any way to upgrade arrows in the game?

[Vilkku92]

Personally I think Archers are fine: otherwise HAs would be FAR to OP, the gap between Slingers Archers may be a bit too wide but with those puny bows it's rather clear that they don't to too much damage to guys with armor. Hollywood kinda overrates archers in close to all movies, with the piercing you see in most movies you'd think that Archers must have been the predominant part in every army but infact it's "heavy" Infantry for most, simply as spears and swords proved to be more efficient.
In many Armies bows were exclusive to bunches of highly irregular unarmored "peasants"(or slaves etc) who could aswell have a sling, javelin or a crude rock for throwing.^^

The Phalanx shield is a bit high tho, I still play with it, simply because otherwise Pike vs HA battles are either far too difficult or far to easy, depending on who you play as.

Alltough Hollywood does overrate archers in their movies (Crude orc-made arrows fired from short bows penetrating mithril plate at ease, and that's just the first one I remembered!), the main reason archers were not predominant part of every army was the incredibly long time it takes to actually train a competent archer, especially comparing that to the time it takes to train a competent spearman. Since most soldiers in ancient armies weren't ecxactly professionals who had years of time to train using bows in warfare, they had to make them into "heavy" infantry. Also in many cultures (especially western europe) bow was seen as a cowardly weapon not suitable for a true warrior, so most people would just take a spear or a sword and go toe-to-toe with foes worthy of True Men. When those armies actually consisted mostly of archers, they would most of the time be highly succesful against melee-oriented foes, like the Persians, Mongols and English have shown us.

Besides, it's more economical to use the Irish! Arrows cost money. The dead cost nothing.

[moonburn]

Alltough Hollywood does overrate archers in their movies (Crude orc-made arrows fired from short bows penetrating mithril plate at ease, and that's just the first one I remembered!), the main reason archers were not predominant part of every army was the incredibly long time it takes to actually train a competent archer, especially comparing that to the time it takes to train a competent spearman. Since most soldiers in ancient armies weren't ecxactly professionals who had years of time to train using bows in warfare, they had to make them into "heavy" infantry. Also in many cultures (especially western europe) bow was seen as a cowardly weapon not suitable for a true warrior, so most people would just take a spear or a sword and go toe-to-toe with foes worthy of True Men. When those armies actually consisted mostly of archers, they would most of the time be highly succesful against melee-oriented foes, like the Persians, Mongols and English have shown us.

Besides, it's more economical to use the Irish! Arrows cost money. The dead cost nothing.

actually depends on the culture the vikings (meaning raiders in norse altough people continue to just call all norseman vikings ) didn´t gave a crap about wich weapon they fighted with aslong as it helped them get the biggest pay for the least effort and they fighted romans (eastern roman empire) germans (holy roman empire) saxons, steppes nomads, turks persians and whoever had booty for their sparsly populated and poor land

altough given that they where extrelmy proefecient with the use of the batle axe so they too sported the famous up close and personal philosophy of their time that that was the honourable way to kill and die still another reason for the uselessness of archers is the geography of the places where they where being used europe was still very much forested and their use in in a densly forested enviroment is too limited (steppes and desertic enviroments like the midle they where usefull ) they where also usefull in walls either made of stone or made of wood (ships) so if you check their availability in the recruitment viwer you can see where you have the best or just more archers available


in broken terrain like that of italy or iberia it was just more usefull to give the men a few javelins

also take into consideration that what we call today an army and what was considered an army back then are 2 diferent things they didn´t deployed in the batlefield so the archers could just shoot at them most of those armies where nothing more then mobs using the top of the hill advantage or hiding to make an ambush they had very few "veterans" wich is what we can compare with what a soldier should be and even then those veterans would probably just be catle raiders

i advice you a documentary about the pokot tribe of ethiopia or quenia wich is a nice window into how those societies really where back then

nothing against archers i use them extensvly in my games to bring down light or even medium cavalry and to forçe the opponent to make mistakes wich i can then take advantage of with my fast thureporoi by shooting them from many sides

but they aint the yeomen of the midle ages so use them in their role and let the slingers and javelinman do their role and you can´t go wrong

[Cadwalader]

Iron age Norsemen did use missiles in naval battles. And in The Legendary Saga of St. Olaf Snorri describes a typical shield wall in the battle of Stiklestad (although he is not a contemporary source, writing in the 13th century); the ones in front used cut (with swords and axes) the ones behind used spears, and the other ranks threw spears and shot arrows into the enemy ranks.

[Atraphoenix]

Experience is only way to improve it. It does improve the accuracy of arrow shooting. So never disband your EXP archers and retrain them.