Quote Originally Posted by athanaric View Post
And they aren't really bad, seeing as their range and attack are at least equal to those of the Numidian archers, who are generally viewed as being useful.
They aren't bad, but I think the Numidians are viewed as more useful simply because they are found in the western half of the map. Archers in the west generally range from bad to terrible, so the Numidians really stand out because they're actually decent. However, in the east, decent archers don't cut it. When you're going up against Subeshis, Caucasians, Syrians, Persians, Heavy Persians, Saka foot archers, and Mardians, you need good archers of your own, and you can provide them because there is so much variety of good archers in the east (they're usually relatively low-level regionals too so everyone can get them). The Indian longbowmen do have the melee advantage over most archers, but in an archer duel, they will probably lose to any of the above archers. That and the fact that they have a limited AOR at the edge of the map while you can get Persian archers anywhere from Mesopotamia to Baktria makes me feel like they aren't worth it. That's just my take on it though.