Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

I am currently playing a game as Rohan with a lot of Cav and Archers. I'm wondering how much of a worry the Friendly Fire from Archers is, and also if there is a certain way to "turn off the Archers" when the Cav engages so as to take FF out of the mix altogether (if in fact FF is a big enough factor).

Thanks for the answers.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Friendly fire is a persistent fact of life as I understand it.

To my knowledge there's no way to have your archers stop firing keyed to whether your front line is engaged or not. "Fire and retreat" is the only common way for you to stop firing after a certain point, other then running out of ammo or losing arms on your archers.

Guiding wind would up your archer precision and cut down on FF abit if you have access to it, and using high parry shield (high prot a bonus especially if your not using crossbows) tanks in your front line would cut down on FF losses. I'm sure there are other useful spells for cutting down FF, I'll defer to the veterans on that.

I'm unfamiliar with Rohan, but if their cav has a good shield or if they have access to infantry with good shield (tower shield and the like for footies) and maybe good prot on top, it would make FF much less of an issue. If your cavalry are fragile to FF, you can always attack rear with them while holding the line with good shield troops.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Ok this is good info to have. The Rohan Cav have great shield and it's probably the only reason they've survived FF from massed missile units as they charge home (I've only lost a few Cav in these first 10 or so turns).

The Skirmishing Cav though are another issue and at this point I mostly only use them as missile units having seen them get the worst of it from enemy Heavies when my own didn't seem to intercept properly.

I have some Mages who can cast "Aim" and I'll be sure to have more accompany my armies in the future.

Seems kind of odd to >not< be able to have the Archers fire 2 volleys or so and then lay off.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Ranged units and mages take some care to avoid causing heavy FF casualties, but it's debatable how effective it is. Having heavily armored and shielded units on the front lines will reduce FF casualties, as will increasing precision.

I like to not deploy ranged units directly behind the battle lines; IMO deploying them on the flanks can help with FF issues somewhat.

...and by the way, it's fun to watch entire AI armies annihilate themselves through friendly fire while your well protected SCs and thugs escape unscathed. Who needs weapons?

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

You can also order your archer to fire other archers, they will them probably fire at the rear of your opponent army, against units with probably less armor, and with some chance to hit his mages if they are near their archers.

But of course it depends on your opponent, and humans will expect this and organize their squads so it's less effective.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Ok and this "Fire & Flee" command...if I win the battle, do the Archers stay in with my main army at the end?

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

No. They retreat to random adjacent provinces.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Yeah they retreat after firing 3 times i believe (3 times? correct me if I'm wrong). So they should start retreating on round 4.

Now if you win the battle before your archers flee to the edge of the battlefield I think they would stay, but that's highly unlikely as you need to win within 5 rounds or so.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Arrow fend will make your armies almost immune to archer fire.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

More good info :-)

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

I believe you can also set your archers to "hold and attack" and the two rounds they're holding, they'll fire (I believe, I don't have the game in front of me to test) and then run forward to engage. Of course, this means your archers are trying to engage the enemy, which is *no fun* unless they're decent troops as well. If you can be sure that they're going to be stuck behind your front-line guys when they engage, they'll run as far forward as they can, and then start firing again. FF is reduced a lot when the archers are only firing a few squares ahead of them. Again, this is a very niche use.

Has anyone had them set on "guard commander" and then retreated the commander after a few turns? I believe the archers would stay on the field (assuming you had extra commanders to command them), but they may run forward to engage, I'm not certain. Anyway, this may be a nice way to time archers better as the commander can move forward to rejoin the army much faster than a bunch of scattered bowsmen.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Archers on "Guard Commander" don't fire.

I've had archers left without orders fire until the lines closed and then move up to just behind the lines and start shooting again, but not reliably enough to recommend it.
You'll see indy archers do this fairly often.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Nice ideas Turnip, will give a test or 3.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Setting archers to the sides might also help. Especially if they are set to fire at units which also tend to be set to the sides (flanks) of the battlefield).

But Kristoffer (one of the developers) had very definite ideas about the effectiveness of telling your archers to fire over the top of their own units to hit units they cant see. I guess thats one of the drawbacks for having a teacher of mytho-religio history designing the game.

Also, a note on some of the previous posts. There is supposed to be a difference in the game between the ideas of rout, flee, and retreat. They are not meant to be interchangeable in the conversation. As I understand it, Retreat is the one that stops to try and make a decent choice. :target:

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

What do you mean by a decent choice?

I don't know if I've ever used Fire & Flee, the only place "flee" is used that I can think of.
The only difference I've seen is that Rout gets a defense penalty and the others don't.

