Custom battle tests (1.5.6): Horse archers are insanely OP & Infantry is pointless

[Yertyl]

It may not surprise any Bannerlord player that horse archers are good units, but it may surprise you to which degree. In short, horse archer units are a counter to everything and the best by far in any scenario.
I did a few custom battle tests: 300 vs 300, desert map, F6 and no player involvement from the start. Results are listed as kills of each side, winning side bold.

• Marmeluke cavalry vs Aserai infantry: 291 -- 0
• Marmeluke cavalry vs Aserai archers: 268 -- 24
• Marmeluke cavalry vs Aserai Faris: 294 -- 61
• Khuzait Horse archer vs Khuzait spear infantry: 291 -- 13
• Khuzait Horse archer vs Khuzait archer: 294 -- 27
• Khuzait Horse archer vs Khuzait lancer: 171 -- 269

So in the last scenario, the horse archers actually lose. But upon closer inspection, this has more to do with a weird AI glitch: I played the scenario twice, and each time the horse archers after a short while just refused to either move or use their bows -- so it became a brawl of cavalry with sword vs cavalry with swords,shields and lances, which the lancers won. But without that glitch:

• Khuzait Horse archer vs Vlandian Knight: 229 -- 108
• Imperial Bucellarii vs Imperial Heavy Horseman: 289 -- 29

Easy win for the horse archers. The funny thing is that horse archers are not only a counter to everything, they are also the best counter to everything. For example:

• Khuzait archer vs Khuzait lancer: 133 -- 299
• Aserai Archer vs Vlandian Knight: 196 -- 294
• Vlandian Hardened Crossbowman vs Vlandian Knight : 250 -- 171 (!!!)
• Vlandian Hardened Crossbowman vs Khuzait lancers : 214 -- 87 (!!!)
• Vlandian Hardened Crossbowman vs Khuzait horse archers : 122 -- 286

So here cavalry does beat archers, but the battle is far less one-sided than horse archer vs archer. Crossbowmen actually win against cavalry, but clearly lose to horse archers. Infantry, on the other hand, does not only not counter horses well, but seems to just lose to everything:

• Vlandian Swordsman vs Vlandian Knight: 12 -- 300 (!!!)
• Khuzait Spear Infantry vs Vlandian Knight: 193 -- 287
• Khuzait Spear Infantry vs Khuzait lancer: 234 -- 300
• Sturgian Spearman vs Khuzait lancer: 18 -- 254 (!!!)
• Sturgian Spearmen vs Vlandian Hardened Crossbowman on hold fire(!!): 131 -- 298
• Sturgian Spearmen vs Khuzait archers on hold fire (!!): 129 - 298
• Aserai Infantry vs Aserai archers on hold fire (!!): 239 -- 284

Infantry does not only lose to cavalry in all four scenarios -- some infantry actually loses against against ranged units that do not use their ranged attacks. Infantry seems hilariously bad atm.

Short analysis: For a player, it is pretty hard to hit anything with a bow from a fast moving horse, even at close range, and their angle of attack is limited. By comparison, the AI units seem to have a much wider angle of attack, and much higher precision even in full movement. ATM they seem to dish out as much damage as regular archers while being as mobile and well protected as regular cavalry. Needless to say that is an extremely strong combination in any situation.
The second large problem I see is that often archer units seem to be as good or even better than their melee counterparts even in a melee fight, both on horses and on the ground. Which of course makes ranged units much, much better than non-ranged overall. Archer units should probably have much lighter armor than their melee counterparts to make them more vulnerable in a melee scenario.
EDIT: Mounted units in general seem to be almost untouchable by both melee and ranged attacks while they are moving. The big difference is that melee cavalry comes to a halt with every attack, while mounted archers can often just keep moving while still dishing out a ton of damage.

TL: DR: In 1.5.6. horse archers are insanely powerful, even against cavalry and archers, and infantry is basically pointless, even against cavalry.

