How do I avoid friendly fire?

[Tuidjy]

This is probably a newbie question, but here it
is anyway:

I just had my best commander shot in the back
with a few crossbow bolts. I watched the
replay, and I saw him die (from 14 hps) although
both his protection and defense were in the 30s.

Is there any way to tell missile units not to
fire near friendlies, or at least not in a melee.
(By the way, I am playing the demo)

[HotNifeThruButr]

First of all, defense doesn't help against missles (Last time I checked).

To prevent friendly fire killing your commander, you need to keep him away from the enemies that your archer will fire on. In other words, there's no way to tell your archers not to be morons.

[Norfleet]

The new patch appears to greatly reduce friendly fire, because accuracy of shooters appears to have gone up greatly.

For instance, I was amazed to watch a battle where a Fire Flies caster actually LANDED ALL OF THE SHOTS INSIDE OF AN ENEMY SQUAD. It was simply amazing, a miracle. He HIT SOMETHING. Usually when a mage casts Fire Flies, it's a miracle if he even manages to wing somebody, let alone hit with all of them. But it was no fluke: He did it over and over: The shots were actually hitting the targets, as if he was actually AIMING at his opponents, rather than drinking heavily while casting spells.

[LintMan]

Originally posted by Tuidjy:

I just had my best commander shot in the back
with a few crossbow bolts. I watched the
replay, and I saw him die (from 14 hps) although
both his protection and defense were in the 30s.

Is there any way to tell missile units not to
fire near friendlies, or at least not in a melee.
(By the way, I am playing the demo)

I'm not an dom 2 expert, but here's my thoughts:

Missile weapons ignore the target's defense stat, so only protection applies to arrows and crossbows, etc. And crossbows are armor piercing, so protection only counts for half against crossbow damage.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any "Don't fire at units engaged in melee with my units" order. I've seen 2-3 dozen crossbowers fire at a tiny cluster of 7-8 enemies that were completely surrounded by a huge group of my own units, doing far more damage to me that those enemies ever could. Even worse is when the archers start shooting your own units in the back as they're chasing down an already routed enemy army.

Until the game makes archers/crossbowmen/etc more intelligent about target selection, there's not much you can do to completely prevent it.

You can try to reduce/minimize the friendly fire in a number of ways, though:
- put your archers on the sides of the field so they shoot towards the targets at an angle rather than from directly behind your melee troops.
- there is an air spell that will protect your units from missiles (sorry can't remember the name right now), and also some items that can help your commanders.
- Pretenders with Air magic of 4 or greater give their sacred troops a bless effect that protects them from missiles (with greater protection for higher pretender air magic levels)
- set the archers to fire at archers/rear so that the melee units will face the friendly fire less of the time
- use high-protection troops in the places that'll most likely get friendly fire. Ie: if your archers are set to "fire archers", and you also have fast melee units set to "attack archers/rearmost", then you might want to use high protection troops (like heavy cav) for that role (probably a good idea anyway).
- The Aim spell can increase the precision of your archers, so they are a little less likely to hit your units.
- You can put your archers on "Fire and retreat", so they won't be firing once your melee forces mix it up with the enemy, but this makes the archers act as if they've routed, and they end up scattered in the surrounding provinces.

Hope this helps!

[Duncanish]

- there is an air spell that will protect your units from missiles (sorry can't remember the name right now), and also some items that can help your commanders.

Arrow Fend. Grants Air Shield of 80 to all friendly units. Any item or spell/blessing that gives Air Shield will protect your units, which is one reason why Caelian archers are good. Already good Precision, Wind Guide pre-researched, and easy access to Arrow Fend.