Are crossbows worth giving up 'flaming arrows'?

[Fried Noodles]

I tend to flick on flaming arrows on all of my archers whenever I have the opportunity, unless it's raining.
I'm not 100% sure I can tell if it's even making much of a difference, but it certainly looks cooler.
Crossbows units seem to have much higher range, and they trade that for ammo capacity. But if I'm playing a leader like Kong Rong, his special crossbowmen seem to have as much ammo as basic archers.
But crossbowmen are unable to light the tips of their bolts on FIRE.

[Vormina]

I'll take Onyx Dragons over crossbows anytime, their range is just as good, they have much more ammo, and flaming arrows cause enemies to rout quicker. Also, they can light up arrow towers quickly.

[Fried Noodles]

Originally posted by Vormina:

I'll take Onyx Dragons over crossbows anytime, their range is just as good, they have much more ammo, and flaming arrows cause enemies to rout quicker. Also, they can light up arrow towers quickly.

I've unlocked a number of the fancier units off of the reform tree, but never got around to using 'em.

The Onyx Dragons look pretty good, but their upkeep is at least 50% greater than the Fury of Beihai.

I think in my last few games, I never really moved past using Militia Archers and Mercenary Archers, because they were all Lv.10, and I didn't see THAT much incentive to replace them with fresh Onyx Dragons.

[Harukage]

Why not to have both onyx dragons and heavy crossbows?
Dragons for flaming shots and crossbows for armor-piercing. I usualy have keep 4 crossbows and 2 trebuchets with my strategists, but replace 2 crossbows with onyx dragons as soon as i can.
Then i have 2 to 4 mormal archers given to other heroes. Just as previous title s taught me - missile superiority is everything.

[WildArmsFx]

If you have fury of beihai they are definetly better then onyx, as most unique units are. They have more "Ammo" especially level'd up. Dont think of Ammo as "number of shots" but "potential kills". Since they have armor piercing they get far more kills with less shots.They should recruit at level 6 with a recruitment center and leader bonus. I get some recruits at level 8 late-game. Im pretty sure Kong Rong gets a bonus archers so you can recruit at level 10.

Your fire arrows can be dealt with by Jade Dragons. They are an amazing unit. Or a single cheap archer unit to kill towers. Catapult ammo isnt worth wasting on towers. Horse archers do it too slow. All my armies have fire arrows with Jade dragons because Jade dragons are my main unit and night battles are always clutch to have as a perk. They dont lose to many units but can take down towers/catapults quickly with fire arrows.

Onyx Dragons are really not worth it in my opinion. They are super super expensive. Because price difference to performance in comparison to the units they replace isnt good. Ranged is always the cheapest part of the army, you can field two catapults for every one Onyx. 3 medium crossbows and 3 catapults are cheaper then two catapults

Fire Arrows kinda suck mid-late game because armored units take almost no damage from them. But they are needed for towers so 1 unit should have them.

[Geroiko]

WildArmsFx above was kinda polite with regards to onyx dragons. Let me put it a bit more bluntly than him: Onyx dragons suck donkey balls, currently the worst ranged unit after repeating crossbowmen. Locked behind too many reforms, some of which are not even priority reforms, extremely expensive recruitment, extremely expensive upkeep, good range (same as crossbowmen) but no armor piercing and non existent armor (they melt like ice cream).

For an elite unit that costs that much and requires so much research to not have armor piercing and to be so squishy while same range as other units is absolutely ludicrous. You can get approximately 2.5 crossbowmen units for each onyx dragon in terms of upkeep and by having instant access to them without reforms and all that hassle. But here is the biggest irony; Even 1 crossbowmen unit performs better than onyx dragon. Just go on a custom battle, pick 1 crossbowmen unit on one side, one onyx dragon for the other and just see how quickly crossbowmen obliterate the onyx ones.

To add a bit more, the morale debuff by flaming arrows is not big enough to make up for the inadequacies described above, the debuff is not big enough and does not make much different in higher difficulties. The biggest modifier in morale comes from "damage sustained" so the more damage your unit does, the more the enemy unit is going to suffer from morale, so practically armor piercing causes more morale debuff than flaming arrows given that you end up doing more damage this way if you think about it. The only area where onyx dragons are better is in melee stats, but if you are using ranged units for melee fights, then you are certainly doing something fundamentally wrong.

