Horse Archer Meta?

[5-o'clockShadowboxer]

I just played my first match of multiplayer after 360+ hours on singleplayer and it was great, I played captain mode, we were Sturgia vs Khuzaits and we won 3-1. What stood out to me the most was that our opponents spammed horse archers and were actually punished for it because of one mechanic: zone control.

Coming out of hundreds of hours on singleplayer I was expecting to get roasted when I saw them with so many horse archers. I was shocked and almost disappointed with how poorly the horse archers performed, they couldn't do anything because all we had to do was walk our infantry up to the points in shield wall information and we won. We always had at least 3 units with spears so they didn't charge us unless we were already engaged with the 1 or maybe 2 units of infantry that they brought, but those battles quickly turned in our favor. All this leads me to ask: are horse archers the meta for any faction, and if so, are they any good?

I guess my question is aimed primarily towards captain mode but siege also has a similar zone control mechanic from what I've seen.

 

[Tryerror]

No. Why? Movement accuracy penalty after Patch X.YZ. Why Patch? Because Horse Archers where Broken on X.YY. because every Archer got a huge deserved accuracy penalty unless he was on a horse - which was kind a "bug". Since then they only hit when they dont move or you do drive by shooting with your entire crosshair beeing on their body.
Should they change it? - No, horse archery was banned in Warband for a reason.

 

[Spottswoode]

Horse Archer is good when they are used to sneak up behind enemy lines once the main fight starts and there is no cavalry to counter them. Problem is there is usually a cav unit on the enemy side to counter them.

Also if the horse Archer loses one unit and the enemy takes that free horse and if the player knows what they are doing, they will likely be able to kill a lot of the ai horse archers very quickly because they are pretty much a one shot to kill with a 2h. In most circumstances choosing horse archers is very very risky.

If you are very careful and do not give up any horses and the enemy is infantry only.. Then you can make them work.. but this is quite an art to pull off and also contribute meaningfully.

In saying this KZ cav with glaives and arrows can be effective, once again... You don't want to lose men early and give the enemy horses to start picking apart your ai... If their player is good

 

[Super Jew]

The problems with Horse Archers (in captain):

• They are heavily dependent on the players pvp ability (which 95% of captain players lack)
• One mistake of not moving your horse archers soon enough results in vulnerable units getting punished easily
• They have bad horses, armor and melee weapons making them completely reliant on their bows for kills
• The AI takes forever to turn around and fire after moving them
• They need to be shooting the entire round to get value
• AI can't shoot on the run accurately
• Players coming from single player and getting zoned in and not realizing what their AI is doing

How they can be improved?

• Improve AI
• Increase numbers