How do I increase “Bow” Skill?
I have tried training (worked once, then the ‘first tire’ option disappeaed), shooting targets and hitting does not do anything.
Is the only way to hunt or kill enemies?
Just go hunting, you’ll get good coin as well.
My play time is over 60 hours and I’ve spent all of that firing my bow at every forest critter I can find and using the bow on bandits as much as possible without them killing me, but so far only achieved 19XP of 110 required to increase the skill level.
All my other skills are around level 10 by now, but archery is still on the lowest level (2 - I paid for one skill point with training).
I don’t understand what am I doing wrong? At this rate I’m going to have to play 400 hours just to increase my archery skill by one point!
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I’m also curious. All of my others skills are going up, my bow skill is still level 1. I won the match against Capon, went hunting with him, killed some things in the wild, killed some bandits with it, but no gains. Is it just very, very slow?
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If you get attacked by bandits, use your bow to finish them of when they surrender.
Else, go hunting.
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Target shooting should really increase your bow skill. It fits with the way you practice everything else in-game. If I can train with Sir Robard to increase my melee skills, why should I not be able to target shoot to increase my bow skill?
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I kill animals and got only hunting skill increase i think it is bug cause my bow skill is level 1 too . target shooting do not increase bow skill neither competitions
Sounds like a bug, although it is a lot slower than other stuff (level 14 sword and I use bow way more and I’m level 8 now) it should still go up some.
Do you get many bandits encounters?
I get more at night . but most of them are villagers so they easy to kill if or they just run away .
My main issue in the game is the lack of random encounters especially bandits. I’ve spent hours roaming the wilds without the need of drawing my sword, only see wayfarers. Do I need to be a criminal to get people to attack me?
when you see wayfarer knock them and you will get stealth skill up 
the same with gamekeeprs and other people around
So there is a quest line called Ruin, that you get from the knight in Rattay. I forget his name, he teaches you sword play and archery during the tutorial phase. It pits you against several bandits and then cummans at later. I struggled with the combo mechanics and gettings swarmed by enemies at early levels. So I switched to archery and would pick off two from a distance sneak around and pick off more. You need a bow that does 50+ damage and Piercing arrows/Greater piercing arrows. You will one shot just about anything after lvl 8 in archery. After that I switched to horseback archery and well you are a god at this point they can’t even run away . Just don’t get knocked off the horse the game bugs like hell. During a side quest there “Find Pie” A horse the stable man has somke warhorse whose courage is so high you would expect the horse to grab a sword. Fyi combined with the perk strong theighs and war horse it’s going to take a pikeman to throw you. if…
Oh afterthought, if your archery is weak you can dip your arrows in posion as well.
A shot to the face works well for me! 
There is another horse at the smaller stables next to the war camp called Warehorse Jenna, she is the best horse in the game I believe.
Thats a known bug which should be fixed soon (should is a big word though sadly), After a certain quest in which you search for Timmy, the games ceases to spawn wayfarers and bandits. To avoid it, don’t speak to Timmy’s sister. Just go straight to Timmy (look up where he is online)
To increase your bow, there is an archer in Ledechko (sp?) who runs a game called “chumps” where you compete against two others to hit moving logs on the river. You get 20 arrows each & most hits wins. He provides the arrows, so its ‘free’ too. If you bet 50 coins, you can win 150 coins. Rinse & repeat. The archer is usually next to the river by a pair of targets after 10am(ish). He isually has a quest star on him on the map. I ‘trained’ my bow up to 20 using this method. 
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If you go to Ledetchko you can go to the guy next to the archery targets and ask him to play Chumps, you can bet ten Groschen per match, and it gives you a free level of archery per game.
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Chumps is too complicated for skill building.
Best to go to Ushitz and do the range archery competition. Even the ratay range.
Shoot at or just below your skill level. Win and you get points to your skill and some coin. Lose and you get less points. and lose coin.
I raised up 4 levels in one stay there at the competition, it may take longer but much easier.
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