[Captain mode] Archers have no counter

Users who are viewing this thread

I think really the crux of this problem is new players not understanding that they should not be advancing in Shieldwall/Square formations.
I don't blame them really, it does seem intuitive, and at one point it was the way to go.
At this stage however, the only really valid way to close the distance with Archers it to take a heavy inf, throw imp armor on it, go into loose formation and just rush. Your troops do actually block for a few moments after they've been shot, and the archers normally break and run well before you actually close.
 
Current version of the game e1.5.5 archers in captain mode have no counter, people are just spamming them, not even cav can do anything against them, before it was shield infantry the perfect counter for archers but now they are worthless, slower than a snail, they are in a sad spot right now. I have some suggestions to fix this balance problem:

*Make archers slower.

*Remove two handed weapons to archers, they can kill in one or two shot in melee the best infantry units.

*If you don't want to make shield infantry fast and able to do something against archers, then why not use Skirmishers? at the moment they have no role the battles right now, they are worthless in captain mode, I suggest them to make them a perfect counter to archers, keeping their shields and faster run speed, remove snail walk while shieldwall on them, make javs stronger and usefull.

Thats all I can think for now.
The only thing I can agree with you on, is that the current version of the archers need to be balanced!

*Make archers about 5% faster movement speed.

*And raise hit rate with about 10%.

*With other words: Just bring 1.4.x archers back!

And cav is the real counter to archers.. But not alone. That's why archers are so important in cap mode. They force players to work together and have a tactic xD
 
Your troops do actually block for a few moments after they've been shot, and the archers normally break and run well before you actually close.
This is super important for people to know, your shields will block arrows enough in line formation to get into range without taking many deaths... Over long distances adding occasional wall formations as the arrow fire intensifies is good, but primarily in line or loose will get your guys into range. Shield wall is really extremely powerful for using choke points and also hunkering down while you wait for your army to catch up on a charge.. but not for leading your army in a charge into arrows
 
The removal was good in my book. Archers are weak versus CAV. To give them a weapon to nullify this weakness would make them a broken unit. Rambo Cav is NO problem, if one of the infantry players knows about it, takes a spear and protects his team archers versus gung-ho-style maniacs.
Worked often enough for me. Sometimes I got one on my chin, but this was for the team. And often enough I simply speared them from their mount (or speared their mount and have them mauled after that). Archers should be weak versus cav or in general: melee but still need inf to operate right.
 
The removal was good in my book. Archers are weak versus CAV. To give them a weapon to nullify this weakness would make them a broken unit. Rambo Cav is NO problem, if one of the infantry players knows about it, takes a spear and protects his team archers versus gung-ho-style maniacs.
Worked often enough for me. Sometimes I got one on my chin, but this was for the team. And often enough I simply speared them from their mount (or speared their mount and have them mauled after that). Archers should be weak versus cav or in general: melee but still need inf to operate right.
Agreed. Archers should get trashed by cavalry. In the great Scissor-Paper-Stone of bannerlord; Cavalry is the stone to the archer scissors.

Rambo cavalry is it's own issue which should be dealt with separately.
 
Wait do people actually think archers are viable?

We ran a tournament that banned cav, forced teams to play archers, and archers were still useless. They were best used to just rush in with the infantry because that was the most useful thing that they could do.

You have to have an entire team of experienced players in voice chat, running a dedicated archer comp on the largest map in the game, and have zero cav on the enemy team to make them semi-viable.

Thinking archers are good is an extremely bad take.
 
If the enemy team is competent at all, archers are gonna do nothing to you. One cav rambo can nullify the archers completely, taking a whole unit out of the fight, while having their bots join the infantry fight with the inf blob. If a spear player hangs next to the archer, that's one more unit out of the melee fight. If the whole team hangs around the archers, the archers are not gonna be able to get shots off properly, and the team is just going into melee with what is now basically just a weaker melee class.
 
Just played
4 archers 1 oath and 1 clan warrior VS 5 oath and 1 clan warrior

7yA5Mha.png
 
If the team of archers is able to control the pace of the fight by not rushing towards the enemy, choosing a good spot with lots of space and not many obstacles, keep each group of archers with opposing angles and most importantly being prepared to retreat EARLY while others can continue to fire from other angles.. Then archers can be devastating.

Of course if infantry are pressing relentlessly on archers who are all in close proximity to each other... Then it's a bad day to be an archer.

That dessert map and the newer cliffs map offer some amazing Archer setups spots. Having 1 or 2 fast moving infantry units or cavalry units to slow down an enemy charge or act as a decoy can be very effective in buying enough time to seriously hurt the enemy with arrows

If the enemy has cav absolutely you need to defend your archers with spearmen (if their cav player knows what they are doing) this does take a unit out of the main fight to do this (as someone pointed out above), but at that point the team strategy should be all about delaying the infantry v infantry fight as long as possible and getting your archers into an advantageous position.

I think one of the biggest things that needs to be considered is... It is easy to work together with an all infantry setup... And hard to coordinate archers. But as soon as you can get arrows working towards the same goal, considering each other's position and baiting the enemy into the position you want them to be... Then archers can be extremely powerful.

Keeping your archers position fairly hidden until your ready to release hell is also a great way of maximising their potential. Showing your hand early can spell early defeat for arrows if your not in a protected or distant position. However contrary to this would be using one unit of archers as bait.. try and get the enemy army to move towards the unit that l like an easy kill and then revealing the position of your other team mates to the enemy in the form of raining arrows.
 
