Nerfing archers...

From some of the threads posted in the Colosseum, it seems that archers may have an insane kill rate currently. I admit I haven't noticed it yet in the Northlands, but archers shouldn't be wiping out Phalanxes of armed men.

If and when I encounter this, I plan to try and mod it away. Anyone have any suggestions? I seem to recall that projectiles are given stats via group these days, and there's a central file that holds all that...is that the place to start? I don't really want to make archers fire more slowly...it seems to me that the rate of fire is fine. I want to make arrows less lethal.

edit: Nevermind, I'm a doof. Modding the lethality would be simple, if time consuming...

You need to open the file export_descr_unit.txt and modify the line stat_pri

; stat_pri From left to right
; attack factor
; attack bonus factor if charging
; missile type fired (no if not a missile weapon type)
; range of missile
; amount of missile ammunition per man
; Weapon type = melee, thrown, missile, or siege_missile
; Tech type = simple, other, blade, archery or siege
; Damage type = piercing, blunt, slashing or fire. (I don't think this is used anymore)
; Sound type when weapon hits = none, knife, mace, axe, sword, or spear
; Min delay between attacks (in 1/10th of a second)



The above is the coders description of the values.

stat_pri 7, 2, arrow, 120, 40, missile, archery, piercing, none, 25 ,1

The above is an example taken from a unit of scythian horse archers.
Raising or lowering the first value raises or lowers lethality.

Oh and by the way missiles have a bonus against the unshielded flank of an enemy unit.So in any tests you should try and maintain fire from roughly the same angle.

The unshielded flank being the enemies right of course.

Instead of changing the attack factor to make arrows less lethal by, in effect, lowering their accuracy, you could reduce the value of the last field (currently unlabeled) which appears to be the actual lethality of each attack - see the Kill Rate thread.