Archers need a nerf.

Arches OP?

  • Yes

    Votes: 82 27.9%
  • No

    Votes: 102 34.7%
  • Buff Armor instead

    Votes: 139 47.3%

  • Total voters
    294

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Wait, base game units derive no benefit from weapon stat changes?

From skill stats. And only for purpose of damage calculation. Meaning troop with 1 bow skill will do the same damage with the same bow and arrow as troop with 2000 skill. However later will be much more accurate.

Also stats fork on NPCs like companions and lords. It's just common soldiers where it does nothing.

Weapon stats DO work.
 
Unless they enabled/fixed thing in the last three weeks (ish?) since I tested, BasicCharacterObjects -- your unnamed masses of troops -- derive no benefit from weapon skills. None. Athletics works though, so you can watch looters move like Usain Bolt or similar but the weapon skills have no discernible impact.

I didn't believe it at first (but I was suspicious when fixing the Khuzait Heavy Lancer's stats had no real change on their performance) so I tested it myself and yup, didn't matter.
This is shocking and yet at the same time not surprising at all. With everything else that doesn't work, why wouldn't weapon skills be broken too?
 
Palatine guard are extremely easy to recruit on mass thanks to t2 availability.

It's as available as any other t5 unit. If you mean that Imperial t2 upgrade gets bow while Sturgian t2 gets javelins, that's makes very little practical difference. Imperial t2 might be easier and safer to level, but not by much. It certainly makes no difference once you level them.


They are also the most heavily armoured archer in the game, allowing them to trade better at range and more than take care of themselves in melee. You can't ignore these advantages.

Not anymore. Since 1.4.0 or 1.4.1 their armor was nerfed while Sturgian t5 armor was buffed. Besides, if you use your archers to trade arrows, then you are not using them very well. Ideally your archers should newer come under fire.

Battles also don't last long enough for quiver sizes to really matter either, so a lack of quiver doesn't mean as much as I'd like it to.

They actually do and it's very easy to deplete single stack. Which is why most, if not all foot archers in the game have two. With exception of Imperials.

And having done some experiments, I can assuredly tell you that no. Sturgian Archers have more arrows, but their arrows suck. I've done some tests and so far, they fail to impress.

Damage difference on Palatine Guard arrows is marginal. It's just +1 damage if I recall correctly.
 
This is shocking and yet at the same time not surprising at all. With everything else that doesn't work, why wouldn't weapon skills be broken too?

I might be wrong, but it might have been done on purpose. With hundreds of soldiers in the battle, you want all calculations that each does to be as simple as possible.
 
Nerf archers holy snap. cavalry chargers against an unprotected flank and charging into arches is suicide now.

what? What are you saying here? Cavalry archers charging into an unprotected flank into archers is suicide? Really?


cavalry units also get demolished by the, regular archers.

That depends entirely on how you charge you cavalry in, do you flank? Do you use them as the hammer that charges in when the enemy archers are distracted shooting at your shieldwall

I like to have a footman army so my cavalry is usually just my kamikaze force, I always put them far on the flank, have them march a bit forward and then just unleash them to distract and disrupt enemy formations charging my shieldwall. In my experience cavalry survives pretty well against everything even when I have them charge, wait a bit, tell them to go somewhere to reform them and then charge them in again and again and again I never lose as many as I expect. It's always infantry and arcehrs that die faster than I'd like to see

Looters being able to 360 noscope and deal 10 damage is insane when I have one of the best armor in the game
Admit it you tried to solo a whole bunch of looters didn't you?

In warband and really any medieval strat game like total war this is a viable strategy but arches are just able to destroy anything in there path.
What is a viable strategy? I don't see any strategy in your post thus far

Also normal cavalry needs better reach or something they have a hard time hitting stuff.
Stop expecting to solo everything from atop your horse



By the way your whining is how I imagine the French knights after the battle of the golden spurs complaining that mere peasants and city militia should not be able to deal damage and defeat de créme de la créme of chivalric knight armies even when this cavalry charges head on, through swampy territory and trampling their own footmen because they wanted what little glory there was to have from butchering lowly peasant and city militia only to be soundly beaten and killed en masse by said militia and peasant mob (because they weren't aware of the tradition of capturing and ransoming noble knights, the peasants just slew any french knight throwing down his sword)
 
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This is shocking and yet at the same time not surprising at all. With everything else that doesn't work, why wouldn't weapon skills be broken too?
Skill stats on soldiers do work just not as your chars but they define how npcs will perforf in battle,for example a rider with low rider skill will fall on trees,wont be able to avoid melees attack etc like if you have fight against steppe bandit you'll understand the big diff stats do.Dmgwise depends on weapons themselves alone.
 
