Bowmen versus Longbowmen

[HortonsWho]

I was just curious, if you're at the level where you can use longbowmen, is there any point to having ordinary bowmen? Does anyone find them useful?

[Hobknocker]

If you're at the level where you're just now able to make longbowmen, then regular bowmen aren't that useful anymore if I recall correctly.

Later in the game, once you have crossbows, you can use bowmen as the "shield" for bandits that attack your weakest troop. Put them in front of a bunch of crossbows and you'll do some real damage.

Regular bows are dirt cheap to buy, (never pay more than 5g for a stack), and with that low cost, they're less-expensive than recruits to make, and only take a few minutes longer (for a level 5 barracks). So I'll use bowmen/xbows on adventures like Horseback and cruise through it quickly, losing about 200 recruits & 200bows.

[supremeDr]

yes bowmen are really only shields. they are also good for when you need to cause damage bit not lose the other troops like LB and XB

[bombcar]

Bowmen hit like militia but cost like recruits.

They die like dogs, but they can still be useful in some battles.