Just remove horse archers from the game

[rektasaurus]

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?


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.

Wow that is some cheese tactic against cav archer dominant forces. For horse archers to beat that they’d have to know when to do the clockwise rotating cantabrian circle, shooting outward and then falling away from your front line. If they could only turn right they’d wreck you lmao. IMO devs need to fix that ASAP if it’s an issue that’s ridiculous lmao.

 

[sniparsexe]

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.

I'll try this, I don't have that much HA but I think I can do it

Spoiler: So this is what I'm doing right?

Did I get it right?

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Wow that is some cheese tactic against cav archer dominant forces. For horse archers to beat that they’d have to know when to do the clockwise rotating cantabrian circle, shooting outward and then falling away from your front line. If they could only turn right they’d wreck you lmao. IMO devs need to fix that ASAP if it’s an issue that’s ridiculous lmao.

If they did I would just charge my heavy HAs and they'd still be in a cross fire because my foot archers and secondary HA formation is behind my heavy HA.. What would help is if AI understood how much ranged I had and didn't send HA ahead of main troops if you have a significant amount.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I'll try this, I don't have that much HA but I think I can do it

Spoiler: So this is what I'm doing right?

Did I get it right?

Looks pretty good, maybe have foot archer not so extemly left facing, like 1/2 as much so they still can shoot approaching HA. Also I put them on the left side but it might be better how you drew it. Depending on how much inf/cav you have you might sit some in front of HA and some in front of foot archers. You might even charge the Cav once the HA are close to slow them down. One thing just to be clear, you want your HA stationary as the enemy approaches, they shoot for more damage and accuracy that way, sometime they can all just stay that way and kill the HA, sometimes you'l want to fallow me and circle behind them or chase them. Sometime enemy HA changes it mind or get confused and hang out in front , you can just face direction at them or face enemy get them, but often when they change or stop they get immediately wrecked anyways. Also if they somehow get around and all the way behind just f3 f2 f1 to face enemy. There's probably a lot little thing you could figure out with your particular parties. The main thing to me is that the default setting of ranged does a bad job of hitting HA, but moving them back and facing direction seem to improve them immensely.

 

[rektasaurus]

If they did I would just charge my heavy HAs and they'd still be in a cross fire because my foot archers and secondary HA formation is behind my heavy HA.. What would help is if AI understood how much ranged I had and didn't send HA ahead of main troops if you have a significant amount.

Their behavior should be a clockwise cantabrian circle around their own foot units and then figure 8 into a counterclockwise circle around their opponent’s foot. Or enter a circle fight with enemy horse archers if they, as you said you would, charge in.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Their behavior should be a clockwise cantabrian circle around their own foot units and then figure 8 into a counterclockwise circle around their opponent’s foot. Or enter a circle fight with enemy horse archers if they, as you said you would, charge in.

If they're in range of my second range formation they'll be out gun'd. As a human I can put my HA on fallow me and just F the AI no matter what way it goes. I can even hit 4 f4 and make them close into their faces and stop them in front of my archers. Being near their own inf ranged and cav would be the best option no matter what they do.

Edit: I'm all for any improvements to their AI. My argument is just that you called my strat cheese when it's just the opening moves and not cheese at all. They move HA this way, okay I move my pieces this way. If they instead do something else I'll make a new move in response. If they do nothing I move all my pieces forward and attack them form multiple sides.

 

[KyDeezy]

I'll try this, I don't have that much HA but I think I can do it

Spoiler: So this is what I'm doing right?

Did I get it right?

Looks good. There are many other ways to do this. I often play infantry only runs and I'll leave a gap 20meters on the left for the HA to run through and place a loose formation stack of berserkers to catch them. You can close the trap with another formation of infantry moving right to left that chases the HA into the berserkers.

 

[rektasaurus]

If they're in range of my second range formation they'll be out gun'd. As a human I can put my HA on fallow me and just F the AI no matter what way it goes. I can even hit 4 f4 and make them close into their faces and stop them in front of my archers. Being near their own inf ranged and cav would be the best option no matter what they do.

Edit: I'm all for any improvements to their AI. My argument is just that you called my strat cheese when it's just the opening moves and not cheese at all. They move HA this way, okay I move my pieces this way. If they instead do something else I'll make a new move in response. If they do nothing I move all my pieces forward and attack them form multiple sides.

The start is cheese because it takes advantage of map limitations and a hole in cav archer behavior which is probably not intended. Not saying you’re bad at playing games, it takes talent to figure that out.

 

[rektasaurus]

Looks good. There are many other ways to do this. I often play infantry only runs and I'll leave a gap 20meters on the left for the HA to run through and place a loose formation stack of berserkers to catch them. You can close the trap with another formation of infantry moving right to left that chases the HA into the berserkers.

I guess you would have to do that if you have an inf only army and wanted to win without waiting out their arrows.

 

[Bob Gnarly]

I don't find them much of an issue, especially because the AI likes to send them in immediately to my waiting shieldwall with my foot archers protected behind. Sometimes I'll lead a cav charge into them to break them up a bit or ride out solo to distract them while my foot archers pick them off, but most of the time it's not needed.

