Armies need to stop charging when 1 troop dies to arrows

Users who are viewing this thread

Rafa911

Regular
I end up building archer army in campaing cause its impossible to lose, i lose only 20 troops max per battle even outnumbered
My archers get 1 kill from max range, (After 3-4 volleys) and enemies just start charging while they could simply wait for arrows to end
Historically the normands and romans could endure half an hour of constant enemy fire with minimal losses (using Schiltron and testudo), in current game they sometimes lower their shield (while running to the enemy) or block way to low if they have an ally just in front of them, also crossbows should turn their back on the enemy if they wear shield on back

Also when huge battle happens the AI instead of having just 1 single stack made of 300 infantryman they should have 3 stacks of 100 men each so they can even try to envelop the enemy, having 3 lines of infantrymen facing you instead a thick rectangle should also lower loses from enemy fire
The AI has zero envelopment skills
Skirmishers should hit and run your army (always in a very loose formation) from front or diagonals or from the sides if you have no cav

Also enemy cav always suicide first, not even funny anymore, enemy melee cav should wait from melee trops to engage and then try to get the flank or the back
Having 30 horseman charging 400-500 men has to stop
 
I end up building archer army in campaing cause its impossible to lose, i lose only 20 troops max per battle even outnumbered
My archers get 1 kill from max range, (After 3-4 volleys) and enemies just start charging while they could simply wait for arrows to end
Historically the normands and romans could endure half an hour of constant enemy fire with minimal losses (using Schiltron and testudo), in current game they sometimes lower their shield (while running to the enemy) or block way to low if they have an ally just in front of them, also crossbows should turn their back on the enemy if they wear shield on back

Also when huge battle happens the AI instead of having just 1 single stack made of 300 infantryman they should have 3 stacks of 100 men each so they can even try to envelop the enemy, having 3 lines of infantrymen facing you instead a thick rectangle should also lower loses from enemy fire
The AI has zero envelopment skills
Skirmishers should hit and run your army (always in a very loose formation) from front or diagonals or from the sides if you have no cav

Also enemy cav always suicide first, not even funny anymore, enemy melee cav should wait from melee trops to engage and then try to get the flank or the back
Having 30 horseman charging 400-500 men has to stop
Which branch are you playing on? In beta e1.5.1, the enemy will not just bum-rush after the first death. Oftentimes they will shield-wall and march against heavy arrow fire. The only mounted troop the enemy sends out early against me is mounted archers for harassment. If you kill a few of them, they will flee and circle around for a different angle. Mounted cavalry only charge once their first melee line makes contact or perhaps just before so that they break up your melee line making it easier for their to pick people off. They also tend to target back-line archers to save their melee line from the fire. The only annoying thing is that because melee is marching in shield wall formation, when the enemy AI orders the line to advance, thier own archers often overtake and walk out in front of their slower shield wall, which is just plain stupid.

At least that's my experience so far after claiming a forth of the world in the latest beta branch.
 
Last edited:
I agree. Sometimes i will ride out on my horse and pick off a few enemies and all of a sudden they're charging on my archers stationed conveniently on a hill who demolish them.

And not to mention nothing ****s me more than when i'm fighting an army of 75+ men and they have 5 horse archers and the horse archers immediately charge into my whole line of infantry and archers and get like 1 kill maybe...
 
Yea I noticed in 1.5.1 they do not charge after first arrow anymore. Instead they sit there until my Archer, HA split direction attack kills 20-30 of their guys. Then they charge. Some of my units run out of arrows before they charge, but some still have arrows so they pick them off more yet. Also, if they have a large number of archers, they will typically position their archers in front of their infantry now and challenge you to an archer vs. archer battle. I had this happen the other day and it was a pleasant surprise. If you have all max tier archers you should win this, but might lose some troops.The vlandians can kill a lot of top tier archers because of how effective their sharpshooters are.

So I do think it is coming along a bit. HA charging also seems a bit less frequent, but depends on their number of HA. More often now they will just make a quick skirmish and then return to a position near their other troops. This is what I have experienced in the latest versions. I'm not sure if others are referencing experiences from older versions.
 
Last edited:
You win these battles with 0 losses because archers are OP. It is not really an AI fault. If you are outnumbered and the AI is stronger (according to strength bar), why the AI should not just charge? You and everyone here are winning ridiculous easy battles because archers are simply much more effective than any other unit.

50 Palatine Guard is all you need to wreck any lord in the game with 100-200 men while getting none or pretty low losses per battle while farming renown.
 
Last edited:
It´s like in Warband, maybe a little bit better. Warband is the benchmark, so it´s better :smile: .

Kill 1-5 troops and they charge. That´s also a reason why a main archer char is OP, it´s RPG.

