Just remove horse archers from the game

[sniparsexe]

TL DR: Horse archers are broken and are overpowered nerf them

First of all, English is not my primary language and I'm too angry to think so there will be hella mistakes.

So, I stopped playing this beautiful game after 55 hours, started playing again, I'm playing on full realistic and AI is maxed. Now my problem is f***ing horse archers, just that stupid broken class. I have a pretty decent armor set and my army setup is. 55 ranged 65 infantry 10 normal cavalry and 15 f***ing stupid horse archers. I freaking lose 20+ troops in every battle because of that freaking class (and that's only if my enemy has 15 horse archers), now you are probably saying yeah because you're playing on realistic, but the thing is my freaking horse archers are stupid while enemy horse archers are like professional snipers riding horses while using Barrett M82. Yes Barrett M82 because they one-shot me every single time, armor doesn't work, it just doesn't work. but my horse archers are kids riding horses while using water guns, they miss all the time and if I give them the control they just charge into spears. So, please please and please nerf this stupid class (or troops I don't know what it is) I can't check updates or other threads so if there is already a plan to nerf them sorry about that.
or please recommend me a tactic. I'm good at history and battle tactics but I tried all I know it just doesn't work.
or is there a mod that makes horse archers less broken or makes armor work.

 

[Wulfsdottir]

Maybe you need to try this mod.

Armor Does Something

This mod changes a few game variables to strengthen armor and melee. It has no requirements, scripts or DLLs. It should be safe to both add and remove from a running campaign, assuming other mods don'

www.nexusmods.com

Not sure it's what you need, but check yourself.

 

[rektasaurus]

TL DR: Horse archers are broken and are overpowered nerf them

First of all, English is not my primary language and I'm too angry to think so there will be hella mistakes.

So, I stopped playing this beautiful game after 55 hours, started playing again, I'm playing on full realistic and AI is maxed. Now my problem is f***ing horse archers, just that stupid broken class. I have a pretty decent armor set and my army setup is. 55 ranged 65 infantry 10 normal cavalry and 15 f***ing stupid horse archers. I freaking lose 20+ troops in every battle because of that freaking class (and that's only if my enemy has 15 horse archers), now you are probably saying yeah because you're playing on realistic, but the thing is my freaking horse archers are stupid while enemy horse archers are like professional snipers riding horses while using Barrett M82. Yes Barrett M82 because they one-shot me every single time, armor doesn't work, it just doesn't work. but my horse archers are kids riding horses while using water guns, they miss all the time and if I give them the control they just charge into spears. So, please please and please nerf this stupid class (or troops I don't know what it is) I can't check updates or other threads so if there is already a plan to nerf them sorry about that.
or please recommend me a tactic. I'm good at history and battle tactics but I tried all I know it just doesn't work.
or is there a mod that makes horse archers less broken or makes armor work.

Horse archers, massed foot archers, and heavy cav kill horse archers. First get more horse archers. Make half your army horse archers. The other half needs to have armor so like heavy inf. Set horse archers to follow you and charge ahead moving straight ahead and past the enemy’s left flank, across from your right flank. Enter a counter clock wise wheel around them. Don’t get too close otherwise your archers will draw their swords. And don’t get too far away or they can’t hit. Try to get the enemy archers to aggro your infantry and position your horse archers always to the right and behind the enemy. You can only fire to the left of your horse. If you are on your enemy’s right, they can’t hit you. Proceed to let your cav pepper them at fairly close range matching their speed without taking damage.

 

[XDaron]

they just need to reduce their ammo imo, there were a time during the beta where it was actually a thing, but then the devs gave them 40 ammo because it wan't ''realistic'' for them to carry less arrows than a normal unmounted archer.

 

[sniparsexe]

they just need to reduce their ammo imo, there were a time during the beta where it was actually a thing, but then the devs gave them 40 ammo because it wan't ''realistic'' for them to carry less arrows than a normal unmounted archer.

yes it isn't realistic but they are freakin' op, reducing ammo would work too, 20 or 18 is good

 

[Theofilos]

They dont do much dmg neither they have such good accuracy but if they are quite a lot and enemy is in tight formations they can do a lot of dmg cuz they'll hit something no matter what.1st use F2-F1 command on archers so they wont turn around insteed of shooting and since you use a 95% melee army you need to use some kind of obsticle (mountain/rock/river/end of map) at your left flank so they cant circle and believe me the time they will stop cuz they cant circle around you'll see them drop like flies from your archers.In general horse archers are the answer to foot soldiers so by using only 2 troop types (infantry/archers) you agreed to have not many answers to diff troops.You can use javellin cav/melee cav but not only 5-10 men more needed.Hope that helps.

