How to protect ranged units

[Sergeant Walnut]

Every single fight so far against the AI goes the same

-Either my melee units get bypassed (as they can't catch up) and the AI enemies go murder all my archers
- My melee units damage the enemy AI units, then the enemy AI ignores my melee and murders all my archers.

Is there any way to defend my archers from those kind of attacks or to get AI's attention ? Battles are getting repetitive very fast

[Boludo]

Basicly they want to kill your ranged units first. The only way to protect them is by hiding them behind stones or something similar, cover them by placing mellee units all around them and wait for the enemy to attack or if you have enough melee units just dont let them take part at the battle

[Sergeant Walnut]

alright, thanks for the tip.

[c2authoritarian]

As far as fighting other ranged unit you want rush them. If u have light or dark magic haste, confusion, blindess, and deflect missisle are all really good. When fighting melee you have more options. Creating 1 unit stacks to absorb attacks and block enmies can help. The haven strategy for taking out dragon utopia shows this perfectly.
http://www.celestialheavens.com/viewpage.php?id=582
said site also has a skill wheel for build orders and walkthrough for the campaigns

[americanman_4_life]

It's a bit of a gap in programming...

In Civ V, they have a ZOC feature. Melee unit lock in any Melee trying to pass, so all movement is reduced to one tile per turn in any tile adjacent to a Melee unit, so it's not so easy to pass the enemy, having to plan to go around!! Yea, they did not do this for HOMM V, and need to.

At least, every race's one TANK unit should have a Melee ZOC feature included, either reduce the movement passing the ZOC or it auto strikes the unit passing it... For HOMM V, the latter would actually be nice.

You learn to adjust to the play though!
Currently, i'm Necro, and a HIGH necro at that. I have Expert Necromancy skill, so every battle I win, I gain the SOUL's of SOME of those I killed, and mostly I take the Skelli Archers first... now in most recent fight, I have 1300+ Skel Archers, and instead seeing number on icon in fight, it says 1k. Trust me, I know how you feel, in early game, they would go for archers. Archer should first fire on Archer. Melee protect archer. If you don't have enough archers to survive against their archers, than you shouldn't of gotten in that battle. I always OUT ARCHER my adversaries ARCHERS!!

If you have Archers and Melee, and the Enemy has Archers and Melee. You smallest Melee with highest number (in my Necro case, my Plague Zombies are above 250x) stay back and remain with the S.Archers, while my Wraith (TANK of a Melee ghost... hard to kill, and very powerful attack) go on my Offense... I also wiegh it against how many Archers and Melee the other side has... if they have more Melee than I do to gaurd, all my melee stay back, at least wait a turn, to expend their turn. Get higher Defense. First turn, fire off arrows, get spells cast , and set your self up to seige the field!

If they only have archery, including any mage/wizard/lich etc units that cast more less before attack, than at least have my melee offense approaches, while my range and magic fire from behind.

ALSO... I spread them out. My Archliches sit in one corner, while my S.Archers sit in other. I do not sit my P.Z's directly in front of my S.Archers either. In a cornered angle, still only one square away. So from corner farthest Left and back, sits my S.Archer, and one tile forward, and right, sits my P.Z. My Archliches sit in Corner on other side, and usually in the 30-40's, they handle any melee anyway. However, sitting next to them, is my Spectre Dragon, starting near my Archlich. I usually have L.Vamps over there as well. Near the middle, but to left, will sit my S.Ghost, and in direct middle is my Wraith. Yes, their RANGE usually targets my range, but 3/4 times, target my Archliches not the S.Archers. Because the AI is STUPID, and puts both their archer units of medium armies, their mage, with their range, sit next to eachother, my Archlich can usually hit BOTH stacks for proportionally large strikes with the Death Cloud. Or use Stone Spikes, or other area effect, targeting their group of ranges!

Also, find yourself Initiative arti's. Increase your initiative for all units, as well for specific units. I have artifact that improves Initiative for All units, another for ONLY archer units, and another for ONLY Flying units! This helps, as your units gain an attack ratio faster than some the opponents!