 

[Monkey]

It's always a damn hard game design challenge to achieve the optimal balance between realism and metagame balance. Besides the inherent difficulty in achieving any desired balance, there's the subjectivity in choosing the "right" balance or how much of each (realism and metagame balance) would be "best". Some prefer realism while some prefer fairer play. Reality is unfair.

That said, when I'm playing, regardless of my faction of choice, when "I just need to win", I run 100% mounted¹ archer² parties.
¹ Mounted because of the increased map speed. It makes too big a positive difference in too many things like chasing fleeing parties and fleeing from stronger enemy parties. Mounted infantry map speed should be the same as cavalry. That alone would bring infantry a bit more into balance concerning its strategical usage. It's not going to happen in the unmodded game, though, since traits have just been redone (still are) and there are traits giving bonuses to mounted infantry map speed.
² Archer because melee cavalry tends to bunch up and basically become a bigger and clunkier (and worse) infantry. Besides, a stream of arrow fire from an archer formation is just too effective and efficient. Nothing beats being able to hurt from as far and safe as possible, especially because, mounted, it's easier to remain in (or retreat to) safety.

In my experience, the only place where mounted archers don't shine are in sieges or otherwise tight spaces, like villages, which is pretty realistic. Some mechanism to allow for some form of fortification, preparation, or otherwise more accurate choice of terrain could help foot parties to defend themselves against mounted archer parties, but then realism would be sacrificed.

Another way to realistically "nerf" horse archers in strategical terms would be to implement logistical challenges in the form of managing ammunition and the feeding of horses (especially in snowy and desert regions). That would be a step in the opposite direction, increasing realism, but complexifying the game to a probably undesired degree, beyond the vision TaleWorlds has for Bannerlord.

I believe Bannerlord is in a good spot in regards to balance and seems to be slowly getting better. I've been on and off since the release of the EA and from what I've been seeing faction balance has been getting better. I've yet to see the Khuzait lose ground to anyone, but they do seem to be expanding more slowly than before. In the beginning it was pretty much Vlandia versus Khuzait while the other factions were just pawns on the board and if you didn't pay attention you'd never notice Battania was actually a faction and not a fiefless mercenary clan.

 

[Gandamula]

For example, if TW adds some terrain penalties, like forests and mountains to cavalry map speed, or hard to find forrages in the snow maps, this advantage could be diluted. And in a battle map, the cavalry men should fall from the horses if they hit some trees,in a forest battle the infantry should have advantages but they don't, by the opposite, cavalry still running at almost full speed, and if they hit a tree, they stop and go on.

 

[Paxius]

Since the amount of troops you can have in your party is limited, it incentivizes using the best troops, i.e. Horse Archers. Not only you have the strongest army possible, you have the fastest one too.

What I can see could be done is a provision system being added. So now you count not the heads in your party, but the provisions each unit uses. I believe numbers may be subject to balance but for example Infantry unit could cost 2 provisions, Ranged 3, Melee Cavalry 4 and Ranged Cavalry 5 provisions. These are just example values, you may agree or disagree with them but the point I am trying to make is each type of unit costing different amount to keep in your army.

Now this would achieve a few things:

Since each type of unit cost different, there is no more need to buff Infantry to Clegaine levels of strength or nerf Horse Archers into the ground to keep the game "balanced". Thus giving developers more freedom to play around with new units or balancing existing ones, without annihilating one part of the player base.
It would accommodate different playstyles, since there no longer would be "a right answer for everything" and add a lot more depth to the game.
To some extent help infantry heavy factions like Sturgia more room to work with (I know a lot has been done to prevent Snowballing and Downwardspiralling and I appreciate the changes!).

I see some problems with this system too, some troops upgrade from Infantry to Cavalry and suddenly a player reached his provisions cap even though he didn't recruited any more troops.

I am interested in your take on this.

