Reasons why longbows are bad in British mirror

[milku3459]

1. Longbows have this horrible set up animation which makes it impossible to hit and run like a skirmisher.
2. Longbows die very fast to cavalry
3. They move very slowly
4. They can only defend due to reasons 1 and 3; in fact, they are fantastic at defending. However, the British need a lot of food--making longbows means forcing yourself to defend, giving the other British player the map for free.
5. Not scalable into the late game; they need a card just to unlock upgrades beyond veteran, which you have to pay for. No instant upgrades like muskets or hussars
6. More expensive than muskets due to their wood cost. Brits are already a very wood heavy civ and try to avoid chopping more wood than is needed.
7. Longbows actually die pretty quickly to muskets once they get up close. You really have no idea...
8. No siege to take down enemy manors
9. You have to protect them from cav, which means training either muskets, hussars or pikes. If you train muskets or hussars, you have to gather gold in addition to food and wood, opening up opportunities to mismacro and requiring more upgrades to be gathering as efficiently as possible. And pikes are bad.


Any more? These are all I could think of. Are these correct?

[momuuu]

I think theres two things:

- Longbows actually suck against musks haha, don't even know if they're cost efficient
- Once you add longbows to your composition, the other player can add a few hussars. His army will stay about the same in strength, however now he has the ability to raid you with hussars. Also he can slow you down in any losing fight while he can always escape himself. You don't want to give your opponent a reason to make hussars, so you just don't make any longbows.

[tedere12]

you can add a few longbows in british mirror actually, I think a couple longbows shooting behind the musketeers is actually pretty good as long as the longbows dont take any damage. A guy did that vs me in a british mirror (i believe he made 5 from 600w and shipped 6) and it went pretty well for him

[pecelot]

for one, lb have the same speed as musks
the main thing is that they painfully lack any upgrades, can't really raid or siege and can die quickly to a surprise cav pop

[Hazza54321]

Huss are really useful so u want to discourage people from making them

[macacoalbino]

Thats pretty much it... Mixing 1 batch is not bad once you have a million musks to tank while the lb shoot.

[DaRkNiTe1698]

Lbs don't have colonial improvements also, which is a thing that musk have instead, with both cards. Some players like doing lb pike by the way, quite rare though

[pecelot]

I guess if you play on Bayou/Manchac (and Florida?) you can switch to lb with theSeminole upgrade, but still it's pretty pricey and you can't really wall on these maps properly - else you're rather vulnerable to melee or even nornal musks and cav

[Garja]

Actually lbow pike is better than musk huss whenever there isnt too much raiding potential on the map. Like in straight up fights lbow-pike wins with proper micro and by the time musk huss are full upped the opponent is out of food. Also musk+lbows is quite solid.

[Darwin_]

Shipping 6 longbow and making 5 in a brit mirror can be game winning.

[pecelot]

Shipping 6 musks and making 5 can be game-winning, too

[knusch]

a little lb switch in a brit mirror is totally legit for a timing to push your opponents fb. apart from that musks with all the upgrades r quit sure the goto unit.

[P i k i l i c]

I guess if you play on Bayou/Manchac (and Florida?) you can switch to lb with theSeminole upgrade, but still it's pretty pricey and you can't really wall on these maps properly - else you're rather vulnerable to melee or even nornal musks and cav

Seminole + Carib upgrades on Florida but yes, it is expensive

[milku3459]

I know a captain (o6cean71) who does longbow/pike all the way up to Age IV...how is this viable?

[momuuu]

Actually lbow pike is better than musk huss whenever there isnt too much raiding potential on the map. Like in straight up fights lbow-pike wins with proper micro and by the time musk huss are full upped the opponent is out of food. Also musk+lbows is quite solid.

I dont know if I agree with that tbh. Actually I do not at all, I think musks just beat longbow in low numbers.

[Garja]

In low numbers the first shot is crucial. Also lbows generally need some meatshield like pikes in cover mode. But in big numbers lbow pike shits on musk huss.

[Veni_Vidi_Vici_W]

lb underrated. I think there are some situations where they can actually do well in a mix, although its prob a short time window and/or very specific moments.

[pecelot]

doesnt lb+pike just straight up lose to musk+huss? pikes are a shitty meatshield, they either drop likes flies or cant really deal with cav since they are in cover mode

[Diarouga]

lb are really good, they're just different and people can't micro them.

[Gendarme]

doesnt lb+pike just straight up lose to musk+huss? pikes are a shitty meatshield, they either drop likes flies or cant really deal with cav since they are in cover mode

I don't think you need to actually kill any cavalry with your pikes. Just stop the cavalry from killing your longbows, and the longbow dps will tear everything apart, even hussars.

[Mitoe]

Longbow are awkward in Brit mirror because they can't kite muskets and they're actually more expensive than muskets in terms of vill seconds. They cost wood, so building them early usually means you'll be short a manor or two compared to your opponent even if you're well macroed, and as Garja said they usually need some sort of meatshield to prevent muskets or huss from just walking straight up to them and killing them. Most of the time you can't get this sort of meatshield in the early game because your unit numbers are very small, and once you have larger masses of muskets it's usually more effective to send musket uprgades, and at that point you might as well just make muskets because they're going to be more useful than the immobile longbow.

As Veni said there may be some small windows or timings where they can be good, but it's pretty situational. I played against a major once who started huss and made longbows to defend his base while he was raiding, it was surprisingly annoying. I wanted to try out this sort of strat, but haven't had the chance.

For the most part though you would be better off going musket.

[Jaeger]

I think the lb are bad argument is just BS. Obviously 19 musk and 1 lb beat 20 musk, and 1 lb isnt enough of a reason for the enemy to make huss. You just have to find the right proportion, seems like nobody did

[Diarouga]

Yep
#BTB

[Kaiserklein]

Not sure about that ovi, because when upgrades come into play, you probably have 1 musk > 1 lb. Also 1 lb is more expansive than 1 musk so you can't really calculate it like this.
Moreover, before upgrades, you probably don't have enough eco to match the musks spam with an lb spam, because as I said lbs are more expansive. You would have to use wood crates which means you cut eco, which you obviously don't want. And later on, when you probs have enough eco to spam lbs, upgrades make musks better as I said.
So even if you only make a few lbs, it means that you either have to cut some manors, or that you get less mass out, and/or that your lbs will be unupgraded while musks are upgraded (basically to veteran).

[_H2O]

Because every time I make longbows I lose.

That's pretty much all I need to know. I've tried it a fair bit and it never works.

I know you are looking for reasons which can lead to a long discussion but also remember that the most important reason is the one I listed :). It captures all the other reasons combined.