I said what I said. Even with higher ground they can't fire through friendly units. So you gotta kill everything in one volley or get instantly murdered in melee. Dumb.

They're direct fire.

You have to strategize about where you're going to stand and what order.

Basically what I've learned to do is make sure to attack someone you will surely kill. Crossbownmen rush forward, take the first shot. Then another of my units (or two) attack from the other hex to kill it. Then have a final unit run into the empty space caused by the enemy's death and shield the crossbowmen for the next round. Rinse and repeat. Horsemen are good for this since they can basically reach anywhere.

Having said that, the damage output of crossbowmen leaves a bit to be desired.

There are good strategies before them. But going straight from indirect fire archers to crossbowmen to guys who have the same defense melee or not with the rest of the ranged units makes then really annoying.

I agree, they are not archers, but they should have vision on higher ground at least. Otherwise, they are too weak to be useful. Some tweaking is needed to allow them to actually fire at targets without being killed each turn.