Use of archers?

[Feudal]

I really can't find a use for archers. They usually end up racking up more friendly kills than they do enemy. I could set them to fire at the other enemy archers, but I usually have cav doing that anyways, and then switch fire to the enemy frontlines resulting in my archers shooting the hell out of my front as well. I feel archers are just a waste of commander unit cap, be better to just dump a load of infantry in instead of wasting space with archers.

Maybe I just play the wrong way? I have 27 hours in this and I feel like I barely know half the systems in this game. I don't even bother with magic, I just find the spells that summons the most units and get those, to give you an idea of my experience.

[Zymeth]

Depends on matchup - usually its worth to have at least some stack of archers.
Also commanders with bows can be set to fire rearmost units.

If you "don't bother with magic", you certainly play single-player anyway. I bet you could win multiple games with just 1 kind of unit or with many other and various approaches there.
Playing vs players is totally different.

[jojeck]

If you use archers with shortbows then one way to avoid friendly fire is to only use heavy infantry with say 14 protection and a large shield in your front ranks. The shield will block many of the arrows that land in the tile and any that hit the unit will have to get through the 14 protection. Most shortbows do 9 damage and have piercing which reduces the protection of the target (your troops in the friendly fire case) by 20% so that becomes about 11 (from 14). So the damage inflicted is given by 9 base damage + DRN versus 11 protection + DRN and that means that about 60% of hits will do no damage and any that do will be much reduced.

In my most recent game I'm playing with Sceleria and using the Ala Legionaires as my main frontline troops and they have 14 protection and tower shields and also 2 javelins which they use before combat. Putting a line of indy shortbows behind the frontline is a way of increasing their firepower considerably and their equipment means friendly fire casulities from arrows and javelins are low. That is certainly not the case for the poorly equiped longdead that often accompany my troops in battle. They suffer as much from friendly fire as from enemy action, but they are expendable and easily replaced by the Cultists generating 4 per month. You can consider the longdead to be a sort battle magic that is cast before the battle.

Give Sceleria a try if you want to use archers with other troops effectively, I haven't seen any better solution to the problem of friendly fire. In general you need to use troops with shields and enough armour to resist the type missiles that your troops use. That works against enemy that have lighter armoured troops but against heavily armoured troops it is probably better to leave the archers at home and recruit troops with high damage weapons like halberds. I find that longbows and especially crossbows are almost impossible to use without significant risk of friendly fire casualities as they do more damage and crossbows get armour piercing as well as piercing for 70% reduction in the protection of the target. Only heavy armour like Ulm blackplate (protection 23) and their smiths casting ironskin on the troops can give much protection against that sort of pentration. For human sized troops it is better to rely on spells like ethereal and luck to resist crossbows rather than heavy protection.

[meglobob1]

There's a spell called, 'Flaming arrows', when a mage casts this all missile weapons do additional fire damage, so archers can be worth stacking for that combo.

Also, if facing a opponent who has lots of crossbows, massed archers are good for taking them out, as your archers fire 2x as often, so can kill the crassows before they kill alot of you infantry with there armour piercing bolts.

Also, archers destroy opposing units like barbarians, low protection stuff with ease.

[Silence]

Against the giants of Niefelheim, flaming arrows can be real deadly due to their fire vulnerability. It's quite a pity to see these proud warriors massacred by scores of monkey archers ...

[jojeck]

One main way to protect your troops against arrows and similar missiles is the battlefield spell Arrow Fend, which is Ench 6 and needs 3A and 1 A gem to cast. This deflects 80% IIRC of missiles (from your side and the enemy) and is another layer of protection. It covers all your troops and makes using missiles with Flaming arrows much more useful and less likley to inflict friendly fire although my advice about shields and good protection for frontline troops still applies.

[meglobob1]

Originally posted by silence:

Against the giants of Niefelheim, flaming arrows can be real deadly due to their fire vulnerability. It's quite a pity to see these proud warriors massacred by scores of monkey archers ...

Having done just this...on more then 1 occassion...I find it very, very enjoyable...you after do it in neutral or higher scales thou, doesn't work / or is not as effective in cold dominion. With heat 1 scale those fire vulnerability units burn to death, the fire won't go out...

