Quote Originally Posted by machinor View Post
Battles lasting longer has more to do with lowered lethality of the various weapons. EB aims for historical accuracy in battles and in antiquity archers would not fight heavy infantry but missle troops and unarmoured skirmishers. That battlefield role they accomplish rather good. There is a historical reason, why in the Western Mediterranian there was not very much of an sophisticated archery tradition: in the West infantry tended to be better armoured (talking about Italy, Greece and Gaulk to a certain extent) and thus not that vulnerable to archers. Different combat doctrine.
Sorry, but that isn't really accurate in game terms (while I agree with the historical notes). If you look at RTW base files, you'll find EB "equiv" units have on average 2 or 3 times the Defence of those. Some of the weapons have lower attack, but most actually are higher. Its the extra armor, defence and higher morales that are really responsible for longer battles.

An average Archer in RTW is 7 missile attack (Elites are up to 11). In EB, Archers are generally around 3 missile attack. Because even Skirmishers have (compared to RTW) pretty decent armor/ and or shield/defence, Archers even struggle relatively vs them. If the point was to make Archers ineffective vs most units, then its been accomplished, with venom. I just think they've been pushed too far to the side of becoming useless.