Archery poll

[Boron]

First a question because i never tested that :
Do the slingers benefit from flaming arrows also ?

Gandalf Parker said:
Being able to produce 3 slingers to one archer is something I do often. You dont find that 30 slings causes more route than 10 shortbows? Or that 30 slingers patrolling does more good than 10 archers?

It is only 15 slingers vs. 10 archers resourcewise and goldwise it is 40 slingers vs. 35 archers if you take the 8 gold 3 resource archers which exist rather as indy archers or as machaka archers .

Problem is that the shortbow has 30 range while a sling has only 20 range . The shortbows get this way 1 freeshot and very often the slingers with only 7 morale rout then from this first salvo already .

Unless you do extremely resourceheavy troops like knights not resources but gold is normally the limiting factor .

So Huzurdaddi is just correct . A plain shortbowman is better then a slinger and longbowmen or x-bowmen are defenitely better then slingers .

Longbowmen are only 6 resources also , x-bows from marignon 8 resources , then there are indy x-bows for 7 resorces if you are lucky and finally if you are uberlucky the hoburg x-bowmen for only 7 gold and 7 resources .
They are imho the best recruitable missile unit in the game

[Molog]

Does everything have to be usefull?

[Gandalf Parker]

well Ive played games where resources were the deciding factor. It wasnt worth me saving gold to make bowmen somehwere else. I dont care as much about "best" as I do pros and cons.

If you nitpick the numbers to "best" then we will only have 6 units in the game. You might as well be playing chess.

[Boron]

Gandalf Parker said:
well Ive played games where resources were the deciding factor. It wasnt worth me saving gold to make bowmen somehwere else. I dont care as much about "best" as I do pros and cons.

In SP yeah but i have to admit that i am even there kinda a powergamer . In MP most other ppl are also .
But that's only personal taste . I made 3 quickfights in your nice minimap 35 machaka archers vs. 40 slingers and in one of the 3 fights , entertainingly the first one , the slingers won .
So thnx to the really good dice roll system though the slingers are a bit worse as shortbowmen they are not so useless that they are never worth being bought also .
Especially by arco cause they are their only missile troop . It is always a question of availibility too . 99% of the Man players will always buy longbowmen instead of slingers but some Arcoplayers will buy slingers until they find e.g. cheap indy x-bowmen or archers .

Gandalf Parker said:
If you nitpick the numbers to "best" then we will only have 6 units in the game. You might as well be playing chess.

Which 6 units that would be ? I would say that at least 50 units are very useful

[NTJedi]

Boron... Gandalf...

Slingers would be worth considering if their purchase price dropped by 2 gold per unit... otherwise they're rarely worth it based on morale and precision.

by Sandman
I voted 'I find them useful' for blowpipes, even though I don't....

I rarely have seen the blowpipe dudes use their archery poison pipes even when able to... so I rarely get them except for those extreme/scary conditions. Also their precision would have to be more accurate for me to consider them seriously in a marching army.

[PDF]

NTJedi said:
Boron... Gandalf...

Slingers would be worth considering if their purchase price dropped by 2 gold per unit... otherwise they're rarely worth it based on morale and precision.

I rarely have seen the blowpipe dudes use their archery poison pipes even when able to... so I rarely get them except for those extreme/scary conditions. Also their precision would have to be more accurate for me to consider them seriously in a marching army.

Mmmf, even at -2 gold I wouldn't buy slingers if their weapons still are so much crap.
Same for blowpipes, they have a very limited usefulness for sneaky tactics, but are horribly weak, only 1 time out of 10 (100?) do they manage to use their pipe before routing !

[sushiboat]

For reference, what is the distance from one end of the battlefield to the other, in terms of range? What is the distance between two opposing units who are at the very front and center of their formation spaces?

[Saber Cherry]

Molog said:
Does everything have to be useful?

Yes! If something is never useful, it has no reason to exist, as it detracts from the game (like rotten sea-slug entrails at a salad bar). More importantly, if something was never historically useful, it would never have existed (or been remembered). Slings, shortbows, axes, and militia were not deployed for centuries because they were useless (that's a double-negative, meaning "they were deployed because they were useful") - so if a game makes them seem useless, something's wrong!

[Oversway]

More useful units leads to more variety, which I find enjoyable.

[FrankTrollman]

Saber Cherry: If something is never useful, it has no reason to exist, as it detracts from the game

I'm going to disagree with this statement. It's entirely appropriate if some things are the worst thing. In fact, some things pretty much must be the worst thing unless everything is the same.

Slingers being kind of crappy doesn't make the game worse, it makes it better. Imagine if it was seriously a good idea to just build whatever any particular province happened to make... where would the strategy go?

As is, the fact that the special units are pretty special when compared to many other units means that there are provinces worth fighting for. And the fact that some units are pretty sucky makes other provinces hard to defend. And since some of those hard to reach places also happen to spawn in provinces known for magic site richness - the fact that they are hard to defend really matters a lot.

---

I am in favor of making the Arbalester really good, in the same way that the Longbowman is really good, because Ulm is getting kicked in the crotch on mages because its infantry is supposed to be good. So damnit, that infantry should be really good.

But independent infantry? Can anyone tell me a single good reason why all of that should be worth buying?

-Frank