 

[Monkey]

For example, if TW adds some terrain penalties, like forests and mountains to cavalry map speed, or hard to find forrages in the snow maps, this advantage could be diluted. And in a battle map, the cavalry men should fall from the horses if they hit some trees,in a forest battle the infantry should have advantages but they don't, by the opposite, cavalry still running at almost full speed, and if they hit a tree, they stop and go on.

I like the idea of penalizing cavalry more in certain terrain types. I have no idea if that would be realistic or the opposite, but maybe slowing down cavalry more than infantry while in, say, forests and mountains, would help bring troop compositions more into balance.

I especially like the idea of having riders fall from their horses on high speed collision against trees and fences (and walls or any other hard obstacles). Higher riding skill could even apply a better AI for handling horses in tight situations so NPCs fall less often when more skilled (like how higher NPC weapon skill clearly improves their AI in combat - it's awesome to see NPCs feigning attack vector). However without having a deep knowledge about the implementation of the knock back/off mechanisms, the physics of the game and their ties to one another, I'd safely bet that such a feature would be at the very least quite tricky to implement.

 

[Yertyl]

The three main problems I see:

1. Riders are too invulnerable. As long as they keep moving, they are basically impervious to both arrows and melee, and even when they are stopped, it takes a long time for infantry to kill them. IRL a rider in the middle of enemy infantry was in an extremely vulnerable position and could be easily pulled from his horse, or just stabbed into his very exposed lower body. In the game, horses never spook and throw the rider off, and even when a rider is directly in front of you, it is easy to hit the horse instead of the rider due to the limits of the targeting system.
2. Ranged attacks do too much damage compared to melee attacks. Considering how much, much harder it is to land a melee attack compared to a ranged one, ranged units should be absolutely destroyed in melee combat, instead of being almost as good or even better than their melee counterparts. The combination of these two points is what makes infantry so pointless: They cannot destroy archers/cavalry even when they manage to take away their (huge) advantage of range/mobility.
3. Horse archers specifically are too precise. While moving, their damage output should be much lower than that of a stationary archer, especially against units in loose formation. Currently I barely notice any difference in damage output.

 

[Apocal]

Horse archers specifically are too precise. While moving, their damage output should be much lower than that of a stationary archer, especially against units in loose formation. Currently I barely notice any difference in damage output.

They are not precise at all.

Mount & Blade II Bannerlord 2021.02.03 - 12.56.28.19 Horse Archers are not accurate

Watch "Mount & Blade II Bannerlord 2021.02.03 - 12.56.28.19 Horse Archers are not accurate" on Streamable.

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(5 HAs take 90 seconds to kill a single stationary target)

Their damage is pretty much the same because it is (basically) a toss-up between two or three arrows to kill someone in most circumstances and the specific damage number only matters for outliers. The foot-only bows actually have (or had, I should say: I haven't checked after the ranged adjustment) somewhat more paper damage than horse bows. If foot archers could one-shot other troops, you'd notice a difference. But until then, with two or three arrows to kill, it doesn't really matter.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

It's all the lack of good AI performance and bad AI choices that make HA overperform. Don't get me wrong they are the best units for the player, but it the fault of other AI sucking and not really that HA have too good of anything. They've already been downgraded a lot. Their best use is just as an archer you can quickly position, since there's no pre-battle placement.

HA can hit the massive blobs of enemy AI but it's not their accuracy it's just..... well how could you miss? Try it, you going to hit SOEMTHING.
HA and all ranged struggle to hit moving targets like other HA though, even with best positioning and facing from the player to help them, they let HA formations waltz right around them too often, They used to better at hitting the HA but I think they purposely did something (unconfirmed). I think they read people saying "it's easy to kill the HA just put ranged to back left of map and they butcher them" so devs went OH YEAH? and changed it.

