Reversing it,
100
should lose v100 archers, with medium kills ---
Why lose at all? HAs have better mobility; should have better aim, but this would cancel. It should be a tossup!
Being on horseback means you are on a rocking, bouncing surface, and it's harder to reload as quickly, and the bow you can use is less large and therefore less powerful.
I'm open to debate on this one though on the level of casualties, perhaps archers should take high casualties instead of medium. But archers should definitely be the best counter to horse archers.
Because otherwise,
what exactly are horse archers weak to? Let's look at their current matchups.
* They beat archers, who are too unrealistically bad at leading targets.
* They beat melee cavalry, who can't catch them and take unrealistically high damage through their armour.
* They beat shield infantry, as horse archers can circle around behind their shields and shoot them in the back, where their unrealistically weak armour doesn't protect them.
* They absolutely murder shock infantry, again, unrealistically weak armour.
100
should lose v100 archers, with high kills ---
Why high kills? have lighter armor, and should be able to outmaneuver and minimize their losses!
If you can space out your formation enough, you should be able to reduce losses for a better result, sure - this is working on the assumption that archers will remain in line formation. But as it stands currently, archers can remain completely still in line formation and kill nearly every single shock infantry unit before they even get in melee range, no input required from the player.
As for "outmaneuver" I hope you're not referring to running away like some anime Legolas firing retreating shots on foot and still outrunning your pursuers *and* firing accurate shots, because that shouldn't even be humanly possible except for unarmoured troops with high bow skill being chased by heavily armoured troops with low athletics.
Archers have
barely lighter armour than their pursuers. For example Imperial Palatine Guard are still wearing heavy chainmail, helmet, etc. They should not be capable of sprinting away at high speed while shooting.
100
should win v100 archers, w low/no losses ---
This requires a longer answer,
but 100 bowmen should be scary to anyone.
"Scary to
any group of 100 troops of the same tier", in other words, means "blatantly overpowered".
Infantry are for HOLDING GROUND
And taking it. Relegating them to defensive roles is really dumb and unfun. They were used offensively all the time in real life, because in real life archers didn't have this ridiculous level of armour penetration.
But the Infantry should not be assured of lossless victory; on this we have a major disagreement.
I didn't say assured lossless victory. I said that on an open field, not a hill, archers should get low or no kills vs shield less infantry. On a hill, naturally they would do better.
By saying there's nothing wrong with the way armour is now,
you are defending archers being able to have a lossless victory against shock infantry in the current state of the game!
I think his examples were overly simplified and made a lot of assumptions, like the archers would just hold position in a line on perfectly flat terrain (so none are obstructed by terrain or each other) and the opposing force is mindlessly charging. Any further tactical moves would throw it off, e.g. 100 archers split into two formations can win against 100 shielded infantry in one formation.
Correct. If you're using tactics, you get better results. If you're just delegating command, F3ing or doing nothing, these are the results you'll usually get.
It's simple because it gives us a baseline to work from so we know what roles each troop type performs best at. This gives the player and balancers general tactical rules to go off like "in a vacuum, shock infantry are good against shield infantry, so most of the time in battle, they will fulfil that capacity and make themselves useful."
In an actual battle many other factors come into play, but for balance purposes, you at least can assure that no troop is useful in too many common situations, or fails to be useful at too many things.
I don't think tier-for-tier shock infantry should inflict high casualties against archers in this scenario, archers are meant to counter them.
I'm happy to say medium casualties instead. But the thing is, sieges, cliffsides, bridges etc are very common scenarios in Bannerlord, making up nearly half of your battles. And archers will perform even better against shock infantry in that scenario.
The fantasy some have of being a heavily-armored juggernaut with a two-handed weapon relentlessly charging into a hail of arrows that merely bounce off is very poor for troop balancing.
But I didn't say arrows should merely bounce off - just that average TTK for arrows against armour be raised from 4 to 7.
This would mean that shock troops would go from reaching archers with ~0-10% of their HP, to reaching archers with ~40% of their HP. So they would still lose if they charge into a cloud of arrows. And in sieges they would still get reamed.
Revising what I said before based on good points made:
100
, open field:
Should
win against 100
, with
medium casualties
Should
win against 100
, with
high casualties
Should
lose against 100
, with
medium kills
Should
lose against 100
, with
medium/low kills
100
, siege wall, cliffside, bridge, etc:
Should
win against 100
, with
low casualties
Should
win against 100
, with
medium casualties
Should
lose against 100
, with
high kills
Should
lose against 100
, with
medium kills
And for a mixed battle example -
50
and 50
, vs. 50
and 50
, open field: If the axemen are behind the shielded troops when advancing, the
side should win. If not, the
side should win. Either scenario should have close casualties, not a drastic win for either side (like it is currently with an infantry+archer tactic).
Right on with everything you said; I would add, but the playing field shouldn't be level. I'm not saying the balance is PERFECT, but it is FINE. I don't cry about archers
You cry about other people crying about archers.
You complain nonstop about people complaining. Nobody is forcing you to come to these threads! I paid money for this game hoping it would be immersive and challenging, and it isn't. This forum is a place for people to discuss how the game can be improved and there is definitely room for improvement.
I am not asking for "perfect" balance. I am asking for reasonable balance and a fun, challenging game. It is not reasonable or challenging to sit archers on a hill with a token force of infantry and watch them easily mow everything down.
ecause they're not overpowered in a *campaign-based game*: I can adapt my force, and out of the forests, run from them if I'm too weak.
This isn't a points-based game, and the balance is fine. Please, Taleworlds, fugg with the AI choices before touching the weaponry.
I have to "adapt my force" in an immersion breaking way to make the game an actual challenge. Even on realistic full difficulty, if I use Khan's Guards, Battanian Fian Champs, or even just decently large amounts of normal archers, or even just use a bow on horseback myself, it feels like cheating because it's so damn easy and overpowered. They kill everything before my melee troops can even get a hit in! So I don't even hire them! **** me for wanting to use game content, right?
I'm not saying archers make the game too hard (unless I decide I want to play an infantry focused playthrough), I'm saying they make the game too unchallenging and void of interesting tactics.
People who want armour fixed keep saying this in every thread and there's no way you haven't seen it by now, so you're either trolling or have short term memory loss.
