Re: Help me with combat orders, please
 

The Fire and Flee Behavior (for Units only) is near the bottom of the Battle Orders menu. It fires for 2 rounds then runs to the back of the battlefield, when they get off the field they retreat to a friendly province (without their commander).

Another way to fire and flee is to set a group of archers with 1 particular commander. Set them to fire and the commander to "Hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, Retreat". They will fire 5 or 6 rounds (sometimes the archers fire even when the commander is in the act of retreating) when the commander is retreating or off the field his units will retreat. If both the commander and units mak it off the field, they will appear together in a nearby friendly province.

Edit: Ignore above; Cherrypie already answered it.

Try splitting your archers into Groups of 10, have the squads all "Fire Rearmost" if that is where your enemy places their mages. Each squad has a chance every time they fire to actually target the rearmost. So multiple squads (4 or 5) have more and more often a chance to target the actual rear instead of 'near' the rear.

I don't have hard numbers; but usually 1 out of 5 squads will actually fire on the rearmost.

[ December 11, 2003, 08:17: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: Help me with combat orders, please
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This works (partly) with Light Inf using Javelins. Set them to "fire nearest".
They'll charge forward and fire until

A) their ammo (3 rounds) is expended
b) the nearing enemy forces them into close combat

Using a different target may result in very unfavourable results.

A.

Re: Help me with combat orders, please
 

Some great troop-scripting options for me would be:

Skirmish (fire/attack nearest, depending on how near; the goal being to keep enemies in one place).

Fire and Draw (retreat when engaged in combat; fire when not engaged in combat. This still works like Flee once the troop is up against the exit zone).

Guard Zone (attack anything that gets relatively close, maybe within 3 grids; otherwise, just stand there, fire if possible).

I think this might go a long way to mitigate some of the issues with light inf/cav archers.

Re: Help me with combat orders, please
 

Cherry and Zen,

Thanks for the advice, this is going to add a much more useful dimension to the archers. It will make them less harmful to my own troops (my main concern) as well as more potentially dangerous to my mage foes. I was starting to despair with about getting anywhere useful with the bird race, now I can see some good options.

Re: Help me with combat orders, please
 

I WANT THERE TO BE HOLD AND FIRE COMMAND FOR TROOPS!!

FOR GOODNESS SAKES, I HATE MY ARCHERS RUNNING UP TO THE ENEMY!!

I HATE MY LIGHT INFANTRY RUNNING UP TO THE ENEMY TOO. I WANT THEM TO JUST WAIT FOR THE ENEMY.

Re: Help me with combat orders, please
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">One nice thing about using this tactic is that if the fight is over before the flee, then they dont flee.

I often use flee as the final action on important people such as my prophet or my god since it will only happen IF the fight goes long. If the fight goes for more than 5 rounds then I think they SHOULD start considering pulling back into a neighboring safe province. Leave the rest of the army fighting to the end.

Re: Help me with combat orders, please
 

Don't use slingers Arigtoth, also don't use caps lock.