[Edi]

Xietor, having the harpies attack archers could be very good and I've actually seen that happen even with PD. The problem I was referring to was your comment about attacking commanders and mages. THAT is overpowered.

As for PD, it can't be scripted, controlled or instructed. It will do what it will do and that's the end of it. I do not pretend that it is perfect, it could act more intelligently in many situations, but it is not much more than a minor annoyance to me at least. Yur milaegae may vary depending on a particular type of PD and which nations you most often play.

I don't like friendly fire casualties any more than you do, but they're a fact of life in Dom3. I generally set my archers to fire enemy archers or enemy cavalry with just a few stacks of archers firing at the closest enemies. That helps keep friendly fire casualties down to a manageable level. Another thing that helps is dividing archers into clumps of 15 to 30 depending on the total number of archer in your army, the clump size tends to increase as the army grows).

There is also the matter that once the current target stack of the archers routs, they will independently switch targets to a non-routed stack until all enemies have routed.

Your suggestion is not bad in and of itself, and if you take a look at what I said, I commented that the current system is adequate + hold and fire would be welcome. It's not perfect, but neither is it a pressing problem. Perhaps it will be added and perhaps not. We will see. Don't take fairly mild comments as a personal attack on yourself. They were not intended that way or as a putdown.

Edi