Noob+Man/Tuatha

[Kuritza_Dru]

Are the Longbowmen actually able to do something unless there's a real horde of them?

I've played the Thuata as a blood fountain, Blood 4, Water 4. Maybe something else 4 as well, or just Blood 6. Order 3 (luck economy doesn't work, sadly, and sidhe need money), Sloth 1, some Growth, Magic 3, Heat 1.
Hire some daoine sidhe to start an expansion. Set them to attack - when they hurl their javelins they behave quite silly. Some of them run too far and get killed one by one, etc.

Research conjuration 3, cast 3 CoW on your home province and set the Hawks to patrol. Blood fountain starts blood hunting, sidhe champions switch to the Blood magic, you need lvl5. As soon as you have it, summon Frost Devil (s). Then research Construction. With construction 4 you can equip the Devil and get a very decent SC, with construction 6 you can equip him even better (blood thorn at the very least). Plus, you can forge some war bows for the sidhe champions. They have great natural precision, and they can cast Aim. Warbow-equipped Sidhe champions with precision 20 can hurt.
Conjuration 6 lets you summon lamia queens, who can help your fountain bloodhunting - you can even start hoarding soul contracts.

I don't really know if it is competitive in MP because I've only played team vs team games. I guess team vs team games are really a different experience. But in single player it works great, and it's fun.

[Saber Cherry]

Kuritza_Dru said:
Are the Longbowmen actually able to do something unless there's a real horde of them?

Yes, they kill mages and commanders with their immense range, and outrange enemy archers. Try "Fire Archers," which seems to target mages too. Flaming Arrows turns them into a potent weapon and may be worth taking a mobile Fire pretender.

Set them to attack - when they hurl their javelins they behave quite silly. Some of them run too far and get killed one by one, etc.

I set javalineers to "fire closest." Are you keeping them in a single group? Single groups tend to stay together as a block, while small squads run into the problem you mentioned...

Warbow-equipped Sidhe champions with precision 20 can hurt.

Even more with a Fire 9 or W9/F9 pretender

[Kuritza_Dru]

Well they do have an immense range indeed, but I speak about early expansion now. If you hire like 30 archers and tell them to 'fire enemy archers', will you overshoot them all? Will it help you, when enemy infantry (or worse yet, cavalry) will reach that puny light infantry of yours? Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but sidhe seem to be more effective.
I have tried to set the Sidhe to 'fire closest'. Some idiot or two still run(s) ahead and dies. With these sidhe, 35 gold each, sacred, capitol-only, it hurts. And yes, it's one large squad.
Can you give me a sample Fire9/Water9 pretender for the Tuatha theme? It seems that you'll have to ruin your scales completely. You can't have misfortune 2 with the Tuatha. So as somebody wrote already, yes, your blessed warriors will rock. All 9 of them.

[Saber Cherry]

Kuritza_Dru said:
Can you give me a sample Fire9/Water9 pretender for the Tuatha theme? It seems that you'll have to ruin your scales completely.

No, I almost never choose 9/9 blessings - too expensive. 9/4 is the highest I'll go except when playing Machaka or Neifelheim (in which case I'll do 9/9 or 9/4/4 or maybe 9/6). I'm just saying they'd be impressive W9 is best for sacred mages and high-defense sacred warriors. But it's nice to have enough fire magic to cast Flaming Arrows, so W9/F4 might be good. A Frost Father or Blue Dragon can get W9F4 with neutral scales and Dominion 5.

If you hire like 30 archers and tell them to 'fire enemy archers', will you overshoot them all? Will it help you, when enemy infantry (or worse yet, cavalry) will reach that puny light infantry of yours?

Man has light and medium infantry, but they also have Tower Guards (13 defense, 13 protection) and Medium Militia. Tower Guards last a while, and Medium Militia (when modded to cost 5g) are also a fairly effective screen for your archers. Of course in the default game you should never buy any Militia, but using the Rebalance mod they are quite useful to protect your archers. You can also use them to protect your Daoine Sidhe: with 10 Sidhe (350g) inside a block of 30 Medium Militia (150g) there is a much lower chance of their high defense being overwhelmed by multiple attacks, because most attacks will land on the Militia.

In the unmodded game, it's more tricky since 4 of Man's national units are utterly useless. But screening archers with a few (15-25) Tower Guards or (20-40) Spearmen will allow them to rout all the enemy infantry before being attacked, if you have lots of archers, and they stay at the far back of the battlefield. Don't use Longbows against heavy cavalry and knights without Fire Arrows. Grouping your Sidhe with Tower Guards (same movement rate, high morale, and much cheaper) will cut down the losses due to being overwhelmed by multiple attacks. And I mean same group, not overlapping rectangles.

Man should be able to expand using nothing but Longbows and a small screen of chaff into all independents except Knight/Longbow and Heavy Cavalry. The higher the indy strength, the higher your archery hit% will be. Don't set them all to "Fire Archers" for expansion, though. And don't spend all your initial gold on mages and prophets, as it will only delay your Longbow-based expansion. It's nice to have a prophet on Turn 3 but Tuatha / Sidhe Lords can't Smite, Longbowmen don't need Fanatacism, and Daoine Sidhe can be blessed just fine with monks. Keep them back with the archers and tell them to hold and attack, then you won't lose any unless your archers fail to rout the enemies.