Problem with archers is that you need the other players to actively play into their strengths. Half the time I see archers in random matchups some inf player will either just rush as normal or "protect them" by making a shield wall right into their face.

Archers are still quite easily played by shields and you can even successfully charge as they need a significant minimum distance to deal enough damage during you walking time.
 
@Wayne2077 I'm confused, is 22 kills against randoms supposed to prove your point in some way? For an uncontested archer, 22 kills is lower than normal. I've gotten 40+ kills in a round on archer against randoms, because they ignore you and you can farm them. This was as solo queue. Some time ago during shock meta, Goldry and I both passed 150 kills on Druimmor on Fiann because the enemy was utterly incompetent (and so were our teammates).

For the second image: you played archers on the best map for archers against a faction that has terrible cav. That's the best possible condition to play archers, and is only going to occur when you happen to get a good kite faction against Battania on Jawwali and possibly Akkalat. On top of that, WoV is also a new team while KoV has been playing together for more than a year.
 
@.Brandis That's kind of a weird take on looking at that score board. Individual kills is circumstantial to so many things mate. Obviously what he is pointing out is 2 teams of competent players, One with lots of archers manages to beat the other team who definitely know how to shut down archers
(mex & co from WoV) so it's not about puffing his chest about individual kill counts, it's just showing a result based on the conversation we are having here between 2 teams with good players.

Every fight result is circumstantial really, depending on who makes what mistakes... Archers are very good if played right. Setting traps for the enemy is becoming an art.. catching the enemy in that trap is circumstantial.. Forcing them out of position with flags is circumstantial, but archers are certainly very viable if you can be bothered to communicate

I would disagree that your need a "good cav faction" to beat a team with archers.
 
Last edited:
@Wayne2077 I'm confused, is 22 kills against randoms supposed to prove your point in some way? For an uncontested archer, 22 kills is lower than normal. I've gotten 40+ kills in a round on archer against randoms, because they ignore you and you can farm them. This was as solo queue. Some time ago during shock meta, Goldry and I both passed 150 kills on Druimmor on Fiann because the enemy was utterly incompetent (and so were our teammates).

For the second image: you played archers on the best map for archers against a faction that has terrible cav. That's the best possible condition to play archers, and is only going to occur when you happen to get a good kite faction against Battania on Jawwali and possibly Akkalat. On top of that, WoV is also a new team while KoV has been playing together for more than a year.
Thanks for your response, but... archers are still extremely good.
I can post more screenshots with archers when we play KoV vs KoV or vs other stacked teams.
My rap is better than yours.



P.S. WoV is not a new team, they are playing since beta and some of them play Bannerlord 14h a day.
 
@.Brandis That's kind of a weird take on looking at that score board. Individual kills is circumstantial to so many things mate. Obviously what he is pointing out is 2 teams of competent players, One with lots of archers manages to beat the other team who definitely know how to shut down archers
(mex & co from WoV) so it's not about puffing his chest about individual kill counts, it's just showing a result based on the conversation we are having here between 2 teams with good players.

You're right, I shouldn't have focused on the kills aspect so much. The first screenshot is against randoms, which is basically useless. There's nothing more to say beyond that.

That said: supporting your presupposition with handpicked best-case-scenarios proves nothing.

The second screenshot has two variables benefiting archers heavily: the best map for archers against the faction with the worst cav. Assuming random maps/factions and that archer comp works on Akkalat+Jawwali against Battania, that's a 5.5% chance. Additionally, you can't be Sturgia or Vlandia, which don't kite very well, chopping that down to 3.3%. The example is the single best possibility to play archers, and it occurs 3.3% of the time.

If they played archer comps 10 matches in a row and won more than 5 there'd be an argument.

Thanks for your response, but... archers are still extremely good.
I can post more screenshots with archers when we play KoV vs KoV or vs other stacked teams.
My rap is better than yours.

P.S. WoV is not a new team, they are playing since beta and some of them play Bannerlord 14h a day.
If you posted every match where you played archers against a team, that would be useful.

I'm not a rapper.

On WoV, it's not intended to be a slight, if you're presenting data on something you need to mention every factor, and that one team is (most likely) better than another is a significant factor.

"Hey, Just wanted to say thx for the opportunity to play in the test games. We had great fun. We were hoping to win at least a round or two, winning a few matches vs such good teams, was very unexpected xD We are all looking forward to the actual tournament!" -- WoV

In their own words, KoV is a better team.
 
Last edited:
@Wayne2077 I'm confused, is 22 kills against randoms supposed to prove your point in some way? For an uncontested archer, 22 kills is lower than normal. I've gotten 40+ kills in a round on archer against randoms, because they ignore you and you can farm them. This was as solo queue. Some time ago during shock meta, Goldry and I both passed 150 kills on Druimmor on Fiann because the enemy was utterly incompetent (and so were our teammates).

For the second image: you played archers on the best map for archers against a faction that has terrible cav. That's the best possible condition to play archers, and is only going to occur when you happen to get a good kite faction against Battania on Jawwali and possibly Akkalat. On top of that, WoV is also a new team while KoV has been playing together for more than a year.
I agree, killing randoms proves nothing. I haven't played in 3+ months but from what I have gathered (from people opinions and watching game play) archers are as effective as they were before 1.5. Like @Ling* said, the four clans who have been apart of the tests haven't been committing to the archer strategy. I know banning cavalry was a **** idea at making archers better. Maybe Ling should make it so he calls the strategy for both teams and then it will be up to the team to decide how to make it work.
 
Back
Top Bottom