[BoboYagga]

Ma ulm's crossbow and arbelists are amazing against glamoured units. Would highly recommend.
Most archers are really weak and could absolutely use a buff

[DasaKamov]

No one's mentioned this yet, but archers have a reduced chance to hit their own chance (and an increased chance to hit enemy troops) when their Precision stat is enhanced via Magic Spell buffs.

Casting spells like "Wind Guide" will greatly improve the effectiveness of all ranged attacks by all friendly units on the battlefield.

[Feudal]

Originally posted by DasaKamov:

No one's mentioned this yet, but archers have a reduced chance to hit their own chance (and an increased chance to hit enemy troops) when their Precision stat is enhanced via Magic Spell buffs.

Casting spells like "Wind Guide" will greatly improve the effectiveness of all ranged attacks by all friendly units on the battlefield.

Originally posted by jojeck:

One main way to protect your troops against arrows and similar missiles is the battlefield spell Arrow Fend, which is Ench 6 and needs 3A and 1 A gem to cast. This deflects 80% IIRC of missiles (from your side and the enemy) and is another layer of protection. It covers all your troops and makes using missiles with Flaming arrows much more useful and less likley to inflict friendly fire although my advice about shields and good protection for frontline troops still applies.

So just combine these and suddenly all friendly fire goes away. Combine the fire arrows and the "wind guide" percision boost and suddenly things get melted away.

[Feudal]

Originally posted by Zymeth:

If you "don't bother with magic", you certainly play single-player anyway. I bet you could win multiple games with just 1 kind of unit or with many other and various approaches there.
Playing vs players is totally different.

Yeah I do only play singleplayer, although playing against normal AI they usually figure out how to outclass me yet still, with their magic super units that kill 50+ a battle by themselves. Forces me to go into the magic tree to figure out how to get rid of it. Or if I'm playing Ermor, they spam preists and tend to melt my undeads if I don't have loads of anti-preists and some unbanishable-summoned-boys. Early-mid game for me is just spamming armies, then late game I figure out that I need magic and turtle till I figure out a good tactic. (usually involves spamming more armies, but this time made of forest animals or some sort of ethereal)

[seecat46]

Archers will fire were the enemy will be if they continue to move at the same speed but don't get there as your men are in the way so you hit your own guys as they wI'll stop and fight. If you know aproximtly your unit and the enemy's speed you can get it so that they stop moving to fight before your archers have fired.
Ps I have 200+ hours and still don't get magic that we'll. I seggeat you warch this totorial series. https://youtu.be/FMIQfYIkrjA

[Red_Rob]

Generally with troops based strategies I try to have two types of armies. Melee armies where the troops are the damage dealers, which will maybe have some archers set to Fire Archers, or Archer armies where the troops are just a wall in front of the ranged troops that deal the damage. Trying to mix and match tends to lead to the friendly fire issue.

I will say that archers seem to have gotten more conscious of friendly fire in recent updates. I remember in the early days of Dom4 you could send a SC into the enemy confident that enemy archers would fire away and mostly hit their own troops. Now they advance until they have a good chance of actually hitting their target. Watching a crowd of Crossbowmen march up to an enemy Linnorm and pepper it to death at close range was quite satisfying.

[Morsigil]

Feudal Wulf, playing with magic can be fun! Try out EA Atlantis and research Evocation 5. Get a bunch of mages of the deep and put living pillars/warriors of the deep and/or deep one spearmen in front of them. I usually tell them to hold x2 then falling frost/fireball/acid rain x3 and cast spells. With enough mages you melt all those trash troops they recruit often before they even make it to your line. Your E2 mages of the deep can cast earth meld and your basalt kings can cast earth meld and maws of earth to hold them in place while they're being summarily melted.

[Fortuna]

Arrows have low base damage and are easily blocked by shields, but have the advantage of completely ignoring Defense and Awe. They can dispel effects like Glamour. Archers can draw the fire of other archers, which might be advantageous.

In general, large battles make archers better. If your enemy brings 100 archers with flaming arrows to the big clash and you have done nothing but mass infantry, then you are going to notice.

As for magic, it is the key to the game. Beginning to effectively use mages in battle is a sign that you are progressing to intermediate play.

[Matriarchy]

Archers are amazing units when you don't particularly care about your frontliners or your frontliners are pierce resistant.

If you have reliable skeleton spammers, archer fire can be the additional force multiplier that allows skeles to steamroll over otherwise superior melee fighters, especially if those arrows are doing fire damage.