other types of bowmen have discipline and are allowed to shoot even when your own troops are in combat with the enemy units. But overall I'm super underwhelmed with archers in this game.. its like the creator didn't want the player to abuse the AI or more likely have the AI abuse the player with OP bowmen so made them weak like Ukraine.

Ukraine made bowmen weak?

[Fortigan]

I normally don't make comments like this, but archers are amazing after buff and if you don't think so then you are using them wrong.

Even if a unit does not get a kill before melee, they will damage health and lower morale, so that your melee troops route them quickly, reducing your losses. If you have enough archers they can actually route units before they get to you.

If you position your troops correctly, they can fire the entire fight. Attack your enemy from the sides so they don't block your archers line of fire. I've had tons of battles on challenging difficulty where I had no losses.