Archers performance in a nutshell:
- Broken and pretty OP since the release. Some SP and even MP guys were complaining. I posted some videos where archers performed infinitely better than cav and infantry units and were able to decimate x3 or x4 stronger AI armies.
- Patch 1.5.3 - Archers got a pretty big and deserved nerf but it was probably in a wrong way (they missed a lot of shoots if you tested them in 1v1 engagements) but the result was great and archers were pretty well balanced (in SP) in 1.5.3 and 1.5.4. On the other hand, captain mode players complained a lot about archers missing shots because shock infantry was overperforming and captain mode was pretty unbalanced.
- Patch 1.5.5 - Devs fixed the archers AI and made them OP again but at least they were not as broken as pre-1.5.3 patch. Some people started complaining about archers, even in multiplayer I have read people complaining about archers again.
- 1.5.5 Hotfix - Archers AI got improved again without giving any nerf for archers damage or reloading speed, so the result is archers broken again and vastly overperforming same tier cavalry and infantry units. Currently, 1 tier 5 archer is like x3 more effective than a tier 5 infantry/cavalry unit.
I just hope that this is a mistake and devs will deal with this issue, otherwise I am pretty much done with this game until I learn how to mod it effectively and fix this bad balancing for myself.