Who doens´t play an horse archer main char and circle this 30 looters and win?
 
You win these battles with 0 losses because archers are OP. It is not really an AI fault. If you are outnumbered and the AI is stronger (according to strength bar), why the AI should not just charge? You and everyone here are winning ridiculous easy battles because archers are simply much more effective than any other unit.

50 Palatine Guard is all you need to wreck any lord in the game with 100-200 men while getting none or pretty low losses per battle while farming renown.
I still disagree with this. The problem is that Palatine Guards are somewhat OP and not archers in general. A group of low to mid tier archers are far less effective, and if archers are nerfed, they will be pretty much useless. For ex. base level imperial archer (tier 2) already can't hit the broad side of a barn. I have full groups of 40-50 archers in my army on the regular. I do the sit and wait or the bait and make them charge thing, and my archers are still only responsible for 1/3 or so of kills, but only about half of my archer group is max tier and only 1/3 of that is palatine guards. The others are a mix of other culture max tier archers. Th enemy always reaches my line before I can kill them all, and I almost always lose some archers as well as other troops. If you go with a blind charge tactic, the archers are only responsible for a tiny fraction of the kills.

Also, M&B is a game you can play a lot of different ways. There are more than one tactic that works. Having a ton of max tier archers is only one of the tactics to easy victory. There are many others. My group of 50 max tier cavalry even with the lack of hitting accuracy can still wreck whole groups at greater number than them without taking any casualties as well. I have seen many of these videos and you guys are fighting against armies that are 50%-80% recruits and then complaining that your max tier Palatine guards are OP because they wipe them out without taking any deaths. IMO this is what should happen. However, it should happen with every group, and when I test this, it kind of does. Having all max tier infantry, HA, or Cavalry is also extremely effective against most enemy armies because of how underdeveloped they are from frequent wars. At the same time, they get a number of these weak troops back so soon it is hard to keep them down. Granted other troop types can be harder to train especially mounted because of the horse requirement, and beyond that people generally tend to protect their archers, but this all the choice of the player what kind of OP army they want to have.
 
Last edited:
I still disagree with this. The problem is that Palatine Guards are somewhat OP and not archers in general. A group of low to mid tier archers are far less effective, and if archers are nerfed, they will be pretty much useless. For ex. base level imperial archer (tier 2) already can't hit the broad side of a barn. I have full groups of 40-50 archers in my army on the regular. I do the sit and wait or the bait and make them charge thing, and my archers are still only responsible for 1/3 or so of kills, but only about half of my archer group is max tier and only 1/3 of that is palatine guards. The others are a mix of other culture max tier archers. Th enemy always reaches my line before I can kill them all, and I almost always lose some archers as well as other troops. If you go with a blind charge tactic, the archers are only responsible for a tiny fraction of the kills.

Also, M&B is a game you can play a lot of different ways. There are more than one tactic that works. Having a ton of max tier archers is only one of the tactics to easy victory. There are many others. My group of 50 max tier cavalry even with the lack of hitting accuracy can still wreck whole groups at greater number than them without taking any casualties as well. I have seen many of these videos and you guys are fighting against armies that are 50%-80% recruits and then complaining that your max tier Palatine guards are OP because they wipe them out without taking any deaths. IMO this is what should happen. However, it should happen with every group, and when I test this, it kind of does. Having all max tier infantry, HA, or Cavalry is also extremely effective against most enemy armies because of how underdeveloped they are from frequent wars. At the same time, they get a number of these weak troops back so soon it is hard to keep them down. Granted other troop types can be harder to train especially mounted because of the horse requirement, and beyond that people generally tend to protect their archers, but this all the choice of the player what kind of OP army they want to have.

Please post one of my videos where I play against 80% recruits army xDDDDD. If you would pay more attention to my videos, you would have realized that I also show how T5 infantry and T7 cavalry get wrecked against the same “recruits “ army, so your argument has not sense at all. Not only Palatine Guards are OP, but this unit is probably the biggest offender currently though.
 
Last edited:
Please post one of my videos where I play against 80% recruits army xDDDDD. If you would pay more attention to my videos, I also show how T5 infantry and T7 cavalry get wrecked against the same “recruits “ army, so your argument has not sense at all. Not only Palatine Guards are OP, but this unit is probably the biggest offender currently though.


Ok, so here is your thread right? Now look at that first video and if you watch the kills list every single unit that dies before they reach your achers is an unshielded unit. Ok, it's crazy with imperial recruits, imperial archers, and imperial trained archers dropping like flies. By the time their shielded infantry reaches their line it is only mostly tier 2 imperial infantry man and they are being cut down because their armor is far inferior to the max tier palatine guard. Maybe its not 80% recruits but there are an awful lot of them. The enemies army is far inferior to yours despite their numbers, and the unit types cater to being beat by archers due to the lack of shields.

