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Archers in Bannerlord Versus Archers in Warband
- Thread starter Thistle
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Then the entire premise of your test is flawed with cherry-picked elements to get your preselected outcome.
There was another, longer, "archers are OP" thread where people were getting wildly divergent results from the same setups, stuff like cavalry overrunning the best archers in the game with only a few casualties vs the cavalry being slaughtered en masse with only a few kills to their name. Polar opposites in other words.
I don't know why it happens.
You picked the best archers against mid-tier infantry. If you want an accurate test, either compare mid-tier archers against mid-tier infantry or compare the Heroes against a noble infantry tier like the Mamalukes.
If you don't want an accurate test, that's fine. But don't at like it proves that archers are OP.
I don't think blanket statements one way or the other are accurate or helpful. I also don't think custom battle tests are a very good measure of what you would see in a regular campaign battle. People are going to see what they want to see from these tests and their own experiences.
Archers have strengths and weaknesses, just like every other troop. They are at their best when they're on a flat open map (or on a hill) with unobstructed sightlines. They're great vs unshielded troops and less so vs shielded infantry. However, in my experience, foot and horse archers output damage like nothing else, and are extremely strong (if not overpowered) against most enemy party compositions the game will throw at you. They also have the advantage of always forcing the enemy to engage you, as well as causing steep morale losses during the enemy's approach.
The optimal party composition is probably not 100% archers, but archers will still probably be the heavy majority in whatever the strongest party looks like. There aren't many scenarios where they perform much worse than another type of troop. You're also more likely to be able to maintain large numbers of top tier archers better than other troop types because they usually end an engagement without getting into prolonged melee combat and suffering many losses.
The differences between the various faction troops and enemy party compositions will obviously have an affect on the outcomes you'll see as well.
Here are some tests from a regular singleplayer campaign. I used console commands to add troops to my party and cheat mode to lift the fog of war and teleport around to find battles. I used 126 troops in my own party just because that was my party capacity at the time. These tests aren't meant to be totally conclusive, just show how powerful archers are with respect to typical party compositions. Everything is on max difficulty.
All of the above battles are the outcomes of just one try a piece. Archers were put on loose formation and told to face the main enemy force. I charged them if the enemy got into melee range.
Here is the first party I wasn't able to beat with just T3 Imperial Trained Archers, so I bumped up the tier to match what the enemy had. I also tried the same battle with Imperial Legionaries as a contrast. I was only able to win one time out of about 7 or 8 tries with the Legionaries (so what you see is their best performance), but won first try with the Palantine Guards.
Here's another party I was just barely unable to beat with T3 archers, but beat with T4 archers. I also tried with T3, T4 and T5 Imperial infantry. As it turns out, Triarii are really strong T4 infantry.
I didn't try any Vlandian or Khuzait battles simply because I wasn't at war with them at the time. Vlandia probably wouldn't be much different from the results you see above, but Khuzait would proably give you a much harder time due to the high percentage of cav archers they carry. If you're going to do tests I would suggest doing them this way, as they're a more true-to-life representation of the game than custom battles with uniform enemy troops.
Archers have strengths and weaknesses, just like every other troop. They are at their best when they're on a flat open map (or on a hill) with unobstructed sightlines. They're great vs unshielded troops and less so vs shielded infantry. However, in my experience, foot and horse archers output damage like nothing else, and are extremely strong (if not overpowered) against most enemy party compositions the game will throw at you. They also have the advantage of always forcing the enemy to engage you, as well as causing steep morale losses during the enemy's approach.
The optimal party composition is probably not 100% archers, but archers will still probably be the heavy majority in whatever the strongest party looks like. There aren't many scenarios where they perform much worse than another type of troop. You're also more likely to be able to maintain large numbers of top tier archers better than other troop types because they usually end an engagement without getting into prolonged melee combat and suffering many losses.
The differences between the various faction troops and enemy party compositions will obviously have an affect on the outcomes you'll see as well.
Here are some tests from a regular singleplayer campaign. I used console commands to add troops to my party and cheat mode to lift the fog of war and teleport around to find battles. I used 126 troops in my own party just because that was my party capacity at the time. These tests aren't meant to be totally conclusive, just show how powerful archers are with respect to typical party compositions. Everything is on max difficulty.