 

[Wehveechen]

Dunno how to break it to you but usually, when playing on the highest difficulty and struggling with certain enemies, one is sort of supposed to lower the difficulty and see if that gives them a more enjoyable experience...
Edit: just to be clear, I'm not saying "git gud", I'm saying that asking for changes to the games balancing instead of adjusting your own difficulty is sort of not the most logical order of actions imo

 

[geala]

I'm a bit baffled that 55 foot archers can not deal with 15 horse archers. Ok, Empire horse archers are top tier heavily armored cavalry (nice try to battle them by nerfing bows and making armor work better ...), so they are a real danger but if you have superiority over the enemy party and they don't attack en masse but only with the horse archers you can defeat them quite easily. Just chase them alone or with parts of your cavalry when they are in range of your archers. Maybe sooner or later you will eat enough arrows to kiss the earth. The only mod you need for this situation (and similar "deaths") is one which allows you to control other soldiers of your party after incapacitation.

If the enemy party is superior and attacks, you have other problems than horse archers. My rule is, who has the most shielded heavy infantry always wins.

 

[sniparsexe]

I don't find them much of an issue, especially because the AI likes to send them in immediately to my waiting shieldwall with my foot archers protected behind. Sometimes I'll lead a cav charge into them to break them up a bit or ride out solo to distract them while my foot archers pick them off, but most of the time it's not needed.

I don't know why but in my campaign they can kill my archers even if they are behind the shieldwall, this is why I said professional snipers.

Dunno how to break it to you but usually, when playing on the highest difficulty and struggling with certain enemies, one is sort of supposed to lower the difficulty and see if that gives them a more enjoyable experience...
Edit: just to be clear, I'm not saying "git gud", I'm saying that asking for changes to the games balancing instead of adjusting your own difficulty is sort of not the most logical order of actions imo

I ain't got a problem with other troops, I can handle them easily, and it is extremely fun but those empire/aserai horse archers are definitely broken at least in my campaign, I don't have a problem with khuzait horse archers I can handle them too because they aren't professional snipers riding a horse while using a Barrett M82.

I'm a bit baffled that 55 foot archers can not deal with 15 horse archers. Ok, Empire horse archers are top tier heavily armored cavalry (nice try to battle them by nerfing bows and making armor work better ...), so they are a real danger but if you have superiority over the enemy party and they don't attack en masse but only with the horse archers you can defeat them quite easily. Just chase them alone or with parts of your cavalry when they are in range of your archers. Maybe sooner or later you will eat enough arrows to kiss the earth. The only mod you need for this situation (and similar "deaths") is one which allows you to control other soldiers of your party after incapacitation.

If the enemy party is superior and attacks, you have other problems than horse archers. My rule is, who has the most shielded heavy infantry always wins.

If you nerf bows they can't one shot your army and your horses, if you buff armor again they can't one shot your army and your ARMORED horses.I don't know why but "who has the most shielded heavy infantry always wins" doesn't work for me, empire/aserai horse archers can kill my heavily armored infantries with 1 or 2 arrows.

 

[geala]

You should be glad that bows and arrows/crossbows and bolts are a bit too good against armor, otherwise the Empire (and Vlandia and Azerai and Khuzait maybe) would be unbeatable, as all top tier units have fat scale/lamellar armor, so mostly plate in a certain way. Ok, bad if you are Empire fan.

Armor is of less worth than shields here. Because horse archers cycle they can shoot from the flank and back and kill shielded infantry. You have to avoid this by making the horse archers face you and some fast moving targets instead.

 

[Theofilos]

Just making sure do you use F2->F1 command to your archers?It makes a lot of diffence.

 

[jipped]

I don't have much issue with khuzait anymore. Get cav and archers. Pretty simple

 

[KyDeezy]

I would highly recommend realistic battle with realistic armour mod. Number 1 most important mod for me.

 

[khuzait haircut]

You need to charge them with your cavalry and that will keep them occupied. Otherwise they are a real problem.

 

[Aggrobiscuit]

You can't really fix horse archers without taking away what makes them realistically powerful. They can pick their fights because of map travel speed, so they avoiding losing fights = losing troops. This means that a fight with a Khuzait often means a decently tiered force with good composition, rather than 90% low tier footsloggers like your friendly AI is using.

The one fix I'd suggest for horse archers is to nerf how they perform in sieges, this should be where the Khuzait bleed horse archers, and sieging a castle or city should be a painful decision for the AI.

As for actual combat, if you want to fight them without exploits, engage them with cavalry before they distract your archers from tearing up their infantry.

If you want to exploit, put your people in the corner of the map. Horse archers want to circle you, but will not leave the map. If you're in the corner they get stuck where your archers can wreck them.

 

[Dean Beecham]

I love going up against these. its a challenge every time .. But get a great buz when i win...Most of the time i go into them with my H Cav when they are close to my Inf then send them in as well .theres so many troops around they can run away . My archers are left to slow any inf down why i sort these Cav Archers out.My Horse archers are also left with my Archers as support.I have an Army of 218 ,, 118 are mix cav 100 are foot Archers..I also run around with a companion that holds 100 troops they are all mixed Inf only... I can handle going up against 500 army with this ..