Quote Originally Posted by mrtwisties
If you do that consistently, even when successful you'll wear down your stock of horse archers. That's fine if you're fighting on the steppe - they're cheap troops and easily replaced. But if you're fighting in the Peloponnese you'll need all of your men for the fighting on the way back out (unless you leave by boat, of course).

There are other solutions. But the main point here is that horse archers can't harass the enemy and withdraw in good order to harass again shortly thereafter, which is something that they do appear to have done historically.



I just don't know how important the tactic was (ie whether you could wipe out entire armies with it), and whether it therefore ought to be modelled by EB. But if it happened all the time, perhaps horse archer ammunition could be increased as a way of modelling the phenomenon?

Well, with proper micromanagement, charging and recharging enemy formations after you've run out of arrows results in minimum casualties. (ie in the strange battle formation, my 19 horse archer + 1 general and also another 17 unit horse archer + 2 dacian heavy cavlary merc + 1 general won various victories with less than 30 casualties per battle).

I mean, even horse archer armies would eventually lose troops, and you always have the option of hiring mercenaries.