When you look at that second video, the cavalry were not used most effectively. If you want your cavalry to pwn you can either use them with infantry in tandem to create a flank attack (this confuses a.i. tremendously), or you can make a wide circle around the enemy party kind of zeroing in and them can catch them while they are trying to adjust their direction. If they are all lined up like that and you charge them head on of course it isn't going to go as well. You need to confuse the a.i. and trick them into spreading out more. You can also use follow and release to charge closer to the enemy so that your cavalry more directly targets a specific part of their formation. This causes other troops to move around trying to fill the gap in the formation and creates opening for victory with cavalry.

Edit: Wanted to add this bit without double posting. I'm not going to say that at the exact same number of troops the cav are as effective as the Palatine Guards, but the PGs have the advantage of being able to deal damage without being dealt damage to. One of the things that makes this unit OP is the increased range versus lower tiers. As you could see the enemy archers consisting of imperial archers and trained archers was particularly UP because they couldn't even really get into range before the PGs took them out. And on topic with OP, I think a lot of it does have to do with the a.i. Imagine of those tier 2 imperial infantry man were in front instead with their shields up and offering the archers protection. How differently could the battle have gone?
 
Last edited:

Ok, so here is your thread right? Now look at that first video and if you watch the kills list every single unit that dies before they reach your achers is an unshielded unit. Ok, it's crazy with imperial recruits, imperial archers, and imperial trained archers dropping like flies. By the time their shielded infantry reaches their line it is only mostly tier 2 imperial infantry man and they are being cut down because their armor is far inferior to the max tier palatine guard. Maybe its not 80% recruits but there are an awful lot of them. The enemies army is far inferior to yours despite their numbers, and the unit types cater to being beat by archers due to the lack of shields.

When you look at that second video, the cavalry were not used most effectively. If you want your cavalry to pwn you can either use them with infantry in tandem to create a flank attack (this confuses a.i. tremendously), or you can make a wide circle around the enemy party kind of zeroing in and them can catch them while they are trying to adjust their direction If they are all lined up like that and you charge them head on of course it isn't going to go as well. You need to confuse the a.i. and trick them into spreading out more. You can also use follow and release to charge closer to the enemy so that your cavalry more directly targets a specific part of their formation. This causes other troops to move around trying to fill the gap in the formation and creates opening for victory with cavalry.

You have described perfectly the current issue with archers “unshielded units dropping like flies”. I think everyone here does agree with archers should be effective against unshielded units but currently archers are just insanely effective fulfilling that role. It is like if 50 heavy cavalry units would be able to instakill 100 infantry units without spears, and someone would say that it is ok.

Concerning how bad I used cavalry, I have provided save games in that thread where you could show us how great cavalry performance under your command is. I would be really glad if you could prove me wrong and show me how good balanced the game is in your view. Believe me, I would love to see that someone could show me that the game is balanced, but sadly it is impossible because battles in this game are pretty damn unbalanced, bored and 0 challenging because archers are simply much more effective than everything else and delete enemy armies in seconds.
 
Last edited:
You have described perfectly the current issue with archers “unshielded units dropping like flies”. I think everyone here does agree with archers should be effective against unshielded units but currently archers are just insanely effective fulfilling that role. It is like if 50 heavy cavalry units would be able to instakill 100 infantry units without spears, and someone would say that it is ok.

Concerning how bad I used cavalry, I have provided save games in that thread where you could show us how great cavalry performance under your command is. I would be really glad if you could prove me wrong and show me how good balanced the game is in your view. Believe me, I would love to see that someone could show me that the game is balanced, but sadly it is impossible because battles in this game are pretty damn unbalanced, bored and 0 challenging because archers are simply much more effective than everything else and delete enemy armies in seconds.
I'm definitely not trying to say the game is balanced. I think it is obvious to all there is still a lot of work to be done. I'm saying the generalization shouldn't be applied to archers in general but some of the archer units. Archers really should be weak in melee and a lot of the higher tier ones are not, leading to some of that imbalance. The higher skill level in melee skills doesn't seem to create as much of a difference in the combat effectiveness of melee units, as the ranged skills do for ranged units. The lower skill bow units and the higher skill ones have an extremely striking difference, in both range and accuracy. Meanwhile a looter with a pitchfork can take out a max tier riding unit in many cases, even the player if you are not careful, quite easily. There is a lot to work on there. And the tactics as OP brings up I think is also a big part of that. The armies need to learn how to look at what they have and the enemy has and try to use tactics that cater to the troops they have (i.e. trying to defend those unshielded units with shielded ones).
 
Back
Top Bottom