Infantry must be used in advancing SW or holding SW with heavy ranged support, letting HA strafe them is not allowed, charging them into enemies is not okay either. Sorry if you wanted awesome berserkers, the game wasn't made that way and infantry is very vulnerable and trades heavily. It's a cheap shield for you ranged and does a good role at this. Using low tier disposable infantry is also surprisingly effective as they will still trade with more powerful infantry controlled by AI (no sw exct...).

archer units seem to be as good or even better than their melee counterparts even in a melee fight

The difference in melee performance in any units basically doesn't exist other then weapon type. Try it yourself on a new char, despite no skill you're just fine wielding whatever you want.

For a player, it is pretty hard to hit anything with a bow from a fast moving horse

Well I guess YMMV but I butcher entire formations this way every day since march. You do need a bit of bow skill and perks to help, but it's not that much. Just like the AI you can easily drop units in piles from a great distance, because they're a massive pile of targets. Also like AI HA, take advantage of Cav and HA (and some players...) tendency to ride strait at you as they chase you, making it easy to pop them with high speed damage.

I like the idea of penalizing cavalry more in certain terrain types

Cavalry (not HA) is weak as **** and get crushed by infantry just staying in SW, archers just being and if you use the player to distract and slow them on charge they just get blow the **** out.

Honestly for Cav, keep in mind the player doesn't get 100 of the same type of Cav and fight 100 whatever. In the real game you get 1-2 dozen miss matched Cav.

 

[Antaeus]

Curious to see the same sims run in forests. Horse Archers (and cavalry in general) tend to suffer when you put them in trees.

Also in game, armies are stratified - a horse archer cluster might be made up of a range of high and low tier units. The low tier Khuzait horse archers are very weak thanks to their low armour. Aseri and Empire horse archers are harder to recruit so are relatively lower in number.

Then there's the discussion about weapons and ammunition. Khuzait horse archers bring more arrows in the main horse archer chain so should in theory be able to stay at distance longer. But then the class of bow and arrows also comes into play.

I say this because the conversation is a little more complicated than just a straight shootout. Snow slows horses down and trees form literal barriers to their effective use. Different classes of troops do have different capabilities to withstand missile fire and melee.

 

[brian82406]

I personally disagree with nerfing HA as a unit. Their aiming is practically ****, and they frequently spent all their arrows before the battle is over (big battle I mean), this is especially true with low tier horse archers, which are pretty worthless. I can feel my heart aching whenever I lost a HA, for it took so much time to train them to be something something. (I play 1.57 beta, and they made the required time to train high tier unit way longer).

They've already been downgraded a lot. Their best use is just as an archer you can quickly position, since there's no pre-battle placement.

and I agree with what Ananda said here, and you almost have to use them the same way as you use archer, or you will face a problem where they just ran into enemy reinforcement and get killed by infantry or cav. There are few occasions when you can use it as cav, but it would cause some weird crush if the HA was placed in Group 5.

However, I do like the idea of making them economically hard to sustain (which would make me drop tears even though I have tons).

I don't really think much about one on one scenario tbh. Each unit has their own role on battlefield, and there's no reason why they should be countering each other (horse and range unit naturally have advantages over infantry, you just can't deny that). It all just depends on how you use them tbh and that's how battle in reality works as well. Though I do hope spear men can brace spear when they are told to form into a shield formation.

Another thing is that Aserai Infantry is known to be the worst infantry, I am not surprised they got defeated by the second best Archer unit in the game.

 

[Yertyl]

They are not precise at all.

Mount & Blade II Bannerlord 2021.02.03 - 12.56.28.19 Horse Archers are not accurate

Watch "Mount & Blade II Bannerlord 2021.02.03 - 12.56.28.19 Horse Archers are not accurate" on Streamable.

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(5 HAs take 90 seconds to kill a single stationary target)

Their damage is pretty much the same because it is (basically) a toss-up between two or three arrows to kill someone in most circumstances and the specific damage number only matters for outliers. The foot-only bows actually have (or had, I should say: I haven't checked after the ranged adjustment) somewhat more paper damage than horse bows. If foot archers could one-shot other troops, you'd notice a difference. But until then, with two or three arrows to kill, it doesn't really matter.

