Hey

[Rome:Total Slayer]

just wondering what army supples the best archer/cavalry combo

[KukriKhan]

We'll let the R:TW experts answer that one; follow me...

edit: ...to the Colosseum. :)

[YAKOBU]

Hi Rome: Total Slayer

I've not played RTW in a short while and have a message on here that I have not posted for a while either. Good idea from the admin that one .

So I suppose I best post something.

The 2 factions for me are:
Romans have Archer Auxilia and Praetorian Cavalry.
Germania have Chosen Archer Warband and Gothic Cavalry.

It does depend on whether you mean pure archers and pure cavalry as including Cataphract archers or Elephant archers may alter my choice.

Strangeley enough the 2 main factions I have played are the 2 I have given as the best

[Slug For A Butt]

Yup, I agree. Germania for me. Archer warbands can kill a hell of a lot of Romans before they reach you ( or they used to ;) ). And Gothic cav is nice, I just find it takes too long to get the best cav the Romans can offer.

[Nelson]

German chosen archers are excellent troops. Any unit that can fire AND melee effectively is a potent force.

[Zalmoxis]

Are we talking about BI or normal?

[Haudegen]

I´d say we´re talking about normal RTW, at least I am ;)

Egypt has a powerful combo, too. The Pharoh´s Bowmen have one of the best ranged attacks and in melee they can defend themselves against almost any infantry. I used an army with a battleline of 10+ PB´s very efficiently. Desert cavalry is fast, cheap and easily retrainable. Use a few of them for flanking. Other Egyptian cavalry isn´t that much better.

[Watchman]

Scythia (which requires a minor edit to play) gets the same Chosen Archers as most of the other barbarians and some serious cavalry, as is appropriate for the resident steppe-nomad faction.

[SirGrotius]

I've found the German Chosen Archers effective in even BI , at least they panick enemies a lot. Don't expect to kill Romans with them, though.

Just panick your enemy with flaming arrows from your Chosen Archers and then have your Beserkers war cry and charge in. It's a lot of fun, really.

[teja]

Just to add a few points:

Macedonia has one of the very best cavalry and some nice archers.
The Seleucids have a very strong cavalry, including elephants and kathaphracts. They also own normal archers.
Parthia is very good in cavalry of all shapes. Too bad their infantry is a mess.

If you like great cavalry and good archers, you should play BI expansion pack. Related to the fall of the roman empire by moving hordes of mostly mounted barbarian tribes, you will find outstanding cavalry here.
All the nomad steppe fractions have light mounted archers which can do a good rain of arrows against anybody and are nice in pursuiting enemy units. But don't try to attack when the enemy is not weaken. You may compare them with Scythian mercenaries of vanilla RTW.
Any steppe fraction also has lancers, in parts similar to macedonian lancers but with better performance. They are fast and do a lot of damage in their first contact. If you don't break through with that it is better to pull them back and make another full scale assault.
Noble cavalry is always good as a shock-cavalry and there are many.
Also a great bonus for any eastern fraction including Sassanids and Eastern Roman Empire are foot archers with composite bows. They fire over longer distances than any western archer and perform outstanding!
The Sassanids are the heirs of the Parthians and can use most of their best cavalry units. Their heavy cavalry is maybe the best regular cavalry you can find in this game. While good armoured, equipped with maces, they can also use strong bows to fire missles. They are nothing less but outstanding!

[Razor1952]

Playing Vandals at present and their foot archers and horse archers rule. They then have great cavalry , you can use their warlords @160 only upkeep very cheap or their mounted nobles a full sized unit with ~200 upkeep. I love using generals(warlords) as they just regenerate .

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Not to mention Merc Graal Knights. Those guys are insane.

The one thing that bothered me about BI was the homogenity of the cavalry. They all have swords and 10 attack 22 defence. At least in RTW there was a difference between factions.

[Garvanko]

Yeah, BI has great Archer/Cav combinations with many of the factions.

With RTW specifically, Bowmen and Desert Cav. They will break you.

[antisocialmunky]

Cav/Archer Combo?

RTW Parthians have HA Cataphracts and regular Cataphracts. In AOE3 terms: OP wthpwn.