Unit Formations

[STiAle]

Reading the wiki/manual, it seems unit formation effects are overly geared towards melee and defense.

Shouldn't Archers have better visibility and therefore better attack rating when using the Skirmish formation while the Box formation may only provide normal ranged attack under a *very* good leader

Or has this been tweaked?

[De-Legro]

Reading the wiki/manual, it seems unit formation effects are overly geared towards melee and defense.

Shouldn't Archers have better visibility and therefore better attack rating when using the Skirmish formation while the Box formation may only provide normal ranged attack under a *very* good leader

Or has this been tweaked?

Ask yourself what formation Welsh Longbow men used. Pretty sure it wasn't generally skirmish lines

[egamma]

Here's a related question--when was the last time that anyone used skirmish, for any unit type?

[Zakilevo]

I am pretty sure, generals of old days made archers lined up to fire arrows. Accuracy of arrows weren't that great in medieval age so it was best to focus on certain targets.

[Chenier]

Here's a related question--when was the last time that anyone used skirmish, for any unit type?

The only units worth placing in skirmish are archers. Namely, when your opponent has a lot and you want to put yours in the front.

I've done this relatively often.

[STiAle]

Here's a related question--when was the last time that anyone used skirmish, for any unit type?

The only units worth placing in skirmish are archers. Namely, when your opponent has a lot and you want to put yours in the front.

I've done this relatively often.

Indeed, this topic wasn't really about Archers but about this specialized formation and formations in general.

Ask yourself what formation Welsh Longbow men used. Pretty sure it wasn't generally skirmish lines

I am pretty sure, generals of old days made archers lined up to fire arrows. Accuracy of arrows weren't that great in medieval age so it was best to focus on certain targets.

Indeed, but we don't all play Dwilight. And this isn't a historical simulation game after all,  I'm thinking as much about balance/utilizing an underused aspect of the game/pure plain fun, as historical accuracy. Admittedly I will not think this is such a good idea after all when my Praetorian Guards get decimated by a bunch of cowardly archers, oh well...

[Heq]

Well, we just used Skirmish to great effect in the last FEI rampage.

It takes some doing to make it work, but when it does work it works in spades.

[fodder]

Shouldn't Archers have better visibility and therefore better attack rating when using the Skirmish formation while the Box formation may only provide normal ranged attack under a *very* good leader

speaking as a non-archer...

only thing i'm thinking is that if there's a command like XX distance at YY angle, then they don't need to aim per se... they shoot at the sky after all to create a mass cloud of arrows from afar rather than shooting at a particular person and so the only thing about formation is whether they have enough room to shoot and reload without whacking people around them

obviously won't work when close up

[De-Legro]

Skirmish is great for archers, so long as you are sure they won't get into melee combat. It doesn't reduce there ranged damage, it increases ranged defence, so in those archer duels they just got better. Melee defence and damage are reduced, but then if your archers are in melee combat you likely have problems already. I have long been in support of archers using skirmish as their default formation.

[Chenier]

Skirmish is great for archers, so long as you are sure they won't get into melee combat. It doesn't reduce there ranged damage, it increases ranged defence, so in those archer duels they just got better. Melee defence and damage are reduced, but then if your archers are in melee combat you likely have problems already. I have long been in support of archers using skirmish as their default formation.

Depends what you are up against. If you only fight rogues or realms who use archers very little, box formations are much more appropriate than skirmish formations. I use line in the majority of other cases, except when my enemy has a *lot* of archers and I plan on placing mine front row.