In any case, for gameplay purposes, I’m sure there’s no need to explain why equal #s of any t2 vs any t5 troops shouldn’t be trading at a 2:3 kill ratio. (Even t2 infantrymen shouldn’t trade that well with t5 legionaries.) Especially a t2 unit designed to be a ranged unit fighting with a t5 unit designed to be a melee unit should not trade that well.
I actually severely disagree with this.
Again, the whole
"a unit of X-tier should not be winning against a unit of superior Y-tier" type of arguments are very arbitrary. It is without a doubt a very familiar notion. But why did it become so familiar?
It comes from decades ago, when a game had no way of depicting different combat conditions, so to depict which units are relatively strong or weak, the games used to rely on such concept of tiers which numerical bonuses or modifiers would be added to manipulate how the fight proceeds, to a certain direction.
For example, a strategy game circa. Age of Empires, would depict a spear unit having X amount of bonuses attack and defense against cavalry units, because the combat was in a simplified, RTS format. But in real life, there are any number of situations where cavalry would readily crush spearmen, and modern levels of combat depiction have certainly advanced enough to portray such differences. The terms like "tier2" or "tier5" are merely stages of advancement, and we should not expect it to mean a higher tier is always advantageous, or victorious against a lower tier.
Those "tiers" are not an objective standard of strength. It's merely an arbitrary distinction of stages within the internal advancements of that particular unit -- meaning: the relative strength of advanced tiers is only comparable to different tiers of
that same unit, not other units. If a t2 spearman is objectively doing way better than that same line of spearmen unit at tier5, then that's a problem. But there is no guarantee that tier5 spearman should always do better than a tier2 unit of other grade. The most common example of people confusing this is the "oh the looters shouldn't be killing my tier-X unit..." complaints. But it doesn't matter if you're tier2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 -- enough rocks thrown at your head and it will die.
Much the same, it doesn't matter if it's a tier2 archer or a tier5 archer. They shoot arrows from far away.
Range advantage is range advantage regardless of what tier the opponent melee unit is. It doesn't change. If there are enough conditions working in favor for the unit with that range advantage, then regardless of the tier, the opponent unit will suffer.
This is why I'm more interested in the actual AI behavior. When the AI behavior is fixed, or at least scripted in a better way to more adequately represent reality, then my guess is lot of these "oddities" would probably cease.
(ps) One very obvious example, would be the utter lack of the concept of "fear" in the AI behavior. The AI does not falter. It just has a set morale level. And so long as the morale is above that level the AI doesn't even bat an eye even when dozens of horsemen are charging you. If the game was Total War, a successful head-on charge to unprotected archers would inflict morale damage through the charge itself + initial losses + unprotected, and would case a state of "wavering." They system would determine in that wavered state the archers would cease fighting and all start to rout... and then, if they are not chased down, they will recover morale and regroup, and then return to the lines.
But nope. No such thing in Bannerlord. The cavalry behave poorly, and the archers' ability to fight is only governed by the moral threshold. Inexplicable restrictions -- like melee speed debuff on horseback exist as well. (... WTF is with the melee speed restrictions when every horseman in the game is resting on stirrups? It's not as if they are ancient cavalry...)