Orders problems

[HJ]

As I posted in the strong and weak nations thread, "fire and attack" order would be great. Units fire missile weapons two or three times, then charge in for the melee. It would work great for Tien Chi cavalry and some other units as well.

[SurvivalistMerc]

I would love for there to be some way to tell the archers to fire or not once the enemy is engaged.

Unless I'm using ulm with shortbow folks, I don't usually want archers firing into a melee situation where they can do more harm than good. I never want volume arrows to go against less than 10 remaining defenders. Again, because it does more harm than good.

What I would really like them to do is advance to the sides and wait until the enemy starts to retreat. Then fire on them as they run from the battlefield.

I presently use the "fire archers" order. But that is less than ideal. Because they will still fire into melee situations. Even when the enemy is more heavily armored than I am. I have lost quite a number of troops to "friendly fire." And usually it's been a situation so clear...where before they fired I thought..."Oh, no...the archers are about to fire!"

[Graeme Dice]

Fire closest is a decent one for LI armed with javelins, as they tend to charge the enemy and engage around the same time as the back line gets into range. It also spreads them out a bit which improves survivability against missiles.

[SurvivalistMerc]

Graeme,

Good point. I've already been using that one for LI (when I use them at all). I generally only use LI as cannon fodder.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
Fire closest is a decent one for LI armed with javelins

Not only LI. Eg, Pythium legionaries.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:
Not only LI. Eg, Pythium legionaries.

Well, I was actually considering just about everything Pythium has other than the Emerald guards to be LI, as I've been playing too much Ulm.