Radegast
Chieftain
With the modifications to archers and Longbowmen in C3C I find that the previously limited life Longbowmen can now remain useful up to (and through?) the Modern Age.
With the zero range bombard, Longbowmen are effective on the defence, up against everything until Infantry/Tanks. They can usually take a hit point off Cavalry and often can get one against Riflemen (If the opponent uses these in attack). These slight reductions can often mean the difference between your defender living or dying. Even if the defender remains at one hit point the AI has to either use up another attack unit or you live to fight another day.
Secondly using a stacked longbowman means there is another unit to defeat. Sure, it only has one defence so will die easily once it is on its own, but again this takes up an attacker.
During the middle ages, where a Longbowman is around the same cost as any other unit the loss of a Longbowman is a problem, but later on these units are so relativly cheap it's a shoulder shrug which just might buy some time.
Their other great use is for killing off the one hit point enemy units sitting next to you. Firstly, it saves 'wasting' a 'proper' attack unit which might be better used in taking down a full strength enemy. Secondly, winning these battles can get Elite Longbowmen which can even take out a low hit point Tank and may in time produce Great Leaders as well (just remember to have a defensive unit available to cover them or they are toast after an advance after combat)
As industrialisation kicks in there are usually a number of cities around that are producing just two or three shields each due to either corruption or the need to place them in deserts and other undesirable locations. Or there are captured cities with high unhappiness due to AI drafting/rushing. What to produce with these cities? Some can become worker/settler farms but mostly these cities take so long to produce anything its not worth the effort. So, rush a barracks and switch to longbowmen. These will take between 6 to 15 turns to produce and can of course always be rushed fairly cheaply when war comes. As there are often phases around this time where you are avoiding war so you can crank up the infrastructure/science/military in order to at least be competetive with the stronger AI civs then three or four Longbow factories will produce a significant force relatively quickly. These will probably die off quite quickly once war erupts again but what the hey, they are expendable.
These units also make excellent Military Police either to provide happiness or prevent culture switching without having to waste high powered offensive/defensive units which are better placed on the front line. A regular longbowman is as good a policeman as an elite Mech Infantry.
They are also useful for hurrying the odd bit of production, sometimes just adding seven (or whatever it is) shields to a city producing 30 shields a turn will drop its build time to 1 turn meaning that all 30 shields apply to the next production rther than wasting 20+ on completing in two turns. While this is a very inefficient method for converting shields it does the job in many cases.
And their final use is as cadre unit in the production of 'proper' military. Simply disband one in a city with an empty production box, then rush the Modern Armour (or whatever) eliminating the doubled cost for rushing from scratch. Rinse and repeat thereby generating modern units every turn, Sure, you need money for this but at this stage of the game you should have a fairly large income anyways.
The drawback is the upkeep of course, but I'm not suggesting that Longbowmen comprise a large portion of your forces. 20 or 30 in a 300 to 400 unit army is probably sufficient, especially after the terrain is mostly railroaded. And maybe you'd rather have one infantry rather than three longbows but how many times have you begged for just one mor unit to cover a gap/city etc?
I've not tried putting them in armies yet, do they retain the zero range bombard and can zero range bombard actually join armies?
If players have a problem with archers and tanks in the same army, well just view them as light artillery, mortars etc.
In fact, this gives me an idea for a new unit stream for the Industrial and Modern ages giving Longbows an upgrade path.
These units would retain a zero range bombard which increases at each upgrade. Their defence strength remains at two or three and attack strength is minimal, maybe 5 at max so that they can be used to kill off wounded enemys. Perhaps the Industrial age unit could be classed 'Light Infantry' or 'Skimishers' or 'Horse Artillery' and the Modern Units be 'Fire Support Team', or 'Bazooka' or whatever. I'm sure someone out there will come up with a good name and a top-notch graphic nudge nudge
Conceptually, these are cheap(ish) dual purpose units that can provide fire support against assault, hold ground at a pinch and clean up routing (1HP) enemy.
