Fire Archers Command
 

So just what does the fire archers command for archers target? Will it target Man's heavily armored and shielded crossbowmen? What about slingers and javelinmen? Or commanders with bows like ranger captains? What if you give ranger captain a shield, leaving it with no bow, or give an indy commander a magic bow? Will it target horse archers?

Re: Fire Archers Command
 

I use that command because fire closest usually ends up on my own troops.

I wish I could give more detailed orders.

Re: Fire Archers Command
 

Good question.

I have always assumed, without much evidence for it, that it goes along the lines of:
- does this unit have a ranged weapon, yes/no ?
- if multiple units have ranged weapons, is this one closer, yes/no ?
- if multiple units have ranged weapons and are at the same distance, will attacking this one statistically cause more total HP damage, yes/no ?
- if all yes, pick at random.

The big if is on question n°3, specifically whether or not the AI considers shields and their chance to parry/add protection, size and the inherent chance to miss a smaller target etc... IIRC, the spell AI actually "casts" given spells at all likely targets, rolls and all, then picks the one location that affected the most HPs in total (good or bad - it'll bless giants over the same amount of human sized sacred for example) to cast it for realz. Presumably the archer AI is the same.

It will most certainly target Man's armoured crossbowmen (though possibly not prioritize them over, say, indy archers) and horse archers. Also slingers and javelineers (Ermor and Pythium's Principes are a neat way to mess with fliers with attack archer commands). Pretty sure it also goes for things like Green Lions, who are not exactly archers but do have a ranged weapon.

Re: Fire Archers Command
 

Hmm, so nobody knows the exact mechanics? Thanks for the info on javelins though. I'd always suspected they don't count since so many javelin troops are primarily melee oriented.

I wonder if ranged troops have a hidden tag that mark them as such, or if the AI actually looks at whether or not they have ranged weapons.

Re: Fire Archers Command
 

By coincidence I have been wondering about this in my current (SP), but with a rather different question.

In battles, I claim to have noticed that groups of my archers seem to stop firing (while still have ammo), sometimes. I have some groups on "fire archers". It may be that some of my archers are too far to target enemy archers (at the rear); and maybe they have advanced, but not far enough. (Life is too short and I am too disorganized to understand the battle detail!) Can this be a "Fire Archers" issue? Tx.

Re: Fire Archers Command
 

I remember my Archers fireing pretty predictable onto units with bows when I order them to Fire on Archers...

Re: Fire Archers Command
 

My question is, if the destination archers are far away, can it be that your archers simply fail to fire (or move)? I am seeing archers not fire at anything.

Re: Fire Archers Command
 

It's possible they ran out of ammo. It's possible they got attacked in melee and that borked their scripting.

It's also possible the first archer in the unit lost his arm - that makes him lose the bow and for some reason after that the whole unit switches to melee. Very annoying.

Re: Fire Archers Command
 

Sometimes I think the game is specifically out to screw the players. I've had that happen, a bunch of archers get attacked by a handful of melee troops and then decide to charge after those die or run.

On the other hand, I've had a terrible time getting horse archers to do exactly that. TC's horse archers are nasty in melee, so sometimes you just want them to charge, like when dealing with archer heavy armies. Script it and they will, annihilating the enemy blockers with their lances, and you'd think the battle is in the bag as your horsemen run down the surviving blockers and hack the archers to bits. Nope, all your horsemen promptly decide to stop their charge and trade arrows with the enemy archers.

I'd say units revert to default orders which is presumably fire closest for ranged units once whoever they are fighting runs, but then why to archers charge when you don't want them to?

@Korwin, yeah, but the question is what else they'd fire at, if there are other ranged targets than just regular bows.

Re: Fire Archers Command
 

Oh, mos' def'. An MP game of dominions is not, as you could think, a duel of the minds between armchair strategists. It's actually a separate pair of cursing matches with the battle AI :)

Re: Fire Archers Command
 

Allow me to quote Johan K:

That's paraphrased from a response to some CoE3 beta testing things, but probably applies just as well to Dominions... :D

Re: Fire Archers Command
 

im pretty sure that archers do not care about HP or possible damage dealing. Thats why they fire at lonely "arrow catchers"
I assume they fire the closest archer possible. Perhaps javelineers are archers too. Im not sure exactly wich are archers.

A commander with a bow (equipped or not) shouldnt be targetted since you cannot fire at commander or attack commander.
But i think that if you position him forwars he will be targetted. Someone does this?

Re: Fire Archers Command
 

There's definitely some preferential targetting going on. Fire archers does target javelins in an army with only melee troops, but will target bow/crossbows over javelins even if the latter is closer. I feel kind of stupid since that was obvious with the way that lots of indy armies mix archers with javelin armed light infantry. So you definitely can't decoy fire archers with javelins. Don't know about slingers, though it doesn't seem worth looking into seeing as how slingers are just as squishy and no cheaper than indy shortbows.

Re: Fire Archers Command
 

Perhaps it takes the range of enemy missile weapons into account. I expect that it would.

Re: Fire Archers Command
 

In my experience they always fire at the closest archer, which against the AI is an indie archer or slinger. The best result I've had from 'fire archers' is when I was LA Man playing Rl'yeh. The 'archers' were identified as the mass mind burning commanders. So my front line troops were massacred due to Rl'yeh's unique set up. But I still won the battle because longbows are just that awesome. I have noticed, with mounted archers, if you cast 'hold and attack > enemy archers' they will fire at the closest archers until they charge. That's a great way to flank and decimate a standard battlefield orientation. Of course you'll need infantry fodder to be engaged so your cavalry doesn't get sidetracked. I've even used 'fire archers' with flanking javelin infantry to decent enough effect. You will lose a lot of the javelineers, but they're usually replaceable.

Re: Fire Archers Command
 

Rl'yeh really has a tough time getting onto land. The mind flayers can be targeted by shooting at archers and large targets iirc.

Ps, shooting at large targets is usually a good way of killing mages/commanders. They tend to stay in the back, and are larger. Setting some storm demons to shoot large targets can be fun.