Agreed.  Having anything other than magical units fire from one tile to another seems pretty unrealistic given then scale of the tiles.  Archers should have a ranged attack tactically, and should be the last regular units to get attacked in autocalc, but should not have any kind of ranged attack into adjacent tiles.  I mean, we're talking about a weapon whose effective range is measured in hundreds of meters, not kilometers.

i don't know, i don't really see a problem with them being used on the overland map.  however i must say that i agree with it being limited.  i would say the unit has to be right next to the target unit, and defenses should count more as well.

I think that archers using bombardment should inflict morale damage instead of HP damage outside of tactical combat.  Additionally, set the range at adjacency only, and if you bombard something with MPs remaining, it should charge you .

My preference is to have archers only have range inside tactical battles, but if we really want to have something on the strategic map, the above are my suggestions.

[I wasn't able to get to archers during .803]

When I right click with my stack selected, they attack the units adjacent to them, but do not occupy the tile afterwords.  Is that what you mean by melee range = 1? 

Can you right click with an archer selected on a unit 2 tiles away and get auto-bombard right now?

FfH: Age of Ice had a bombardment mechanic with 1-tile archer range, it did mean that you needed to mass archers to control larger stacks of enemies.

I think a charge mechanic would be a good way to limit strategic archer bombardments - but as I said, I'd rather that archers not have siege at the strategic level, saving that for tactical battles & factored into the autoresolve.

I'd rather see it go.  Let archers have the range in tactical combat, and as mentioned above redo the auto-calculation to give them a large percentage to not be attacked first by enemy melee units first if defending melee units are around to defend them.  Of course other ranged units should be able to attack other ranged units whether there is defending melee units or not.

If there is a wizards unit (like in MoM) then they should be able to attack that 2 tile out with say a fireball or similar spell.  The scope of the tiles just makes it unbelievable. 

Just my two cents of course.

I'd vote against shooting arrows anywhere but the battlefield, assuming the tactical map will be large enough to let the archers fire from maximum range. And it should be. Same goes for any siege machinery.

Only global spells on the strategic map.

well civ 5 is going this route

so lots of ppl against prolly isnt used YET to this idea

maybe we can evaluate ranged attacks when there arent ONLY archers but also other kind of units, and spells going around everywhere

CIV V is keeping everything on one map (Strategic Map) so ranged bombardment makes sense in that context, since you would otherwise have no ability to simulate direct ranged combat (CIV IV used the concept of first strikes).  However, Elemental will have tactical battles along with a strategic map, and with that kind of system I think that the strategic map should not include archers with indirect fire, since it muddles the difference between strategic and tactical movement.

To step to another series which had a strategic map and tactical battles, the Total War series, in those eras where you had ranged units, you did not shoot at enemies on the overland map - you shot at them inside the tactical battles.  I think we would benefit by keeping distinct what happens at the strategic versus tactical level (and then of course, break our rules with magic, because it's magic!)

The ranges just don't work outside of the tactical map.  If this is included it is the first thing I remove from my copy of the game.  I'd really rather not have to go to th effort though.

Agreed, regular archers shouldn't have the ability but i'm not that much against strategic map bombardment.

Warder

I think archers should have a 1 tile range this would simulate how they get a shot in before closing... of course this could be handled on the strategic map but the question is does this play out well in auto complete i.e. do archers get a first strike in these instances?

I think it should be one tile range and initiate tactical combat. No monster is just going to stand there taking arrow hits and not do something about it. That way there is no need to reduce the effectiveness of archery and more reason not to have archers runnign around killing stuff from a distance safely.

I like vollies, they allow Archers to soften enemies up a bit before Melee troops close in.