[Imnuktam]

Originally posted by Fried Noodles:

I tend to flick on flaming arrows on all of my archers whenever I have the opportunity, unless it's raining.
I'm not 100% sure I can tell if it's even making much of a difference, but it certainly looks cooler.
Crossbows units seem to have much higher range, and they trade that for ammo capacity. But if I'm playing a leader like Kong Rong, his special crossbowmen seem to have as much ammo as basic archers.
But crossbowmen are unable to light the tips of their bolts on FIRE.

Range is highly important, use Xbows until you can unlock Onyx archers. If you have range advantage you should just chill and make enemy march to you.

Kong Rongs Fury and Thunder units are about the only ones I played where Onyx werent a huge upgrade. They both have nice melee stats for ranged units, nice enough you can drop all your melee if you want and use them instead.

Onyx have lower ap damage but this game is all about morale so your real advantage is going to be the morale hit fire gives, and like you say they look so much cooler. Combine that with 3 flaming trebuchets, perhaps a couple Defenders of Earth (aoe fire damage) and you will break their armies before they reach your lines, while you kick back and enjoy your popcorn. People that dont understand morale mechanics wont understand why onyx is so good.

Dont listen to Wild up there told me Onyx have 200 range, less ammo, dont fire as fast and Kong Rong shouldnt be going down that tree (which is unlocking all your trade income) anyways. Absolutely wrong on all counts.

I have games saved with all 3 units at max level, so I just checked their stats. Now you will have actual facts instead of whatever it is that guy uses. Ammo is tough since leaders had a cunning difference but here is numbers anyways.

Fury of behai 25% melee evasion, Rate of fire 30, ammo 40, range dmg 27/50
Thunder of J 26% melee evasion, Rate of fire 30, ammo 49, range dmg 27/50
Onyx Archer 70% melee evasion, Rate of fire 38, ammo 53, range dmg 48/20

There is an arguement made for using both since Xbow have an obvious ap advantage, and with 70% melee evasion Onyx can replace melee and make a passable front line considering how weak an enemy that reaches it is. That would let you have 6 onyx front line 6 thunder second line.

On the first army I looked at my Onyx Archers had 85% melee evasion, I thought wtf. After checking I saw they were benefitting from the generals +5% to melee units, and he had an ancillary giving them another 10%. How is that for a 250 range unit with fire arrows, high accuracy and over 50 ammo.

[Geroiko]

Let's run the numbers and tests because you obviously haven't done so before:
Onyx Dragons:
Recruitment Cost: 2025
Upkeep Cost: 240
Armour Piercing: 18
Armor: 7%
Base ranged damage: 20
Ranged attack rate: 6.7

Also, locked behind 7 reforms (6 if you start with a blue or purple one unlocked), some of which are objectively bad to get early on in the game if you decide to rush them, let alone not having the economy to support them early.

Crossbowmen:
Recruitment cost: 440
Upkeep Cost: 90
Armour Piercing: 45
Armor: 32%
Base ranged damage: 48
Ranged attack rate: 15

Tested 1v1 in ten custom battles for better result accuracy, in all ten tests the crossbowmen emerge victorious.
In terms of upkeep cost: for every 3 Onyx Dragons you can field 8 Crossbowmen (720 upkeep)
It costs 6075 to field 3 Onyx Dragons. It costs 3520 to field 8 Crossbowmen (you save 2555 gold that can be used for more armies or building your economy).
Tested 3 Onyx vs 8 Crossbowmen scenario in custom battle, no wonder once again that crossbowmen came on top.

I am not even going to comment in your re-definition of what morale does and your faulty understanding of which modifiers cause higher morale debuff as it is pretty clear there is a knowledge gap there. Neither going to comment on the parody of using ranged units (and ranged units with no armor on top of that) as your melee front-line.

If you have not ran the numbers and the tests in custom battles refrain from posting faulty information. Surely, not that it matters which unit to get on the easy difficulty you play or the mods you use on top of it that redefine upkeep costs to "convenient" values. Onyx dragons are cool looking but completely sub-optimal and cost inefficient. Total War games have always favoured quantity instead of quality.