 

[Reiksmarshal]

They just need their accuracy dropped a bit, but there are ways to stop them like the post above explains.

 

[Marajah]

They need to be tuned down, but I don't agree on just outright hitting them with the nerf bat as a permanent solution. I think this is more of a core game issue. I see 2 problems with the way they are now:
1 - They are very accessible, while counters to them are not. Vlandian heavy cavalry are tier 5, Imperial cavalry are rare troops, Sturgian heavy cavalry are rare troops. Even other factions' light cavalry are relatively hard to obtain. I think the easier ones are Aserai mamlukes at tier 3. All of those die faster than you can replenish them while horse archers are tier 2, mostly stay safe and can get to top tier consistently
2 - We can't direct our troops' attacks. If we could order our cavalry to attack their cavalry directly I suppose their OPness might be mitigated. Right now cavalry attacks the nearest thing when you order a charge, ride off, then attacks the next closest enemy, leading cavalry to a huge mess unless you babysit them (which usually leads to neglecting your other troops). It's also hard to get a decent devastating couched lance charge, since you gotta order the charge across the map.

 

[9yearsago]

This is exactly what I loved in Bannerlord and which Warband lacked; domination by horse archers on fields as it supposed to be. They suck so badly in sieges and this balances things a bit but I actually don't mind balance at all. Life ain't fair.

In my opinion they need to nerf some kingdoms or weaken them greatly to create a more realistic representation. Seriously some kingdoms should have slight disadvantages so their campaign will be much more of a challange, an entirely different experience.

 

[Because]

Personally I love them, the AI is great and I've had my Horse archers use it to great effect. Their accuracy IMO is fairly awful (unless their target is standing in a blob where even a miss will hit someone. They don't last long to real cavalry as their chance to hit a moving target is iffy at best, although you do need to manage the timings of your cavalry a bit. I honestly think they are one of the best developed behaviour bits of the game and like them as they are. Admittedly I always play mounted and so the swirling horse archer combat is pretty good fun.

On foot I can see how it would be trickier, but if you are in the open on foot facing a much more mobile enemy with twice the ranged weapons you have you should lose as you've taken the wrong force to the battle. I know that doesn't fit peoples play styles, but it takes away what horse archers are good at if you say that my "realistic setting" guys on foot most of whom can't shoot back or harm the enemy in any way if the AI even half works should win. Fight in terrain and use cavalry yourself.

If you were to change anything about them you could lower the auto resolve abilities, based on terrain and in the case of the one faction that specialises in them weaken their other troops a fraction so that they have trouble in sieges like the Kergit always used to so they have a more pronounced weakeness.

Sorry I know this is a bit of rant, I'm just a bit put out with requests to nerf things (other than the price of stuff) and the AI on Horse archers is good and feels like a challenge and I love fighting them as they are, nerfing them so that they can be beaten reliably in the open by melee equipped foot soldiers just seems wrong.

 

[rektasaurus]

Personally I love them, the AI is great and I've had my Horse archers use it to great effect. Their accuracy IMO is fairly awful (unless their target is standing in a blob where even a miss will hit someone. They don't last long to real cavalry as their chance to hit a moving target is iffy at best, although you do need to manage the timings of your cavalry a bit. I honestly think they are one of the best developed behaviour bits of the game and like them as they are. Admittedly I always play mounted and so the swirling horse archer combat is pretty good fun.

On foot I can see how it would be trickier, but if you are in the open on foot facing a much more mobile enemy with twice the ranged weapons you have you should lose as you've taken the wrong force to the battle. I know that doesn't fit peoples play styles, but it takes away what horse archers are good at if you say that my "realistic setting" guys on foot most of whom can't shoot back or harm the enemy in any way if the AI even half works should win. Fight in terrain and use cavalry yourself.

If you were to change anything about them you could lower the auto resolve abilities, based on terrain and in the case of the one faction that specialises in them weaken their other troops a fraction so that they have trouble in sieges like the Kergit always used to so they have a more pronounced weakeness.

Sorry I know this is a bit of rant, I'm just a bit put out with requests to nerf things (other than the price of stuff) and the AI on Horse archers is good and feels like a challenge and I love fighting them as they are, nerfing them so that they can be beaten reliably in the open by melee equipped foot soldiers just seems wrong.

Yeah the horse archers in this game are basically the best done unit type

 

[Julio-Claudian]

OP is Crassus' ghost I think.