I play archers and i dont think they are too powerfull, but there is two imprortant reasons why i rape anyone with my 100 palatine guards
1. Cavalry distracts my archers from desintegrating infantry well, but lords rarely has cavalry, and they use it like suicide squad, that attacks BEFORE all army
2. Lords army is 50% recruit ****, and they have no shields, and it makes them very vulnurable for archers
 
It's as available as any other t5 unit. If you mean that Imperial t2 upgrade gets bow while Sturgian t2 gets javelins, that's makes very little practical difference. Imperial t2 might be easier and safer to level, but not by much. It certainly makes no difference once you level them.
I beg to differ. T2 availability lets you get them en mass

Not anymore. Since 1.4.0 or 1.4.1 their armor was nerfed while Sturgian t5 armor was buffed. Besides, if you use your archers to trade arrows, then you are not using them very well. Ideally your archers should newer come under fire.
Sturgian Vet Bowman armour is still significantly behind Palatine guard armour. Everyone is still behind them. Their lack of shoulder armour does them no favours.

Meanwhile armour is still by far their biggest strength.

They actually do and it's very easy to deplete single stack. Which is why most, if not all foot archers in the game have two. With exception of Imperials.
I've seen archers pick arrows up to use them, so its not as if there's no way for them to cope. Its a weakness, but it doesn't ruin them.

Damage difference on Palatine Guard arrows is marginal. It's just +1 damage if I recall correctly.
Fair.
 
They seem to be a pain to recruit in large numbers in single player especially during a war.
Depends on where you recruit. In the empire they are t2 so its easy to get more. Because they are archers they die less and level faster. Outside of war farm Forest bandits who are a clear winners pick even upgrading to the best archers tier fians with castle upgrades or disciplinarian perk. Even without the perk or a castle Forest bandits are amazing.

I do hope you aren't suggesting they should remain this powerful simply because they aren't always easy to recruit. I mean I can fight an entire war 10-20 larger battles and lose like 10 archers total. Sometimes I take 2-3 losses and my numbers go up because I can recruit enemy archers.
 
This is shocking and yet at the same time not surprising at all. With everything else that doesn't work, why wouldn't weapon skills be broken too?

I'm not sure what you see as broken, or wether the mechanic is broken or working as intended. For me it would be RPG-nonsense, if a unit with higher stats would get more damage out of a given bow/crossbow. They should be more accurate, should be able to use stronger bows (so with more damage in the end, although it should be better more penetration only, if we had a bit realism …) and should be able to shoot/load faster. Maybe the system cannot work in this way however.
 
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2. Lords army is 50% recruit ****, and they have no shields, and it makes them very vulnurable for archers

Yeah, I think this desperately needs fixing. The most basic troops in history would get spear and shield (and helmet) before anything else, the recruits should really drop their swords instead. Even peasant levies afforded some basic kit because they knew how lethal it was not to have it and they did not want to die.
With towns you were fined or lose citizenship which implied you being part of the militia if you did not afford a specific set of arms and armor and did not have it maintained.

But regardless of history, giving them that would be important balance wise above anything else, only heavily armored guys can afford to ditch a shield and even then having one is better.
 
Archers fire way too quickly in the game. Trained longbowmen could fire roughly 15 arrows a minute IRL, whereas in the game they shoot about 24 arrows a minute, which is almost an arrow every two seconds and that is absurd. I think a good middle ground would be 18 arrows a minute, and you can bring crossbows down to 12 arrows a minute to provide a difference.

As for arrow damage I think it is just about right IMO, but would like to see crossbows get better armor penetration capability to make up for the ROF difference.

The main reason why archers own everything right now though (including cavalry) is because armor doesn't do enough. The armor value on all items should be roughly doubled, a peasant hitting a knight over the head with a cheap sword should do like 7 damage max. This change would also solve the problem of battles being too quick for tactical maneuvering and flanking to matter. I hate seeing a formation of 500 men dissolve in 30 seconds. It also solves the problem of max tier units not being good enough vs recruit spam to justify the increased wages of high tier units.

Cavalry have their own set of issues including: not charging in formation properly, not couching their lances properly, impact damage from horse collisions being pitiful, and getting hung up in infantry formations too easily and getting mobbed instead of pushing through, reforming, and then charging again.

Also, I would like to see most infantry lose their spears, and I think that would make dedicated spearmen units be more useful as a hard counter to cavalry, as well as indirectly buffing cavalry vs general purpose infantry.
 
Skill stats on soldiers do work just not as your chars but they define how npcs will perforf in battle,for example a rider with low rider skill will fall on trees,wont be able to avoid melees attack etc like if you have fight against steppe bandit you'll understand the big diff stats do.

I have seen no difference in behavior between units with 220 riding and those with 70 riding.

I'm not sure what you see as broken, or wether the mechanic is broken or working as intended. For me it would be RPG-nonsense, if a unit with higher stats would get more damage out of a given bow/crossbow.

