Archers

[Cheetah]

Archers are atm not competitive enough. They cannot beat pavise xbows head on (which was the case in MTW too though), however it seems that they cannot hurt inf enough to make them worth to buy.

What would you do to make them more appealing? Obviously there are a number of options:
- decrease their price
- increase their range
- increase their ranged attack
- give them more ammo
- increase their armour

If it were upto me I would do only one thing at a time, so atm I would decrease their cost in a 70-120 florins range.

[YellowMelon]

I think we have to realize that this is an era where archers are becoming less important and xbows are becoming prominent. perhaps raise the price of crossbows instead, I mean there are expensive archers that are useless. Bows and Arrows are not costly hence why armies used them to levy armies of bow.

[RtkBedivere]

historically the main difference between xbows and archers was that an xbow takes longer to reload and shoot. I think seeing more of a difference in the fire rate would be the most correct change that would shorten the gap between the units some.

[Goalie]

I agree on the point that archers are a bit too expensive and lowering the price would be nice. Although I think crossbows should be left alone when it comes to price. Any unit of crossbowen, even peasant crossbows can be very effective against armour. However they are still slow to reload and in my opinion it should take even longer to reload.
I myself prefer the longbow. It is deadly to almost any unit, even pavise xbows, I find myself playing with the english quite a bit just for longbowmen. However I think that their rate of fire should be increased. I believe i read somewhere that English Longbows could fire a volley every 4 to 5 seconds on average and sometimes even down to 3 seconds. Well that is my case for longbowmen, but for other archers, I tend to agree that they are almost useless because they are expensive and ineffective due to the crossbow. So in conclusion, I too think that the reload time on xbows should be slowed down and the rate of fire for longbowmen at least, and most likely other normal archers should be increased.

[Monarch]

I agree with Melon ( ) :P

I think putting up the price of the xbows could be good. I mean they beat any other archers and you've even got those Genoese who can hold their ground in melee. They're pretty elite imo. Less pavise (not general xbows, they're fine imo) makes archers all of a sudden alot more useful.

Higher reload speeds would also be interesting. Because the main thing atm is many archers arn't good vs armour so for instance as poland theres not point getting, I think they're dismuonted lithuanian archers, when you can get militia xbows who are cheaper and more effective (due to being good vs armour).

[RTKMercurius]

The real problem with missiles is that they are just too ineffective for the money, compared to melee....comparing xbows to archers is really low on my list of concerns, but, yes, there is no point taking archers if you can take xbows, for the money.

The main problem is that all missiles are too expensive and too inneffective to deter rush strats. For the money, you get very little results... and even those units that are supposed to be dual use have very low melee stats for the cost, and missiles that won't kill much ever...

The range is too short, the rate of fire is too slow, the power is insubstantial, and the price is too high... maybe a longer range and lower cost would create balance...maybe small changes in each...

Pavise xbows get 12-14 missile attack, with AP and they're still not preferable to a light cav unit in overal potency... as melee units they'll get beat by almost anything costing above 300 florins, etc. etc....