A Bear's Guide To Ranged Weapons

A brief overview of different ranged weapon types and the archers who use them.

Slings And Arrows

It's happened to everyone; there's an enemy general running away, or lurking just out of reach with a power attack ready to smash you if you dare close in. Maybe you're trying to convince a turtling enemy to charge, or being harassed by a horse archer who never comes close enough to stab with a pike. What's a general to do?

Shoot 'em.

But which bow should you use, and why? On the surface, they all sorta look the same in some ways, especially the units. So which?

The answer, like many things, depends a lot on how you want to play the game, and what you enjoy to use; it also depends on your ping, your ability to aim, and how much you want your enemy to hate you afterwards.

Disclaimer: I'm mainly a command mode player, and not really a pro. I make no guarantees that these are 100% accurate; they're merely my own observations from using the various archer and ranged cavalry lines, and facing them in battle.

For Your General

Bows

Bows are able to make power attacks, although the two varieties have different kinds.

Shortbows
Snap shooting, low damage. Not great accuracy either. Best used on horseback if your aim isn't great, since you can put enough arrows out to work. With light enough gear on foot you can run circles around people and shoot them up, but that just begs to get rushed and smacked around. Not as effective as it could be so far, so don't go in expecting to easily be Huang Zhong. Also they have a sweet rapid fire charged attack.

• Lethality: 2/5
  
• Annoyingness: 3/5
  
• Ease of Use: 4/5
  
• Style: 5/5

Longbow
Overall a very balanced weapon. Your ping matters a lot, as does your aim. If you can reliably land head shots, it'll be really good at sniping generals out of the middle of their units. Even if you can't, it's a good weapon in most situations. Has a power shot charged attack that can, with a well-placed arrow, do a pretty ridiculous amount of damage - provided you can land it. Probably the best weapon for horseback archery, once you master using it properly.

• Lethality: 4/5
  
• Annoyingness: 2/5 (5/5 if you snipe people in the middle of their army)
  
• Ease of Use: 3/5 (0/5 if your ping is bad)

Crossbows

Crossbows all share a quirk in common; while the loading speed differs between them, raising and firing a crossbow more or less all takes the same short amount of time. Combine this with crossbows staying loaded if you put them away, and it becomes possible to whip out and shoot a fleeing enemy in the back very easily, without as much of a delay as a bow might suffer from.

Light Crossbows
In some ways, they're a midpoint between longbows and shortbows, except they actually reload more slowly. Mid damage, mid reload, good accuracy. Nice on horseback, nice on foot, doesn't really stand out anywhere. Despite their slow speed, they are pretty fast for a crossbow and do nearly as good damage as a longbow - but lack a charge attack, have shorter range, and a slower projectile.

• Lethality: 3/5
  
• Annoyingness: 2/5
  
• Ease of Use: 3/5

Heavy Crossbow
I find it hard to justify using a heavy crossbow, despite using one myself. They reload slow, you can't move while doing so, and they're heavy… But if you can land that shot, you'll do some amazing damage, to the tune of killing generals in only a few headshots. Like a longbow, if the servers are on your side and you have good aim you'll be able to snipe people with ease, but you're extremely vulnerable while doing so. Don't miss. They do have a small niche in that they are very effective at shooting a horse out from under a rider.

• Lethality: 5/5
  
• Annoyingness: 1/5 (5/5 if you snipe well)
  
• Ease of Use: 1/5 (0/5 with bad ping)

Repeating Crossbow
Cancer, in the eyes of some. Keeping one of these on your back gives you access to some of the best burst damage possible. Whip it out and unleash ten bolts in rapid succession against an unsuspecting foe, either dealing huge damage or forcing them onto the defensive. The slow reload leaves them extremely vulnerable if they want to reload after firing, but that shock value can make the two-slot cost worth it. While most often used while dueling a general or cheesing duel mode with a full squad rapid-firing, they can also harass units in command mode by unleashing a barrage of bolts into the enemy, even if those bolts aren't doing as much damage individually.

• Lethality: 4/5 (if you hit most bolts)
  
• Annoyingness: 10/5
  
• Ease of Use: 5/5

Light Repeating Crossbow
Not nearly as infuriating to face as their beefier foot-only cousin. Still fairly effective at putting a lot of bolts out quickly, but with low damage, accuracy, and projectile speed to make up for it. Very nice on horseback, as their origin in Shu cavalry implies; ride past the enemy and fire your clip, then reload before turning back for another pass. Honestly, pretty fun to use. Also, the sound they make is nice and mechanical.

• Lethality: 2/5
  
• Annoyingness: 4/5
  
• Ease of Use: 3/5
  
• Clickity Clackity: 5/5

Throwing Weapons

We are talking about ranged weapons, and while they aren't really archers it still stands to be mentioned that there exists another option for ranged combat. Throwing weapons are very nice for a general who solely needs the ranged damage for a few decisive attacks of opportunity; they as a whole have low ammo but high damage, with some having more than others. Most importantly, they only take a single slot!

