Horse Archers and EB 2

[The Gypsy]

In Medieval 2, the cavalry is probably the most sluggish of the series (in fact everything is pretty sluggish). Is there a plan to increase cavalry maneuverability for horse archers in order to make them more viable or is their range going to be buffed to allow them to escape more easily? In vanilla they were pretty lackluster, which is kinda of a shame.

[Ibrahim]

In Medieval 2, the cavalry is probably the most sluggish of the series (in fact everything is pretty sluggish). Is there a plan to increase cavalry maneuverability for horse archers in order to make them more viable or is their range going to be buffed to allow them to escape more easily? In vanilla they were pretty lackluster, which is kinda of a shame.

worry not, we're doing all that needs to be done to rectify this. it's relatively easy to fix "sluggishness". (really the problem is acceleration).

as to range? no, they're not getting a buffing. they're terrifying enough as it is.

[The Gypsy]

Yeah they really did have a problem with acceleration. But it is good to see they are terrifying, I love the nomads and hope to destroying my enemies very soon.

[The Gypsy]

Another question-Is the balance of Horse Archers having better range than everything bar foot nomads being kept? Or is it being mixed up in EB 2? This really was their greatest strength other than their mobility.

[Cybvep]

Frankly horse archers seemed overpowered to me in EB1 or in RTW1 in general. They had no real counter, so they were painful even for the player and the AI was absolutely clueless when dealing with them.

[The Gypsy]

Yeah that is true to a certain extent. But within the campaign at least, their price was very high and the steppes were very low on income, so you couldn't afford many. However they can be really dangerous if there is enough of them, after that the only real limit to their killing power is ammunition.

[fallen851]

Frankly horse archers seemed overpowered to me in EB1 or in RTW1 in general. They had no real counter, so they were painful even for the player and the AI was absolutely clueless when dealing with them.

I feel like they were overpowered in real life... Genghis Khan made a giant empire with them.

In RTW1, the counter (at least in multiplayer) was masses of archers. Then again, a mass of cheap archers with +3 attack pretty much roll everything.

[moonburn]

rhodian slingers and kretan archers
bosphorus heavy archers
walls and artilley

there where plenty of counters to horse archers once you got them trapped inside city walls they have no escape and die like flies and they won´t make much damage against frontal phallanx or even hoplites so proper use of skirmishers (peltastai in ambush mode for instance wich means fire at will off and wait to get them on 2 or 3 sides will make the poor dudes shit their pants)

horse archers in eb1 where overpowered cause they rided the "vanilla" horses and not the dogs that most of them rode in those times so eb2 will fix that

also horse archers where underpowered in auto calculation batles wich makes them sucky campaign factions with too much micro management nd not very much macro fun slash and burn hit and run but no fun building up an empire mode even the parthians sucked somehow on that part

[The Gypsy]

Yeah I'm mid way through a campaign with them (its been on going for the past year or so) and I've had to fight almost all of the battles myself. I've conquered all of Parthia, Saka Rauka and are mid-campaign with both the Egyptians (who conquered almost all of the Seleucids) and the Getai. Their mobility advantage on the campaign map means I never leave HA's to defend towns, instead employing lowly subjugated peoples to do my dirty work (muhaha). However, Moonburn is right, they are awful at defending towns.

[Ca Putt]

If properly represented, Horsearchers are both countered and feared by all other troop types. It all boils down to how well they are used. basically every type of Military unit has a good chance at defeating them at equal "cost" if they are not microed, however if microed they can beat pretty much anything. In other words: if used right Horsearchers ARE OP and rightfully so.

I'm not entirely sure about the intern mechanics of this but I would assume that due to most M2TW Units wearing armour of some sort Horsearchers were worse than in RTW and EB1 in two fields. Also I think* there were a fair amount of Units that had a somewhat greater range than Horsearchers in M2TW, while they are among the most longranged Units in EB.
With all the unarmoured Units from EB I think the sluggish cavalry will make for a pleasant middle ground.

also horse archers where underpowered in auto calculation batles wich makes them sucky campaign factions with too much micro management nd not very much macro fun slash and burn hit and run but no fun building up an empire mode even the parthians sucked somehow on that part

+1, while having them makes for either a heroic victory or at least a phyrric enemy victory(when you retreat) on the battlemap, they are next to worthless in autocalc. So much that it's probably the chapest solution to get some Pandaphalangites** and a 1-3 star General and just autocalc them, when you're facing lot's of Horsearchers. It's amazing how the AI does that :DD

*may very well be wrong
**which imho are rather OP in autocalc

[Cybvep]

I feel like they were overpowered in real life... Genghis Khan made a giant empire with them.

In RTW1, the counter (at least in multiplayer) was masses of archers. Then again, a mass of cheap archers with +3 attack pretty much roll everything.

The Macedonians made a giant empire with phalangites and the Romans made a giant empire with legionnaires. So what?

