I dunno, I had my Cretan Archers charged by a unit of Principes. I had caused about 15 casualties on them so far and when they charged me, my Cretans hit them point blank and killed almost their entire front rank. They then broke and ran. Can you test it on the Custom Battles and give us some feedback on how distance works with casualties?

Dunno anything about doing less damage shooting farther away, but, Missiles do cause less damage to more heavly armored units. And you do less damage shooting at the front then at the flanks or the back.

Btw, Creatan archers totally dominate the phanlanx troops. They killed like 10-20 men every round shooting at my pikemen phanlanxs.!

Every archer type owns pike phalanxes. Their shields are the size of a dinner plate. Their spears probably offer them more protection than their damn shields.

And the AI never breaks their phalanx formation to run, unless routing. (well I haven't seen them do it yet). But armoured hoplites aren't as bad. But, unless the archers have additional distractions, a phalanx unit dies pretty quickly to archers.

i cant exactly replicate the same incadence in which my axilia archers did more damage from farther away but when they fired from max range i tracked the arrows by pushing go pause go pause and on the first volley, 2 guys died. (these were hastati) then on the second 9 died. 3rd volley like more than a dozan. I did have gold weapns upgrades but on the case of javilins, they did more damage closer. when i focused all my velites and nubian javiline horse thingys on one unit of spartin hops whene they were charging like 3/4 of them got mowed down on the second volley. Strange isnt it? guess the saying "death from above" has a lot of meaning in RTW.

You hold a shield in front of you. If an arrow is coming straight at you, your shield will block it.

However, unless if you are literally hugging your shield, you will not be able to stop an arrow that comes at a correct angle. Armor is not as thick as a shield in most cases, and because the arrow retains much of its initial speed when it was shot, you will likely die.

Javelins, on the other hand, were made to puncture shields, but because they were so heavy, having them going over a long range will render them moot.

And remember that there is a hefty random factor for killing in this game.

ok thanks for all the info. i did a couple experiments and i find that the best times to cause casualties with arrows are: when theyre at 3/4 range so the arrows arc, 2 when they're charging and u shoot them point blank, and three when they're stuck fighting ur hastati and the battle seems even.

Thanks Elrond, that's useful info.