I have not used archers in forts or barracks for a time. I now have some in a fort and my purpose is that they stay there and shoot from the cover of building. This what I would expect Defensive stance to have them do. However with DS set they constantly try to rush out to certain death. Defensive stance and Offensive stance seem to be the same thing in fact. Tried Hold position and I dont think they do anything; just stop fighting entirely.
Is this a bug or have I misunderstood something?
“Defensive” means that they go where ordered and then look for targets, whereas “Offensive” means they’ll break off from moving somewhere to chase targets that are in range. It has nothing to do with whether they stay in the barracks. If you want them to stay in the barracks, you need to use “Retreat” to make them go back.
With that said, it is worth mentioning that the barracks and fort attacks are a function of the building and how many soldiers are in it and are not affected in any way by what kind of soldiers are in there. Light infantry, archers, heavy infantry, and pikemen all shoot the same kind of arrow out of a fort. (That arrow is actually somewhat worse than the archers-in-the-field arrow, too, although it can shoot over walls, which is something that you can’t really get an archer to do when standing on the ground.)
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Thanks that is helpful. Looks like just using retreat creates the behaviour I was looking for.