Interesting. I guess I should have been more precise.I've played around with this a little bit -- archer vs archer compared to HA vs archer -- and: It depends on the distance.
A HA seems to be as precise, or a bit more, as a bow roughly at max distance. If archers start shooting at max distance (like with a pure "charge" command), battles seem to be about equally long with HA or normal archers (vs archers). If they run up to each other, archers kill each other much more quickly.
So I guess the problem really is more that HA will not dish out a huge amount of damage, but still far more than they take: A HA vs archer battle should IMO be roughly equal, but it is not even remotely. I guess making archers better against horses could be a solution, although then you would have to be careful to not make them too powerful overall. Hence me going the other way, making HA even less precise, though I have to admit that puts them in a weird spot as well.

Also, to be fair, you would have to do a similar test with other units. AI seem to take a pretty long time to kill a single stationary target in general. I tried it vs 5 cavalry + a lord. 1 cavalry managed to hit (but not kill) me in the first charge, then the lord threw all his javelins over my head, then I was finally killed in the second charge -- but that also took a pretty long time. Same with normal archers. Although HA did indeed seem to take the longest time.

(....)

Infantry must be used in advancing SW or holding SW with heavy ranged support, letting HA strafe them is not allowed, charging them into enemies is not okay either. Sorry if you wanted awesome berserkers, the game wasn't made that way and infantry is very vulnerable and trades heavily. It's a cheap shield for you ranged and does a good role at this. Using low tier disposable infantry is also surprisingly effective as they will still trade with more powerful infantry controlled by AI (no sw exct...).

I am pretty vehemently opposed to making one seemingly equivalent unit type just overall bad. So I guess a new player that plays as Battania and (like me) does not know you need to recruit fians from powerful village people is just screwed because he mostly has infantry? And Khuzait should just dominate everyone else forever? That's not a great solution.

(...)


Cavalry (not HA) is weak as **** and get crushed by infantry just staying in SW, archers just being and if you use the player to distract and slow them on charge they just get blow the **** out.

Honestly for Cav, keep in mind the player doesn't get 100 of the same type of Cav and fight 100 whatever. In the real game you get 1-2 dozen miss matched Cav.

Well, in my eyes melee cavalry should crush archers but get crushed by spear infantry (because otherwise there is 0 reason to have either unit type at all). Currently, they lose to some archers, but at the same time win against some spear infantry (see above). I guess you can say they are in a weird place (or more precisely: archers and infantry are, with archers being almost as good at melee as melee units), but I would not call them weak. At least not compared to infantry.
Also, while the player does need to buy horses, the AI dos not. And again, I don't think it's the best solution if the strength of an AI army just directly depends upon its composition (and thus culture), and Khuzait just rule eternally.

I personally disagree with nerfing HA as a unit. Their aiming is practically ****, and they frequently spent all their arrows before the battle is over (big battle I mean), this is especially true with low tier horse archers, which are pretty worthless. I can feel my heart aching whenever I lost a HA, for it took so much time to train them to be something something. (I play 1.57 beta, and they made the required time to train high tier unit way longer).



However, I do like the idea of making them economically hard to sustain (which would make me drop tears even though I have tons).

I don't really think much about one on one scenario tbh. Each unit has their own role on battlefield, and there's no reason why they should be countering each other (horse and range unit naturally have advantages over infantry, you just can't deny that). It all just depends on how you use them tbh and that's how battle in reality works as well. Though I do hope spear men can brace spear when they are told to form into a shield formation.

Another thing is that Aserai Infantry is known to be the worst infantry, I am not surprised they got defeated by the second best Archer unit in the game.

Each unit does pretty obviously not have their own role when horse archers are best against every other unit type. Otimal counter to infantry? Horse archers. Optimal counter to archers? Horse archers. Optimal counter to cavalry? Still horse archers. Your optimal strategy should not be: 1. Horse archers 2. F1 F3 3. Win.
And while the player does need to buy horses, the AI does not. Also, not all fractions have horse archers. Are you really OK with Aserai and Khuzait just generally being miles better than Sturgia?