The point is that masses of horse archers in RTW1 make every battle a cakewalk. AFAIK many MP games have strict limits on the number of HAs or ban them entirely. In SP, the huge difference in performance of HAs during autocalc battles and manual battles make the situation even worse, because it puts the AI at a greater disadvantage. All you have to do to win a battle in SP when using HAs is to put them on skirmish mode. Seriously, you can go back after 10 minutes and see that most of the enemy's army is wiped out and the HAs are just running in circles. No tactics is required. If the enemy catches them, in 99% of cases it's only because of a huge artificial red line which "blocked" the HA.

Terrain doesn't have enough of an impact. HAs may rule the steppes, but they shouldn't be so OP elsewhere. Also, I think that light cavalry should be more useful at countering HAs, especially when the HAs are tried. That would also make light cavalry more useful. I'm not sure about foot archers - is it realistic that HAs can outrange them? And what about accuracy?

I agree that HAs suxx in sieges, but we are not talking about sieges here. And I don't know about you, but I simply starve most cities out. In fact, I avoid playing the siege battles manually whenever I can because of how terrible the pathfinding is and how boring the sieges are in RTW1.

[The Gypsy]

In my single player campaign as the Sarmatians, I've never had enough ammo to simply shoot the enemy to death, they won't be able to kill everyone in similarly sized army. They should be effective because they were very effective, with a range advantage and a greater strategic and tactical mobility than infantry-based armies. They most always get to choose when and where they engage.

But they are certainly beatable, if you take away their range advantage (levied nomad foot archers) and their mobility (hordes of heavy cav), its just that a lot of armies don't have these tools. So they get trampled on and, I think, they should be.

[moonburn]

arcade mode for unlimited arrows/amunitions

when crassus fighted the parthians the parthians inovated by having large groups of men resuplying the archers so we can assume that an arrow limit was indeed a problem for horse archers

on another note regarding realism when an archer went down his companions would replenish their own arrows from his quiver
so the amount of arrows available should be something like each unit carries 20 arrows there´s 120 units so for that batle there would be 2400 arrows available to the unit

should be fun in a siege batle the last remaining 20 archers of a unit keep shooting until the end of the batle ... heroes they where

[fallen851]

The Roman Empire was not giant compared to the Mongolian Empire peak. Literally entire European armies were smashed by small leading forces of the Horde.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Kalka_River

Roman forces reached places where militarily, it could not expand. Crassus's invasion Parthia... which of course, was brutally ended by horse archers.

Anyway I've played hundreds of games (perhaps thousands) of RTW MP, and mass horse archers are far from overpowered. Anytime anyone selects a nation that can build horse archers, I take a long lots of archers with attack upgrades. They trade pretty evenly versus horse archers, and cost way less, resulting in me having a better infantry core or more melee cavalry. The big advantage horse archers have over archers isn't their mobility (since basic horse archers have roughly the same range), it is their melee capabilities. Horse archers aren't terrible at charging and can outmaneuver and hit enemies from the flanks, while archers are pretty bad in melee.

[Cybvep]

Roman forces reached places where militarily, it could not expand. Crassus's invasion Parthia... which of course, was brutally ended by horse archers.

No, they reached places where it was pointless to expand, because gaining more territory for the sake of gaining more territory makes no sense.

Funny that you mention Crassus. I hope that you didn't forget that the Romans captured the Parthian capital more than once. Carrhae is wildly known, but it's just one battle in a series of Roman-Parthian conflicts.

Anytime anyone selects a nation that can build horse archers, I take a long lots of archers with attack upgrades.

Arguably archers with attack upgrades are too effective, too. In fact, I think that the way experience and attack upgrades work in RTW1 can greatly unbalance some units, especially when they start with relatively low attack values, so even 1 additional point is precious.

[moonburn]

genghis had his empire for 3 generations the romans lasted centuries even over a milenia is you count the eastern part

[fallen851]

genghis had his empire for 3 generations the romans lasted centuries even over a milenia is you count the eastern part

Sure. But how did it take Rome to take that Empire?

My point here being that if we are speaking only about the military, then the Mongolian Empire is far more impressive.

Arguably archers with attack upgrades are too effective, too. In fact, I think that the way experience and attack upgrades work in RTW1 can greatly unbalance some units, especially when they start with relatively low attack values, so even 1 additional point is precious.

They are too effective. But the "cwb" rules allow you to run with 8 of the them. And the main reason is exactly what you said. A unit of basic archers is really cheap and really cheap to upgrade. And because they are a ranged unit, their low morale and low defense are far less of a liability, thus if you improve their attack to +8 from +5, they become incredibly strong and remain one of the cheapest units in the game. And they counter horse archers brilliantly. In a low money game, if your not running 8 units of basic archers with +3 attack, you're playing the game wrong. They are only a bad choice in high money games. But then again, 80% of the units (and 50% of the factions...) are useless in high money games...

That being said, balance was never a strong point in RTW.