Fire Archers Command

[Shangrila00]

So just what does the fire archers command for archers target? Will it target Man's heavily armored and shielded crossbowmen? What about slingers and javelinmen? Or commanders with bows like ranger captains? What if you give ranger captain a shield, leaving it with no bow, or give an indy commander a magic bow? Will it target horse archers?

[brxbrx]

I use that command because fire closest usually ends up on my own troops.

I wish I could give more detailed orders.

[Kobal2]

Good question.

I have always assumed, without much evidence for it, that it goes along the lines of:
- does this unit have a ranged weapon, yes/no ?
- if multiple units have ranged weapons, is this one closer, yes/no ?
- if multiple units have ranged weapons and are at the same distance, will attacking this one statistically cause more total HP damage, yes/no ?
- if all yes, pick at random.

The big if is on question n°3, specifically whether or not the AI considers shields and their chance to parry/add protection, size and the inherent chance to miss a smaller target etc... IIRC, the spell AI actually "casts" given spells at all likely targets, rolls and all, then picks the one location that affected the most HPs in total (good or bad - it'll bless giants over the same amount of human sized sacred for example) to cast it for realz. Presumably the archer AI is the same.

It will most certainly target Man's armoured crossbowmen (though possibly not prioritize them over, say, indy archers) and horse archers. Also slingers and javelineers (Ermor and Pythium's Principes are a neat way to mess with fliers with attack archer commands). Pretty sure it also goes for things like Green Lions, who are not exactly archers but do have a ranged weapon.

[Shangrila00]

Hmm, so nobody knows the exact mechanics? Thanks for the info on javelins though. I'd always suspected they don't count since so many javelin troops are primarily melee oriented.

I wonder if ranged troops have a hidden tag that mark them as such, or if the AI actually looks at whether or not they have ranged weapons.

[JonBrave]

Originally Posted by Shangrila00

So just what does the fire archers command for archers target?

By coincidence I have been wondering about this in my current (SP), but with a rather different question.

In battles, I claim to have noticed that groups of my archers seem to stop firing (while still have ammo), sometimes. I have some groups on "fire archers". It may be that some of my archers are too far to target enemy archers (at the rear); and maybe they have advanced, but not far enough. (Life is too short and I am too disorganized to understand the battle detail!) Can this be a "Fire Archers" issue? Tx.

[Korwin]

I remember my Archers fireing pretty predictable onto units with bows when I order them to Fire on Archers...

[JonBrave]

My question is, if the destination archers are far away, can it be that your archers simply fail to fire (or move)? I am seeing archers not fire at anything.

[Kobal2]

It's possible they ran out of ammo. It's possible they got attacked in melee and that borked their scripting.

It's also possible the first archer in the unit lost his arm - that makes him lose the bow and for some reason after that the whole unit switches to melee. Very annoying.

[Shangrila00]

Originally Posted by Kobal2

It's possible they got attacked in melee and that borked their scripting.

Sometimes I think the game is specifically out to screw the players. I've had that happen, a bunch of archers get attacked by a handful of melee troops and then decide to charge after those die or run.

On the other hand, I've had a terrible time getting horse archers to do exactly that. TC's horse archers are nasty in melee, so sometimes you just want them to charge, like when dealing with archer heavy armies. Script it and they will, annihilating the enemy blockers with their lances, and you'd think the battle is in the bag as your horsemen run down the surviving blockers and hack the archers to bits. Nope, all your horsemen promptly decide to stop their charge and trade arrows with the enemy archers.

I'd say units revert to default orders which is presumably fire closest for ranged units once whoever they are fighting runs, but then why to archers charge when you don't want them to?

@Korwin, yeah, but the question is what else they'd fire at, if there are other ranged targets than just regular bows.

[Kobal2]

Originally Posted by Shangrila00

Sometimes I think the game is specifically out to screw the players.

Oh, mos' def'. An MP game of dominions is not, as you could think, a duel of the minds between armchair strategists. It's actually a separate pair of cursing matches with the battle AI