EDIT: In reply to both: I think the overall best solution would be if both archers and melee dealt more damage to mounted units, but at the same time melee (both mounted and non-mounted) dealt more damage to archers. So a cavalry charging would take more losses, but at the same time deal more damage to archers & horse archers. Currently melee cav does also do not seem to be very good at actually hitting with their charge.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Well there's not going to be 'counters' in mount and blade.

 

[Yertyl]

Well there's not going to be 'counters' in mount and blade.

Call it whatever you like, but it's obviously not good if one unit type dominates basically every situation. It's not like you can counter horse archers with some clever tactics or mixed unit composition (that is not abuse of AI). Infantry can't catch them, archers can't hit them, and cavalry is moderately effective at best at dealing with them.
The only thing that makes them managable ATM is that not that many factions have them, and for some reason they always charge alone into the same spot at the beginning of a battle. If the AI just massed horse archers and was a bit more careful with their lives, they would be nightmare to deal with for any player.
On the other hand: If infantry can't kill melee cav or ranged units even in a melee brawl -- why have them at all?

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

. It's not like you can counter horse archers with some clever tactics or mixed unit composition

Of course I can.
I hit them in back of the head and kill them all.


I'm all for improving Cav infantry and ranged accuracy against moving targets and other player UI stuff to help in battle. However I can't help but find it absurd that people seem surprised or upset that armored horse and rider with a recurve bow is better in open combat then a man with a sword and shield or man with just a bow exct... Of course they're better. Heavy Cav is a disappointment though.

 

[brian82406]

Interesting. I guess I should have been more precise.I've played around with this a little bit -- archer vs archer compared to HA vs archer -- and: It depends on the distance.
A HA seems to be as precise, or a bit more, as a bow roughly at max distance. If archers start shooting at max distance (like with a pure "charge" command), battles seem to be about equally long with HA or normal archers (vs archers). If they run up to each other, archers kill each other much more quickly.
So I guess the problem really is more that HA will not dish out a huge amount of damage, but still far more than they take: A HA vs archer battle should IMO be roughly equal, but it is not even remotely. I guess making archers better against horses could be a solution, although then you would have to be careful to not make them too powerful overall. Hence me going the other way, making HA even less precise, though I have to admit that puts them in a weird spot as well.

Also, to be fair, you would have to do a similar test with other units. AI seem to take a pretty long time to kill a single stationary target in general. I tried it vs 5 cavalry + a lord. 1 cavalry managed to hit (but not kill) me in the first charge, then the lord threw all his javelins over my head, then I was finally killed in the second charge -- but that also took a pretty long time. Same with normal archers. Although HA did indeed seem to take the longest time.

I am pretty vehemently opposed to making one seemingly equivalent unit type just overall bad. So I guess a new player that plays as Battania and (like me) does not know you need to recruit fians from powerful village people is just screwed because he mostly has infantry? And Khuzait should just dominate everyone else forever? That's not a great solution.

Well, in my eyes melee cavalry should crush archers but get crushed by spear infantry (because otherwise there is 0 reason to have either unit type at all). Currently, they lose to some archers, but at the same time win against some spear infantry (see above). I guess you can say they are in a weird place (or more precisely: archers and infantry are, with archers being almost as good at melee as melee units), but I would not call them weak. At least not compared to infantry.
Also, while the player does need to buy horses, the AI dos not. And again, I don't think it's the best solution if the strength of an AI army just directly depends upon its composition (and thus culture), and Khuzait just rule eternally.

Each unit does pretty obviously not have their own role when horse archers are best against every other unit type. Otimal counter to infantry? Horse archers. Optimal counter to archers? Horse archers. Optimal counter to cavalry? Still horse archers. Your optimal strategy should not be: 1. Horse archers 2. F1 F3 3. Win.
And while the player does need to buy horses, the AI does not. Also, not all fractions have horse archers. Are you really OK with Aserai and Khuzait just generally being miles better than Sturgia?

