[mitra]

Anyone played the game as see that russian and arab elite archers are much stronger of western crossbowmen, so in good hands they can be a terrible weapon.

My first reaction was to play like a TW, place in first position second rank troops and wait the end of arrows rain. But i see this is a very wrong choice for two motivation:

1 - the morale collapses very more rapid in XIII that in TW, so I lost units without gain time

2 - the units which collapse create morale damage to the other one.

A tactic I tried is to advance with the elite armoured infantry in no-dense order with my archers or crossbowmen in second rank. The foot-knights receive minor losses because of their armour, and have a stronger moral, at the same time the western missile units inflict stronger losses in near range. A secondary lateral assault with irregular cavalry can help to create "caos" in the enemy shooters before the contact.

If the you want create a pike ring with shooters back, remember that when a single shooter from a unit go in close combat, all the fighters of same unit stop to shot. So close the men in a dense ring can be dangerous if the enemy go in contact, because your shooters risk to stop to shot, these of enemy at contrary have the space of free move.