Giving more damage for more skills is explicitly how the weapon skills work, along with faster swings.

2. Lords army is 50% recruit ****, and they have no shields, and it makes them very vulnurable for archers
Yeah, I think this desperately needs fixing. The most basic troops in history would get spear and shield (and helmet) before anything else, the recruits should really drop their swords instead.

This was fixed. Lords get enhanced XP gains and behavior that takes troops from garrisons to the point where (typically) they have fewer than 25% recruits in their parties. They've been off the 50% or higher recruit numbers for awhile now, I think back in 1.3 over a month ago. Sometimes you get a fresh party with a lot of recruits, but they level up like crazy from one or two fights so it isn't like the early days when every lord had tons of recruits and no high-tier units.
 
Also, I would like to see most infantry lose their spears, and I think that would make dedicated spearmen units be more useful as a hard counter to cavalry, as well as indirectly buffing cavalry vs general purpose infantry.
Right now that would be a horrible idea. Spearman under perform everywhere. Sure, a mob of spears could take out a cavalry man, but a two handed pole infantryman can do it by themselves. TW needs to do something about spears and the AI using them first.

Yeah, I think this desperately needs fixing. The most basic troops in history would get spear and shield (and helmet) before anything else, the recruits should really drop their swords instead. Even peasant levies afforded some basic kit because they knew how lethal it was not to have it and they did not want to die.
With towns you were fined or lose citizenship which implied you being part of the militia if you did not afford a specific set of arms and armor and did not have it maintained.
The way I see it the t1 unit is not a levy, but literally just a peasant that's suppose to be taken to the training camp to become a part of the levy. Its only at t2 that they become levy imo.
 
Do no, but I don't have problem with archers, certainly not charging them with cavalry. Archers have pretty hard time hitting fast moving cavalry, unless it moves in a strait line towards the archer. Moreover AI archers start repositioning when charged by cavalry and they become even less effective.

I had an army of about 60 archers against 20 cav and because of exactly what you said, we barely killed any and their infantry managed to kill us all because the cav was causing too much hassle and distraction. archers do not need nerfing, they are liable to fail and succeed as much as any other troop type right now.
 
I have seen no difference in behavior between units with 220 riding and those with 70 riding.

Do a simple test take 20 tribal warriors and fight a large band of looters and then do the same with heavy
horse archers,some of the 1st will fall on looters and get killed while the 2nd will manuever to the right way earlier and keep the proper distance all the time.
 
I'm not sure what you see as broken, or wether the mechanic is broken or working as intended. For me it would be RPG-nonsense, if a unit with higher stats would get more damage out of a given bow/crossbow. They should be more accurate, should be able to use stronger bows (so with more damage in the end, although it should be better more penetration only, if we had a bit realism …) and should be able to shoot/load faster. Maybe the system cannot work in this way however.
You honestly don't see what's broken?

The skills are all supposed to have specific effects which are listed in their descriptions, but for some reason those effects don't apply to troops? Then why isn't that stated in the skill descriptions? Why even give numerical skill values to troops at all if it means something different for them vs for heroes? If it was intentional that the skills are this misleading then its not the feature thats broken, its the game design itself.

And for what its worth, there's nothing rpg-nonsensey about doing more damage at higher skill levels. For bows, it represents the ability to pull the bowstring to it maximum drawlength, squeezing every bit of potential power out of each shot. That's what the old Power Draw skill represented. Crossbows don't get a damage bonus, so high skill only increases reload speed and accuracy.
 
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You honestly don't see what's broken?

The skills are all supposed to have specific effects which are listed in their descriptions, but for some reason those effects don't apply to troops? Then why isn't that stated in the skill descriptions? Why even give numerical skill values to troops at all if it means something different for them vs for heroes? If it was intentional that the skills are this misleading then its not the feature thats broken, its the game design itself.

And for what its worth, there's nothing rpg-nonsensey about doing more damage at higher skill levels. For bows, it represents the ability to pull the bowstring to it maximum drawlength, squeezing every bit of potential power out of each shot. That's what the old Power Draw skill represented. Crossbows don't get a damage bonus, so high skill only increases reload speed and accuracy.

The devs seem to think those numbers matter too as they've actively changed them since the EA launch. They are clearly intended to work.

Seems more likely a broken feature to me. But if it's intended to do nothing then it shouldn't exist.
 
Right now that would be a horrible idea. Spearman under perform everywhere. Sure, a mob of spears could take out a cavalry man, but a two handed pole infantryman can do it by themselves. TW needs to do something about spears and the AI using them first.
Well yeah, spearmen would have to be buffed to compensate.

I just don't like the fact that bog standard infantry can double as heavy infantry and spearmen rolled into one. You should have to choose between anti-cav ability (spearmen) or close range killing ability vs other infantry (things like Vlandian Sergeants and Legionaries).
 
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