[Imnuktam]

Putting one unit vs another in custom means little to nothing. Xbow have very poor ammo compared to Onyx that is enough right there to warrant Onyx. How much ammo does regular Xbow have at level 10 compared to Onyx again, notice you intentionally leave out that stat.

With Onyx ammo you can wipe an entire stack with your range if you bring at least 6 of them after they level up, you wont be doing that with xbow. Do you really even play this game outside custom?

If you actually played them and learned how to abuse morale (like you claim to as you talk out your butt) over just smash one unit into another which is obviously more you guys style, you would understand how much better they are. The fact that you dismiss a constant fire morale hit that stacks with everything you mention before shows you dont have a clue man.

The point about price and upkeep is a valid one, they are pricey in both cost and upkeep. Everything you unlock on the way to get them is income boosts, and if you are a trade economy type player many are in there you should go after either way.

In my builds using 6-7 of them and 3 trebs, I dont even lose units or have the enemy make it to my lines, so its hard to listen to people who obviously havent used them enough to know what they are talking going on and on like you two.

I wont try and convice you custom battle warriors what is good in campaign. I will let the OP who is hopefully open minded enough to try see for himself. If you can afford the Onyx they easily outperform any other archer. If you tried the build i mention to him you would see that there is no point to having melee in an army that the enemy never reaches before it routs.

Talking to you little kids that think you know everything is draining, gawd man. Ill let you get back to custom battles and knowing everything already so you dont listen to any point that isnt mirroring your own.

[Geroiko]

Again, you provide zero numbers or test results to back up any of your arguments, just your thoughts and feelings. That's not how you conduct an actual analysis. It is a common trend in your posts to only include ad hominem attacks based again on your imaginary assumptions and generalizations that everyone other than you is kid and a "custom battle warrior" and only you have really found the truth by testing the game without obviously proving any of your statements with quantitative data.

With regards to fire arrows, go hover over enemy tooltip to see how tiny and insignificant the debuff from them is on morale (a grand minus 4, wow). Also, keep hovering while a unit is wiped out to see that the most significant modifier to morale is "damage sustained/taken". You would have known that if instead of calling people names you went to conduct your tests to find out. In addition, the term "stacking" is misleading as it usually implies "multiplicative" effect, although there is no such thing here, it's linear, so fire arrows are just an added value to a sum. Let's not forget to mention the decreased armour piercing damage and reloading you have with fire arrows on, but I guess those are small letters for you in the grand scheme of things.

Pretty idiotic that you'd bring the point of ammunition because that's already a "defeated point" before we even get to debate it, because once again in your mind you look at it as a 1:1 ratio comparison when it's not 1 to 1 if you include cost. Let's get base values with default unit sizes and use the 3 to 8 ratio I mentioned above which even out their upkeep cost (but with crossbowmen saving an extra 2555 gold on top of it):

Onyx dragons: 160 unit size times 30 ammunition = 4800 arrows
To make it equivalent to 3:8 ratio mentioned in the post above:
4800 arrows times 3 units = 14400 arrows

Crossbowmen: 160 unit size times times 13 ammunition = 2080 arrows
To make it equivalent to 3:8 ratio mentioned in the post above:
2080 arrows time 8 units = 16640 arrows

So are you satisfied now about my hideous intentions of not talking about the ammo part, not only in terms of my custom battle tests but also from a mathematical standpoint?

I play all of my campaigns on legendary difficulty, have countless hours registered on testing and min-maxing stuff and writing down calculations in excel sheets to estimate most efficient paths. In contrary, you fail to provide any hard facts other than your thoughts and feelings, you have already admitted in other threads you don't even play legendary, instead you play hard with God knows what mods because supposedly in your own cosmotheory that's more "challenging" as you have stated elsewhere before.

It's funny that you even admit in your post that my point about price and upkeep is a valid one and then you keep debating against it. Obviously it is a valid one because it's based on basic algebra, but when you also admit it then you cannot really keep arguing against it, that's oxymoron. Pointless to continue this parody of discussion when the math is up here for any level headed person to read and enlighten himself on what's better / worse. Nobody said you cannot win with "your build", you can beat the game even on legendary with sub-optimal builds and it won't even matter if you are good enough. But that has nothing to do with "unit efficiency" and "cost efficiency".