Game:

Medieval II: Total War (2006)

Duration: 14:47

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A demonstration using the standard Stainless Steel 6.4 of how the AI fights when the range of arquebusiers is kept short. There are sometimes exaggerated reports of untrained musketeers ordered to withhold fire until the enemy is just a few paces away or maybe just 50-60 meters away. That is not how pike and shot armies fought. Both the military manuals and battlefield reports from Robert Monro indicate that musketeers opened fire at 250-300 m normally and to withhold fire until the enemy was at such a close range is anecdotal.

If they only fired at such short ranges, handguns/pistols would have been enough. There would have been no reason to invent the arquebus and musket. In fact a kind of pistol called a dragon had a caliber similar to that of the musket, so everyone could have been armed with dragons and could have fired at 60m away. However, the dragon was one of the rarest firearms ever used.

Moreover, the AI cannot cope with such short ranges as this videoclip shows. Units of musketeers get in front of other units and in front of the artillery and then the pikemen walk in front of them and because the ranges are so short they not only bunch up hopelessly, the also cannot get an angle at the enemy when other units are in front of them because of the close range.

Compare this battle with the battles from episodes 19 and 27 from the Sweden campaign using the 1648 mod. The longer musket ranges is one major factor that balances pike and shot battles so that the AI has something of a chance. These ranges are also historically correct.

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