v 1.2 Macedonian Peltastai (Elite): assault role must be a joke, right?

[The Celtic Viking]

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.

I'm afraid he's correct here. Lethality is not the same as the attack, it's two different things. Attack is how likely a strike is to hit, and lethality is how likely a hit is to kill the target (when it fails, soldiers are just knocked down). In vanilla RTW the lethality was 1 for all weapons - in EB only the missile weapons have that, and that's because of hardcoded limits. The others all have much less than that - and that's the main reason for longer battles, along with a much improved morale.

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.

They have not become useless, you just can't put them against armoured enemies. The attack for missiles have been put low because the missiles' lethality can't be changed. A higher attack would make them overpowered, as they already are after gaining a little experience.