archers who needs them :)

[Sin Qua Non]

Every time I play a faction without archers, I end up missing them 5 turns into the game. I just attribute it to my severe case of Agincourt syndrome.

[A.Saturnus]

I did a little test with archers. How they fare against well armoured infantry. So I gave the AI two units of bowmen (large unit size - makes 120 per unit) against one unit of Principes on my side (82 men - makes a ratio of 3 to 1). Well, the bowmen eliminated the principes, but they took rather long. Usually when the ammo was down, there were about 5 to 10 principes left, which had to be taken on in melee. Considered the ratio, I wouldn´t say that´s an overly good result but certainly also not outragously bad. It depends on what you expect from archers.
Anecdote: in one trial, I didn´t select the right map (flatland) but had one with a few hills. So the bowmen had to go around a hill. This caused the two units to overlap each other. Result: they lost half of their number. By friendly fire. One guy even managed to shoot his general in the head from just behind him

[The Hun]

Yes archers are so good they even can kill themselves

[Sword]

Every time I play a faction without archers, I end up missing them 5 turns into the game. I just attribute it to my severe case of Agincourt syndrome.

Yep, then after those 5 turns, I always find one of my generals on a boat heading to crete.


I've attacked an all Phalanx Macedonian army of around 15 units. They just sat there while 2 units of Cretain archers reduced each and every one of those 15 units to less than 10 men, one unit at a time.

For some reason, the Macedonians chose this moment to run to my lines, got half way, turned round and routed off.

and there was me, a bit nervouse as to wheather i'd win or not when the battle started.

[Spino]

Archers? Sure, especially if you're controlling a faction that lacks well armored, decent infantry and/or cavalry. It's obvious CA incorporated these ridiculously overpowered elite archer units to offset the heavy infantry of Roman, Greek and Carthaginian cultural factions.

On the whole I think archer units are overpowered in RTW. In fact, they are so overpowered that I find it hard to resist using them even when I don't need them! I am getting surprising if not crazy kill ratios with basic archer units in RTW, a stark contrast to the kill ratios I got with the average archer unit in MTW. Not that you couldn't have archers wreak havoc on the enemy in MTW but the results could vary wildly between battles and depended heavily on the types of archer units involved. It also doesn't help that the tactical AI in RTW has a tendency to do nothing when being rained on by your missile troops for an extended period of time. At least in MTW the AI would try to prevent attrition losses caused by missiles by closing the distance and rushing your main line.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Doug-Thompson, yeah that si pretty much it.

[warlordmb]

The other thing that units in MTW did when under missile fire was open into loose formation. That doesn't happen in RTW unless it is a skirmisher unit under fire.

Maybe CA should incorporate this in the next patch.

I still believe that archer unit sizes should be reduced, again as in MTW.

There would be certain exceptions such as the Parthians who were totally reliant on Cav and HA.

So, Infantry/Archer would be:-

Standard 40/30
Large 80/60
Huge 120/90

Anybody else agree???

[Satyr]

I am starting to think that it isn't so much that archers are over powered, just that they have too many arrows. This is even more the case for a civ like the Parthians or Armenians that rely on cav archers. I am currently playing an Armenian campaign and if I go into battle with all cav archers in roughly equal number of companies as the enemy I can just decimate them with very few losses. I never run out of ammo so I never need to engage the enemy in melee. I think if all archers had about the same ammo as peltasts do then this would be different and more realistic. Then I could soften the enemy up and maybe with concentrated fire I could eliminate a few choice companies, but ultimately I would have to engage in melee to win. This is probably how it should be and it is how MTW was.

[Warlock]

Archery is fine.

Forester Riflemen are exceptional (smith + 2 * temple = missile 22!). Legolas doesn't appear to be in the unit.

Thankfully none of the hovertank factions have missile temples.