archers

[Leggyguy]

What is th epoint of archers having a bombardment ability?

They cannot use it, as far as I can see.

Is this right, or am I getting mixed up?

 

[thestonesfan]

They can use it, they just have a bombard range of zero. That means they can only use it as a 'defensive first strike' when they are being attacked. Stack a few with your Spearmen and watch the fun.

You will grow to respect defensive bombardment, I promise.

 

[Xen]

yep, it6s more or less a nother, single shot attack on defence

 

[Puppeteer]

Originally posted by Leggyguy
They cannot use it, as far as I can see.

It's proven rather powerful in my game so far. I'm not using it, but the AI is stacking an archer in with SoD's and getting a free shot at my swords and now MDIs when I attack the stack. It seems to take an hp off 75% of the time so far, but that's just a rough guess and not enough trials to be athoritative, anyway. It's frustrating sending a vet (4/4) MDI against a vet (4/4) MDI and have an archer in the stack reduce you to 3/4 before you start swinging. I'm pretty sure I've lost a couple of MDI that way, but then again you never know how the RNG's gonna go.

It's annoying me so far, but that's not a complaint. Actually I'm impressed the AI appears to be combining arms intelligently in my first game. I just need to learn to build a few archers myself.

I'm playing emperor level, normal aggression by the way. I'm the Incas in my first game (random civs, random climate and lands, standard map, appear to be on a large wet temperate or warm continent), and the Myans and/or the Americans have used this tactic on me. Myans seem pretty aggressive.

EDIT: SoD means "stack of doom" or "stack of death". Any stack of units might be called this. I don't think an archer by itself gets to bombard, but a single archer stacked with other units gets to bombard if another unit in the stack is attacked. Yes, MDI is medieval infantry. Sorry, I'm using common SG (succession game) abbreviations. "4/4" is the hit point/max hit point, so a 3/4 MDI is a veteran medieval infantry that is hurt one point.

EDIT 2: See toh6wy's post 3 posts down about defensive archer bombardment frequency. He's right. With multiple archers, each archer defends only once per turn, and only one archer defends per attack.

 

[Gogf]

What are SoDs? And MDI are medieval infantry, right?

Also, if there is one archer (not in a stack), and you attack it, does it get to use the defensive bombard?

Additionally (I know it's a little off topic, but...) since you are playing as the Incas, how is the Chasqui Scout?

 

[silver 2039]

SOD are stack of doom. If there is one archer it dose not get defensive bombard.

 

[toh6wy]

IIRC, if you have more than one archer in a group, and an enemy attacks the group, then only one archer fires - but if another enemy after that attacks, the other archer fires - i.e. each archer can only fire defensively once a turn, and only one at a time.

Am I right?

 

[thestonesfan]

Yep.

 

[Faboba]

Originally posted by silver 2039
SOD are stack of doom. If there is one archer it dose not get defensive bombard.

Probably because catapults are captured on their own... if you follow me.

 

[Turner]

DyP started doing this a while back. Turns out to be quite an advantage for the defending city. Not only do you get that potshot an attacking unit, but now when it's your turn you have offensive units to take out any survivors. I didn't have near enough offensive units waiting in cities, and this taught me a valuable lesson.

 

[Gen]

What if you have a spearman, an archer and a catapult in one stack - do the last two shot both when attacked? Or one per attack - in which order then?

 

[Gogf]

Only one per attack. Probably Archer first, because it has higher stats.