Light Javelins
Your bog-standard throwing weapon, with decent damage, ammo, projectile speed and accuracy for throwing arms but no ability to be used as a melee weapon. A good source of burst damage that you can use a few times before running out. If you can land a few hits, it can be good for killing a single horse or so as well. Make it count.

• Lethality: 3/5
  
• Annoyingness: 2/5
  
• Ease of Use: 4/5

Heavy Javelins
Heavy Javelins are interesting because the game classifies them first and foremost as spears, not ranged weapons; they're decently effective spears, at that. If you're leveing Romans, these provide a nice secondary weapon for you to carry, whether to toss at a fleeing foe or defend yourself against cavalry. The downside? You generally get only a few, and if you toss them all you have no more spears.

• Lethality: 4/5
  
• Annoyingness: 1/5
  
• Ease of Use 3/5

Throwing Hammers
These are probably based off of Meteor Hammers, but don't really act like them. Neverthless, they exist; Shu Infantry of various levels carry these heavy sling-thrown missiles, which have a unique property to them: When they strike an enemy or the ground, they bounce. Should they hit another enemy after bouncing, or even the same enemy, they will deal damage again; charging the throw appears to increase the number of bounces as well as damage. Tossing an iron ball into a crowd of pikemen and watching them topple like bowling pins is a feeling like little else. However, their bad accuracy and worse projectile speed and range makes them very hard to use effectively.

• Lethality: 3/5 (4/5 if you learn to bounce well)
  
• Annoyingness: 2/5
  
• Ease of Use: 2/5
  
• Ancient Chinese Pinball: 5/5

For Your Troops

Wu Foot Archers

Wu Archers work best as support, parked on a strategic hill or behind cover. Volley is their main purpose, although they can do decent damage autofiring, shortbows especially. On some maps "strategic position" can be defined as "your base camp", but you'll want to typically be a bit closer than that. They can also place spikes that function as minefields, dealing some damage to infantry and enormous damage to cavalry. For best effect, hide the spikes in a ditch or tall grass. Just avoid mele in general, and support your allies. Hiding in the back and volleying the enemy is a safe way to gain score, but can be troublesome for your allies. Don't be afraid to move around to a better position and draw the enemy off with volleys, or to close in to autofire range and join the brawl yourself.

• Best adjutant: Sun Shangxiang, or the other one with Goose. Being able to switch between a wide and a deep formation for spike placing is useful, and when volleying you mostly just need the +3 Ranged Offense.
  
• Fun if: you're a team player, you like making traps, you don't mind not hitting things much yourself, and/or you like viewing battles from a top down perspective.

Shu Crossbow Infantry

Shu Crossbow infantry are suspiciously similar to Shu melee infantry, and can function as them in a pinch. Their armor is decent, their shields thick, and their bows powerful. Their main weakness is their range (quite short compared to Wu) and their speed (slow). Get in a good position and rain death on the enemy, then switch to a melee formation when the enemy approaches. Use concentrate fire to target vulnerable foes while staying in the fight yourself. Keep in mind, though, that while they can serve as discount line infantry they aren't meant to be such if possible - their crossbows do considerably more damage than their hammers. If possible, backtrack and avoid melee, only closing ranks and raising shields when facing a depleted enemy or when no possibility of escape exists.

• Best adjutant: Han Hao, honestly. Yes, the tier 2 guy. Fire on the enemy in double line, then switch to tight square in melee. Sun Shangxiang's goose formation leaves you too spread thin to make use of their shield-wall abilities.
  
• Fun if: You like micromanaging but also want to swordfight, you enjoy playing Shu infantry but wish they had more ammo, you have a good sense for formations, and/or you like the playstyle of pike-and-shot tactics but don't care for gunpowder.

Ranged Cavalry

I have yet to play Wei bow cavalry more than a few cursory matches, and overall they seem to play fairly similar to Shu crossbow cavalry. Both are very fast, very maneuverable, and fairly fragile in melee; both are also almost impossible to kill in good hands. They don't do much damage per shot, but can harass, skirmish, and pester the enemy with virtual impunity. Infantry can't do much of anything against them, provided the player keeps their skirmishers back, and cavalry stand the risk of having their horses shot out from under them. Archers alone can pose a threat regularly, should you fail to avoid their fire. On the other hand, the AI is dumb. Really, really dumb. They'll get stuck on every boulder, blunder into pikes, draw swords and leap into melee, and do any number of silly things if you let up your attention even for a moment. but if you can use them right...

• Best adjutant: Wang Shuang. The only adjutant, really.
  
• Fun if: You really enjoy micromanagement, battling the level geography, figuring out how to use the AI effectively, prefer never to ever die if it all possible, and/or are willing to give up your sanity in exchange for unlimited power.

Afterword

If you have any suggestions to improve this, please give them! I'm always looking for tips for how to improve my playing, and any tips for duel mode would be good to include since I don't have much to say about it myself.

[khan]

Nice work! Thank you for making this. Very good read.