EDIT: In reply to both: I think the overall best solution would be if both archers and melee dealt more damage to mounted units, but at the same time melee (both mounted and non-mounted) dealt more damage to archers. So a cavalry charging would take more losses, but at the same time deal more damage to archers & horse archers. Currently melee cav does also do not seem to be very good at actually hitting with their charge.

That’s not entirely true. I tried that before, it’s a very very bad idea in general, especially the pathing of HA depends on the target they are firing. If they are firing at infantry block, good news. If they are firing at cav on the flank, then there’s a good chance they might run into enemy infantry formation and commit a massive suicide.

And you may win a single battle, but it doesn’t mean anything. If you are fighting a war, you want to continue fighting different group, and you can’t do that w 100% HA. So yes, Everything has its own role, and can’t function independently. Winning doesn’t mean anything unless you win with everything entacted. F1+F3 HA is the worst strategy ever.

HA gave you some advantages but not immunity. I defeated Aserai armies w their own HA 2 times my HA w my formation. I defeated them no problem, and I got defeated w more HA presented too, because my infantries and archers broke and ran away.

I am sorry, but 1 unit type vs 1 unit type test is just not very smart.

 

[Yertyl]

Of course I can.
I hit them in back of the head and kill them all.


I'm all for improving Cav infantry and ranged accuracy against moving targets and other player UI stuff to help in battle. However I can't help but find it absurd that people seem surprised or upset that armored horse and rider with a recurve bow is better in open combat then a man with a sword and shield or man with just a bow exct... Of course they're better. Heavy Cav is a disappointment though.

...yes, the player himself can kill horse archers. He can generally also kill infantry, archers and melee cav, and I would argue with more ease. My point was: In an equivalent battle. Same number of units, same level of tactics. I don't see a situation in which a mix of cavalry, archers and infantry would do better than each single unit type against HA. Infantry can just be completely ignored as long as the HA do not just charge straight into them because of AI failure. I guess archers would do a bit more damage if you were able to stop them with a cav charge (and I tried that strat before), but that again has more to do with AI. Even with an extremely simple behavior (when something comes close, ride away), melee cav would have very little chance of forcing a horse archer to stop.
I guess we can shoot for a balance that revolves around the fact that the AI can only keep its distance from the unit is is currently attacking, instead of all, but...that does not sound very satisfying to me. And of course would still leave HA as the best unit in the hands of an attentive player.

Also, someone posted in another thread that horse archers dismounted for archer vs archer combat, so it does not seem that obvious to me. But I would generally say gameplay > realism. It's not fun if playing Khuzait cav heavy is just much more powerful than sturgia infantry heavy no matter what (and I have done both).

 

[brian82406]

well, firstly you are not play a multiplayer game. If you are, then multiplayer ppl can tell you tons abt how to to counter it I believe.

Secondly, you can counter HA w enough archers and some cavs or even inf (to pin them down). You just have to learn to utilize the group systems really. I would understand if you are complaining abt how we can’t deploy our armies before battle, because we really just should.

Thirdly, you are playing a game where cav advantages can be actually visualized. No matter how they change the game, horse unit would always have and should have such adv over infantries.

 

[Apocal]

And you may win a single battle, but it doesn’t mean anything. If you are fighting a war, you want to continue fighting different group, and you can’t do that w 100% HA.

Um, yes you can. Why do you think it isn't possible?

 

[brian82406]

with F1+F3 in a 1000 battle...? sure upload a vid, I wanna see how your AI under charge command did better than mine.

 

[Apocal]

with F1+F3 in a 1000 battle...? sure upload a vid, I wanna see how your AI under charge command did better than mine.

I don't use F1 F3. I can use 100% HA to fight a bunch of different groups though. There isn't anything that really stops it, especially not when 100% HAs take next-to-no losses.