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Here is the first party I wasn't able to beat with just T3 Imperial Trained Archers, so I bumped up the tier to match what the enemy had. I also tried the same battle with Imperial Legionaries as a contrast. I was only able to win one time out of about 7 or 8 tries with the Legionaries (so what you see is their best performance), but won first try with the Palantine Guards.
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HalfMetalJacket
Knight
Frankly I hope a noble unit feels OP. Wouldn't be worth the trouble getting them otherwise.
Maybe with the shields and AI.
You think that professional archers can't kill other soldiers?
What would the point of ranged weapons if they couldn't?
Infantry was always a liability in Warband. They're for leaving in garrisons. Everything else is better in warband with with ranged and Cav.
If it was my units in your video the inf wouldn't have even made it to melee range.
Infantry is bad, always has been, always will be.
I find this to be a reasonably good assessment of how they are.
Right now I'm running about 40% archers 40% infantry and 20% cavalry. The vast majority of the kills come from my ranged units. Infantry are pretty much used as tactical walls to stop their front line from reaching my archers and my heavy cavalry is used as a mobile deterrent and occasionally for tactical strikes to stuff like enemy archers that are sheltered from mine.
HalfMetalJacket
Knight
If you hate archers that much OP, may I recommend the Realistic Battle mod? At its default, it damn near nullifies archers.
Thistle
Veteran
I'll try it out ty
You lost 130+ noble troops against pretty run of the mill average infantry. That is really, really bad for you cost wise. Your noble army is diminished to mediocrity and you have to go home hiring again for quite some time to get back high tier numbers. Besides the small fact that your "archers" are melee shock troops with better armor and stats than the infantry.
Like any game there is a bit of rock, paper, scissor going on. Archers get heavily disrupted by cavalry, and they are more effective against infantry than they should (at least the armored, shield bearing kind). The main problem is the sweet spot of making them worthwhile so they do not feel useless vs. them being easily too effective because the enemy needs to reach them first.
I don't know what OP did wrong tactically, but you can do much better than 200 kills to 130 deaths:
You can also do much better with just run of the mill archers:
You also want to try Viking Conquest and/or Brytenwalda for Warband, I think they will fit well with what you want.
To be fair, in the Warband video OP used Vaegir archers, which are the GOAT archers of Warband. Despite being the best, they still got clapped (as they should).
I second the notion that ranged is OP in Bannerlord. The extent of how OP they are is up to debate. But if anyone thinks archers are perfectly balanced then I'm sorry, but you're sipping the kool-aid.
I second the notion that ranged is OP in Bannerlord. The extent of how OP they are is up to debate. But if anyone thinks archers are perfectly balanced then I'm sorry, but you're sipping the kool-aid.
Thistle
Veteran
Yes we need toI don't know what OP did wrong tactically, but you can do much better than 200 kills to 130 deaths:
You can also do much better with just run of the mill archers:
I liked VC but it seemed a little broken.
Thistle
Veteran
Thanks, nicely put.
Thistle
Veteran
Yeah you have to take into account that I am a big khnub.I don't know what OP did wrong tactically, but you can do much better than 200 kills to 130 deaths:
You can also do much better with just run of the mill archers:
Bug-wise, it is only a bit worse than native Warband, and quite a it better (considering the features it adds) than most major overhaul mods.
But if you are referring to balancing, it is important to realize that the developers decided shieldwall combat should be first and foremost. So all the points of balance are arrayed around that. Relatively weak archers, very squishy and rare cavalry, limited ("focused" if you want to be nice about it) troop trees, with an exceptionally homogeneous weapon selection (there is like a single two-hander in the whole game).
The results speaks for themselves though and it is a fine game now.
Dabos37
Sergeant Knight at Arms
Archers are insanely OP in this game. And it is not just about nobles... The main problem is that archers units usually do a lot of headshots while at the same time, infantry AI is not good at all at using shields to block incoming arrows. Archers are too accurate in this game and it is not just for Fianns.
I have the feeling that it is currently in this way because siege AI is not good enough and OP archers are currently necessary to make sieges harder for the player.
I have the feeling that it is currently in this way because siege AI is not good enough and OP archers are currently necessary to make sieges harder for the player.
