archers who needs them :)

[Doug-Thompson]

The Hun, I will admit that I have some trouble against horse archer based armies, however, I have won significantly more than lost against them, because the light cavalry can pincer the horse archers and force them into melee. While the infantry is safely screened by some of my own archers and the light cavalry. You are right that they are annoying, but they never decimate me. Another thing to note the factions that are dependant on horse archers have horrible infantry and are thus horrible at taking cities. This is where my most decisive battles are fought, the horse archers only shine in giant set piece battles fought on relatively unbroken terrain.

True, there is no such thing as a good one-unit army, but most of the points made here are only true when fighting AI-controlled HA.

The points about sieges and flat, open terrain are not true.

Light cavalry aren't nearly as effective as they used to be in M:TW. A few good Saharan Cavalry in M:TW and you didn't have to worry about HA much, unless they were Szekely or something.

Foot archers aren't nearly as effective against HA as they were in M:TW either. In fact, I'm inclined to agree with my infantry-loving counterparts that foot archers aren't nearly as effective against HA as they need to be. And that's before you take Cantabrian circle into account, which makes HA virtually immune to foot archers.

I do wonder what effect, if any, fire arrows have on HA. Early, vanilla HA have rather skittish morale.

The only "faction that is dependent on horse archers" that is a regular, playable faction are the Parthians. They may have "horrible" infantry, but they also have cataphracts.

Sap a wall that's facing a good, clear boulevard to the city's central plaza. Run the cataphracts through the breach at a gallop. The heavily armored, relatively fast-moving cataphracts will take very few losses from towers. If the enemy has spears or axe units, take some Persian Cavalry with you.

Even better -- spies. Besiege a city. If the spy doesn't have the gates open, maintain the siege. Attack again next turn. The gates could well be open.

Say a spy has only a 24 percent chance of opening the gates on any given turn. That translates into a 42 percent chance that the gates will be open during one of the first two turns of the siege.

Finally, none of this takes into account the huge advantage that HA armies have on the strategic map. The plain truth is that, if you survive the opening moves as the Parthians, slower-moving infantry formations are virtually at the mercy of HA-based armies with a half-way decent spy network.

I've won three battles against two different factions in one turn with one HA-based army before. Thank goodness Parthians get to reload after each battle.