And firing over the tops of your front line has plenty of historical precedent. There's much less for firing into melee once the lines have engaged, which is the current Dominions standard.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Quoting Kristoffer:
"Shooting beyond the closest target is also something that is not very historic. Target closest should be the default for archers, but would worsen the single-unit-squad decoy tactics."
/Quote

As far as continuation, the games version of history seems to be that commanders get multiple orders, and squads tend to get one which they follow blindly until they cannot. We are lucky to get some combos such as "hold and" or "fire & flee" for squads. A better disciplined plan of actions apparently requires a commander.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

I wonder if it would be such a "leap" to just have a simple boolean "on/off" for Friendly Fire. This topic must have been covered at length long, long ago :-)

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

It was. Thats why it is the way it is. In fact it was covered on and off for about a year before Dom3 was released.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Well now you've got me curious. What could be a reason not to have "FF on/off" as an option? I mean, aren't Mac users the only ones who don't want "more options"? :-)

>>Hoping real hard right about now that Gandalf isn't a Mac user<<

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

I use everything. :)
But apparently the developers felt that this was game-realistic and decided to leave it in the way it is.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Yeah Mac's can be nice if overpriced toys.

But if we're talking "Game Realistic" it would seem to me that an order for Archers to "fire till the melee starts" would be fairly more realistic.

My guess now is that it's probably more of a balance issue and design choices that had to satisfy both SP & MP with the same combat engine.

Because seriously, it can't be to hard to just turn FF on/off codewise. Just my 2 cents.

Oh and I should probably mention here that I already love the game and think it is mostly superb.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Actually it might be hard. Does "Friendly Fire" include spells? Just as easily justifiable. Much larger game effects.

Currently the same targeting code is used for arrows and single target missile type spells. They just do damage to whatever happens to be in the target square. I suppose you could check who owns the unit and who owns the attacker and what type of attack it is...
But honestly, it's way down on the list of most requested "simple" changes. And it's not going to happen.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Actually my personal preference is Mac for portables, Windows for desktop, Linux for my servers, and Unix for work.

But if you lower yourself to the "eye level" of the archers you often dont see melee start. Which would be another reason to test the results with archers on the flanks.

Keep in mind that you get much better control using commanders. Lots of cheap indie commanders with Bows of War might get you the result you want.

Im sure it isnt hard. In fact, it might just boil down to the fact that the people requesting it tended more toward logical argument than saying please.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Of course, if you lower yourself to eye level you also couldn't target archers behind the lines, which works just fine.

Seriously, a "don't shoot if there's a reasonable chance of hitting your own guys" default is far more realistic than the current system, where the archers will happily target the one closest enemy running away halfway across the field surrounded by your own troops. If you're thinking about line of sight, they shouldn't even be able to see anything other than a cluster of his own guys.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Well it wasnt up to me. It was well argued by some expert players against the guy that teaches mytho-religious history of those eras. Now its up to us to make the logic work. :)

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Ouch! I didn't mean to come off like some whiney "lets gut what's worked for so long and change it drastically" noob. Noooo...I wouldn't be so presumptuous. Seriously, I can see both sides to an FF argument in Dominions. Some races getting overpowered with too many archers, and other not building enough to make up for the "New Sheriff in Town". There are also times of desperation when you actually >want< to chance FF in a desperate situation - yada yada yada. But if it ain't broke....

Yeah my sitting in front of a computer all day working, and then playing games like "Dominions" and "EVE" probably "spins my logic/fantasy wheel" pretty hard on a daily basis :-) But if no one has ever said "Please" about an "FF-option-that-doesn't-break-or-unbalance-the-game", well let me step up to the plate and apologize for my fellow impolite logic-bound lunkheads with a "Purty Please". That's of course assuming I'm not the only one who has ever wondered about the FF thing.

Oh and just in case I didn't get a smile out of anyone with that last paragraph...let me suggest the EVE forums for some SERIOUS laughs. The daily evisceration of noobs making feature or gameplay "improvement" suggestions by the "Old Guard" is legendary :-)

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Oh you guys ninja'd me heheh. Yeah I thought I'd save the "Where's the Elevation?" debate for another time. Wish I could read a pile of old posts here first though so as to see which horses have already been beaten to death :-)

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

No prob. Its not like any final answers have been reached on lots of it.
Thats one of the good points of this game. Ive bought games for as much that lasted less than a month on my machine because the forums had all the answers including the "always works to win" strategies. But after years, all the apparently absolute answers here tend to rely on an unspoken addendum of "depending on your nation, the map, the mods, the game settings, and what nations you are up against" and even then are still in discussion.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Yeah, that or "Fire but not into melee" order--if melee starts they'll look elsewhere for targets.

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

Archers will take a step up and try to get a bit closer before firing when near friendlies.

Generally, your arrow-repellent squad (the one taking fire from the enemy) should request friendly archer support. Crossbows are a different story... learn to avoid FF with archers first :)

Re: Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?
 

The present orders existent for Archers are probably about the best they will ever get. Hold and attack is not bad, if you don't mind wasting them. Fire and Flee is not bad if you don't mind having to round them all up afterwords.

I generally put mine to the side and slightly back of the main troops, with either fire closest or fire archers orders. If I have flaming arrows up, I might be more aggressive with them.