Archers and decoys in MP - questions to experienced players

[Baalz]

The AI targeting is a little bit fuzzy, which is probably why you get some confusion on this. Against very straightforward deployments (PD, indies) you'll get consistent behavior, but once you get a whole lot of different stuff milling around things get a lot less predictable. The archer AI is different (and generally inferior) to the mage targeting AI (which chooses its target based on potential damage inflicted).

Also, note there is a bit of squishiness sometimes with archers firing at all. Under some conditions (I'm not entirely clear what those are) they will advance rather than firing even when they have ammo and a valid target is in range. One obvious time this happens is if enemies are close enough for them to run up and immediately engage in melee. I've seen it happen though when there is no obvious reason.

Originally Posted by Corwin

1. When set to "fire at *target type*" (say cavalry), will your units fire at the closest available cavalry unit? What if there are no cavalry in range - will they instantly lock onto the closest one (decoy) even if it is outside their range, or will they advance forward for several turns until they will be within shooting range of *some* cavalry unit (which by that time may or may not be the original decoy unit), and only *after that* would they lock on that target? Or will they choose a random group of cavalry from among those on battlefield? Or, of there are few cavalry groups are already available withing shooting range, will your archers choose the largest/less protected one (maximizing damage, as with spells targeting), or will they always choose closest one? Or is it random as well?

They will choose the closest group and fire at it until it routes or they can't. At that point they will drop back to "fire closest".

Originally Posted by Corwin

2. Once group of archers chooses the target - will they always keep firing into it until either them or the target are dead/routed? (the "locking" effect)

Heh, with my previous disclaimer I'm not comfortable with the word "always", but generally yes.

Originally Posted by Corwin

3. If "target locking" indeed always happens - when does it take place - the moment the battle begins, or the moment *your* first turn in battle begins? (obviously when you are an attacker the later happens after the former, since defender acts/moves first). So the depending on when exactly "target locking" occurs the closest unit (to the attacker) could be different one before and after defender would move.

The archers lock when they first fire, so if you're defending it's your placement after the first turn which matters.

Originally Posted by Corwin

4. In MP, people use archer decoys of all the time. Sometimes they use decoy on "guard commander" order. This can be very nasty, since if I understand game mechanics correctly, *all* you archers (set at either (where decoy belongs to that type) ) *will* get "locked" on this decoy target. (is it indeed so?) And when the target retreats toward its commander, who stays in the back, all your archers would rush forward, usually right in the middle of the enemy melee troops, where they get promptly massacred.

Is this indeed the case? And if so, how powerful/popular is this tactic (archer decoy on "guard commander" order) in MP games?

Yes and no. That's the theory and it works sometimes, but as I mentioned its not nearly as clean as you might expect when dealing with larger mixed groups. Its got some utility, but it mostly shines in letting you do things like slaughter PD with much smaller raiding parties.

Originally Posted by Corwin

5. Assuming number 4 is true, how do you script and position your archers when you have to fight against opponent who uses such "decoy on guard" tactic?

Well, entirely depends on the situation. A couple ideas:

1) Select targets that make poor screens. Fire archers, fire fliers, fire cavalry, fire large monsters...depending on what he's fielding you can often target something without shields, and if he uses a small group of them as a screen it'll often take enough damage to route in round one switching your archers to a different target.

2) Use a counter screen of your own with a small squad of flyers/cavalry set all the way forward to attack closest as kamikazis to wipe out the screeners turn one as they've got to be set all the way forward on your turn one.

3) Similar to 2 only with mages. Drop a destruction on the screeners, or a flaming arrows and you can likely decimate them. Or use short range spells like orb lighting banking on the fact that they'll be close to your front lines. Don't overlook trying to snipe the enemy commander with an appropriate spell if he's got more hps.

4) Place your army all the way forward and immediately attack, attempting to push the front line forward enough that your archers can target the back row. Depending on your archers and the enemy screen you may just need a couple volleys of arrows to kill the screen (or the commander they're guarding).

5) Don't count too much on your archers in all situations. Some nations are just poor choices to focus on archery and part of that is how effectively they can screen. If facing MA Pythium, for instance, you're pretty boned if most of what you brought shoots a bow.

Originally Posted by Corwin

6. IIRC, in the past, when I've dealt with elaborate anti-archers scripting such as those above, I usually set my archers on "fire" without specifying targets. When this happens, how will your archers choose target? Will they fire at random target in range? If so, will they "lock" on it? Does the size/protection of the enemy group matters? Or is it completely random? If it is random - will your archers always chose target in range, or can they choose target outside its range, and rush toward it? Finally what do they do if you gave them this order and there is no target in range - will they advance forward until they will get in range? If so, what would prevent them from locking on target decoy once again - situation I am naturally trying to avoid.

It'll be fire closest and they'll be no consideration for damage inflicted. Yes they'll lock, even if the closest target is currently out of range.

Originally Posted by Corwin

7. If the "fire" order chooses completely random target, then such scripting makes your entire archer force *much* less efficient and very unpredictable. Are there any better counters to the archer decoys in MP, especially - archer decoys that retreat toward the back because of "guard commander" orders?

Archers are generally questionably effective against smallish enemy groups who are able to very effectively use archer screening (and other anti-archer) tactics. Against larger enemy armies archers are much more effective as the chaos tends to gum up the archer screens and you can often choose targets that are hard to screen. Also, you often have critical mass of archers so smallish amounts of archer screens can often be pincushioned in a couple turns.