Personally I love them, the AI is great and I've had my Horse archers use it to great effect. Their accuracy IMO is fairly awful (unless their target is standing in a blob where even a miss will hit someone. They don't last long to real cavalry as their chance to hit a moving target is iffy at best, although you do need to manage the timings of your cavalry a bit. I honestly think they are one of the best developed behaviour bits of the game and like them as they are. Admittedly I always play mounted and so the swirling horse archer combat is pretty good fun.

On foot I can see how it would be trickier, but if you are in the open on foot facing a much more mobile enemy with twice the ranged weapons you have you should lose as you've taken the wrong force to the battle. I know that doesn't fit peoples play styles, but it takes away what horse archers are good at if you say that my "realistic setting" guys on foot most of whom can't shoot back or harm the enemy in any way if the AI even half works should win. Fight in terrain and use cavalry yourself.

If you were to change anything about them you could lower the auto resolve abilities, based on terrain and in the case of the one faction that specialises in them weaken their other troops a fraction so that they have trouble in sieges like the Kergit always used to so they have a more pronounced weakeness.

Sorry I know this is a bit of rant, I'm just a bit put out with requests to nerf things (other than the price of stuff) and the AI on Horse archers is good and feels like a challenge and I love fighting them as they are, nerfing them so that they can be beaten reliably in the open by melee equipped foot soldiers just seems wrong.

I agree with this. They are scary to face in large numbers but not unbeatable.
Horse archers were one of the most effective types of soldier in history. There's a reason the Huns etc. were so successful.
Unless a unit is unrealistically strong I hate the idea of just nerfing, you'll end up with things being equally balanced on all sides with no challenge or variety - which is boring.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

Just delete the game again, bye.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I love them and am so glad they have functional AI. It was horrible that they nerfed the HA AI in original M&B, it made them useless.
AI HA are free easy kills if you know how to deal with them. Anyone saying they're OP is just a bad commander. I've beat the Khuzait into the ground as a lone clan on hardest settings at least 5 different games.

but the thing is my freaking horse archers are stupid while enemy horse archers

All AI is stupid, you're supposed to be the brain
Put your ranged in formation towards the back of the map, face direction diagonally to the left. If you have foot archers too, put them behind HA and face them more left. Now watch as the enemy HA formations rides up and gets shot to hell! If you're good at playing you can easily circle behind them while this goes on and shoot and glaive them. You can also put HA on fallow me and as the enemy HA nears the back of map and circle around them trapping them in a cross fire between HA nad archers. If you have inf and cav just put them in front of ranged a lil, they'll soak up arrows, that's all they're good for until AI is improved.
If the main enemy catches up before you finish them, retreat, regroup and repeat.

This makes fighting Khuzait easy because you can always take out a large part of their force with you full force while the rest of enemy slog there way to you.

because they one-shot me every single time
If you're riding at them you take speed a bonus when you get shot! Don't do tha,t circle them and actually weave around so they're not pointed right at you!
Use a horse with good maneuver like asiligat or steppe warhorse if it's to hard for you to move out of the way. They're really easy because they move in a very predictable steady manner.

They need to be tuned down, but I don't agree on just outright hitting them with the nerf bat as a permanent solution. I think this is more of a core game issue. I see 2 problems with the way they are now:
1 - They are very accessible, while counters to them are not. Vlandian heavy cavalry are tier 5, Imperial cavalry are rare troops, Sturgian heavy cavalry are rare troops. Even other factions' light cavalry are relatively hard to obtain. I think the easier ones are Aserai mamlukes at tier 3. All of those die faster than you can replenish them while horse archers are tier 2, mostly stay safe and can get to top tier consistently
2 - We can't direct our troops' attacks. If we could order our cavalry to attack their cavalry directly I suppose their OPness might be mitigated. Right now cavalry attacks the nearest thing when you order a charge, ride off, then attacks the next closest enemy, leading cavalry to a huge mess unless you babysit them (which usually leads to neglecting your other troops). It's also hard to get a decent devastating couched lance charge, since you gotta order the charge across the map.

They're very accessible TO YOU TOO! AI gets their troops cheated in so it doesn't matter 'how hard' to get xyz is.... nothing is hard for them.
Cav is NOT the counter! Cav is bad because of bad AI and side weapons not able reach enemies! Archers/HA are the counter! You can make t2 empire archers and easily amass them, they're the most common recruit in the game!

I would like to have units prioritize at type of enemy too, I think that would be a huge improvement to M&B. However doing what I described will absolutely destroy AI horse archers.

