So you want to create a unit that is better in melee, than the designated melee unit. In addition it got good ranged abilities aswell as extra perk? If you want them to be good in melee (heavy archers) you need to reduce their ammunition significantly. 40 arrows is just an insane amount; which actually sums up to 80 arrows in a round, do you want to try to kill a whole army?
None of the maps is particular clever designed, the space must be really confined for the bannerlord cav to be bad. Maybe it worked out to balance cav over maps in warband, but it doesnt anymore in bannerlord. Most maps in bannerlord actually favor cavalry aswell, on one map its impossible to play archer; there are simple no safezones from couches so its full cav+flag pullers. Full infantry isnt even playable because cav can cap flags far quicker. I dont know how you would want to balance archers over maps in regards to archer vs infantry?
Just test running ingame, if you play a melee unit with a heavy shield then good luck catching up to an archer.
Well, obviously we agree that a "super unit" shouldn't exist. When we talk about units balancing we also need to put whole faction balance into context. In this sense, I'm not against making a archer better in melee than their own faction melee unit, IF the whole faction is balanced in that way. Like, veteran being better than tribal warrior in melee is totally fine with me, because the whole faction is designed to have weaker and cheaper specialist infantry with a good all-rounder heavy archer. It's not like the veteran is somehow better than other faction's heavy infantries in melee. Though I agree many parameters could be tweaked a bit, like arrow counts and movement speed. My point is there's nothing inherently wrong with archer running faster than infantry. In fact, most light infantries do run faster than archers, it's the heavy ones that run slower than archer, which I think is totally fine. They are not suppose to chase archers anyway.
However, in order for all of the above to work we need map designs to consider these. I do agree with you that most skirmish maps are poorly designed in this regard. All of them have complicated terrain and objects features in between flags, while the object areas themselves are really open. This is just the total opposite of what I would do. The classic dust 2 map from Counter Strike is a good example here: all the long corridors that suites long range weapons are on the way to the objectives not on the objectives themselves. Sniper is excellent during skirmishing phase and provide support, but ultimately one side needs "assault units" to push through and fight for the bomb points. I haven't played CS for ages but when I was still watching the games like 10 years ago, in a tense late game 1 v 1, players would often drop sniper rifle for a assault rifle.
The same logic applies here, the ideal map should allow the archers/skirmisher to sufficiently impact the outcome of the match during the approach phase by "skirmishing", but the flag area should be designed in a way to force melee. Right now, there's no "skirmish phase", the main fight IS the skirmish shoot out. It's not like we don't have those kind of areas on the map, it's just they are nowhere near the flag. We have plenty covers for the shooters but nothing for the units who are getting shot, which is just bizarre at best. The maps we have right now force melee units to chase archers into building complexes, it should be the other way around: the archer should be compelled by the objective timer to push into the building complex. For example, the A flag on the desert map, if you move the flag to the edge of the platform (the side without a ramp) rather than let it sit in the middle, the area become instantly more melee friendly. Right now an archer sit at one edge of the platform can cover BOTH the flag and the approach to it, which is just unacceptable.
Of course I'm just talking about range vs melee here. The balance between horse and foot need another post to rant.