With the zero range bombard, Longbowmen are effective on the defence, up against everything until Infantry/Tanks. They can usually take a hit point off Cavalry and often can get one against Riflemen (If the opponent uses these in attack). These slight reductions can often mean the difference between your defender living or dying. Even if the defender remains at one hit point the AI has to either use up another attack unit or you live to fight another day.
Secondly using a stacked longbowman means there is another unit to defeat. Sure, it only has one defence so will die easily once it is on its own, but again this takes up an attacker.
During the middle ages, where a Longbowman is around the same cost as any other unit the loss of a Longbowman is a problem, but later on these units are so relativly cheap it's a shoulder shrug which just might buy some time.
Their other great use is for killing off the one hit point enemy units sitting next to you. Firstly, it saves 'wasting' a 'proper' attack unit which might be better used in taking down a full strength enemy. Secondly, winning these battles can get Elite Longbowmen which can even take out a low hit point Tank and may in time produce Great Leaders as well (just remember to have a defensive unit available to cover them or they are toast after an advance after combat)
As industrialisation kicks in there are usually a number of cities around that are producing just two or three shields each due to either corruption or the need to place them in deserts and other undesirable locations. Or there are captured cities with high unhappiness due to AI drafting/rushing. What to produce with these cities? Some can become worker/settler farms but mostly these cities take so long to produce anything its not worth the effort. So, rush a barracks and switch to longbowmen. These will take between 6 to 15 turns to produce and can of course always be rushed fairly cheaply when war comes. As there are often phases around this time where you are avoiding war so you can crank up the infrastructure/science/military in order to at least be competetive with the stronger AI civs then three or four Longbow factories will produce a significant force relatively quickly. These will probably die off quite quickly once war erupts again but what the hey, they are expendable.
These units also make excellent Military Police either to provide happiness or prevent culture switching without having to waste high powered offensive/defensive units which are better placed on the front line. A regular longbowman is as good a policeman as an elite Mech Infantry.
They are also useful for hurrying the odd bit of production, sometimes just adding seven (or whatever it is) shields to a city producing 30 shields a turn will drop its build time to 1 turn meaning that all 30 shields apply to the next production rther than wasting 20+ on completing in two turns. While this is a very inefficient method for converting shields it does the job in many cases.
And their final use is as cadre unit in the production of 'proper' military. Simply disband one in a city with an empty production box, then rush the Modern Armour (or whatever) eliminating the doubled cost for rushing from scratch. Rinse and repeat thereby generating modern units every turn, Sure, you need money for this but at this stage of the game you should have a fairly large income anyways.
The drawback is the upkeep of course, but I'm not suggesting that Longbowmen comprise a large portion of your forces. 20 or 30 in a 300 to 400 unit army is probably sufficient, especially after the terrain is mostly railroaded. And maybe you'd rather have one infantry rather than three longbows but how many times have you begged for just one mor unit to cover a gap/city etc?
I've not tried putting them in armies yet, do they retain the zero range bombard and can zero range bombard actually join armies?
If players have a problem with archers and tanks in the same army, well just view them as light artillery, mortars etc.
In fact, this gives me an idea for a new unit stream for the Industrial and Modern ages giving Longbows an upgrade path.
These units would retain a zero range bombard which increases at each upgrade. Their defence strength remains at two or three and attack strength is minimal, maybe 5 at max so that they can be used to kill off wounded enemys. Perhaps the Industrial age unit could be classed 'Light Infantry' or 'Skimishers' or 'Horse Artillery' and the Modern Units be 'Fire Support Team', or 'Bazooka' or whatever. I'm sure someone out there will come up with a good name and a top-notch graphic nudge nudge
Conceptually, these are cheap(ish) dual purpose units that can provide fire support against assault, hold ground at a pinch and clean up routing (1HP) enemy.
and units are set up in a most poor way. If I have a look at the movement of 3 of an Keshik and the 2 of a tank 