 

[BuckleUpBones]

If anything make them alittle harder to acquire, I like the idea of having at least one strong unit in the field that you can deploy at your command.

Also building up these units is game content (grind to some), sort after units is game immersion, the goal, the drive and the reward.

Rarity equals immersion.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

Rarity equals immersion.

Only if you're ignorant on the steppe way of life, so not in the case of the Khuzait.

 

[sniparsexe]

Horse archers, massed foot archers, and heavy cav kill horse archers. First get more horse archers. Make half your army horse archers. The other half needs to have armor so like heavy inf. Set horse archers to follow you and charge ahead moving straight ahead and past the enemy’s left flank, across from your right flank. Enter a counter clock wise wheel around them. Don’t get too close otherwise your archers will draw their swords. And don’t get too far away or they can’t hit. Try to get the enemy archers to aggro your infantry and position your horse archers always to the right and behind the enemy. You can only fire to the left of your horse. If you are on your enemy’s right, they can’t hit you. Proceed to let your cav pepper them at fairly close range matching their speed without taking damage

thank you, will check this.

They dont do much dmg neither they have such good accuracy but if they are quite a lot and enemy is in tight formations they can do a lot of dmg cuz they'll hit something no matter what.1st use F2-F1 command on archers so they wont turn around insteed of shooting and since you use a 95% melee army you need to use some kind of obsticle (mountain/rock/river/end of map) at your left flank so they cant circle and believe me the time they will stop cuz they cant circle around you'll see them drop like flies from your archers.In general horse archers are the answer to foot soldiers so by using only 2 troop types (infantry/archers) you agreed to have not many answers to diff troops.You can use javellin cav/melee cav but not only 5-10 men more needed.Hope that helps.

As I said before I don't know why but they are like professional snipers on my campaign tried loose formation many times it doesn't work, they can kill every unit with 2 arrows, including heavy infantries. I know horse archers are an answer to foot soldiers but this is just too much.

I agree with this. They are scary to face in large numbers but not unbeatable.

I'm talking about 15 horse archers. 15 horse archers can kill at least 30 soldiers even if you know how to counter them/made everything to counter them.

All AI is stupid, you're supposed to be the brain

As I said, I tried like 9 or 10 real historical formations and tactics to beat them, it just doesn't work, they can shoot me and/or my army from like 100m away, it doesn't matter, they can destroy my army while my army is on loose formation and they can hit me while I'm riding to random directions too.

This makes fighting Khuzait easy because you can always take out a large part of their force with you full force while the rest of enemy slog there way to you.

Khuzaits aren't a problem for me, their horse archers are like normal horse archers, my problem is with empire horse archers.

If you're riding at them you take speed a bonus when you get shot! Don't do tha,t circle them and actually weave around so they're not pointed right at you!

No actually they can kill me with 1 or 2 arrows while I'm riding away from them. and my armor is pretty decent.

Also thanks everyone for those tactics, I'll definitely try them and let you know.

 

[sniparsexe]

Today I'll try to record a video of that horse archers and upload it to YouTube

 

[rektasaurus]

Today I'll try to record a video of that horse archers and upload it to YouTube

That might help. It could be that your unarmored archers are not prioritizing shooting the horse archers and just get wrecked while trying to shoot enemy infantry. Which units get killed? Imp horse archers are pretty heavy duty. In realistic settings even rocks thrown by looters will take away an 1/8 of my health, and they never seem to run out. It’s like almost a quarter if they headshot me ha I wish I could throw stones.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

As I said, I tried like 9 or 10 real historical formations and tactics to beat them, it just doesn't work, they can shoot me and/or my army from like 100m away, it doesn't matter, they can destroy my army while my army is on loose formation and they can hit me while I'm riding to random directions too.

Neat, but did you do exactly what I said, with lots of archers and HA? I do this and stomp even massive HA formations, like 100+.
If you're using infantry, you need to accept that getting killed instead of ranged is what it does, that's it's job. Until they improve AI for infantry all they are is a meat shield. This is not because HA is too strong, it is because infantry is not good in open battle and it's AI is not finished. Just make ranged and not infantry. At least the ranged with do some damage before it dies. This is nothing new, in warband infantry are a liability outside of defending a siege. They're slow, have no or limited ranged weapons and have to exchange attacks to kill things. Why would you want that for anything but blocking off entrances in a siege defense?

Khuzaits aren't a problem for me, their horse archers are like normal horse archers, my problem is with empire horse archers.

Well I stomp them too with the same strat I outlined in my first post. Put enough ranged in the right position and direction to hit HA and they kill the HA.