Mounted unit balance: Competing design philosophies

[Helstrom]

So, I wanted to open this discussion because in both game design and discussions here I see a clash of two differing philosophies around mounted units:

1. Mounted units are straight up better than non-mounted units

• they are faster on both the battlefield and strategic map
• in battle, they seem to be straight up better than their non-mounted counterpart (both ranged and melee) in every situation
• They get an explicit advantage in auto-resolve
• Upgrading (to) a mounted unit is a lot more expensive for the player, and the player is severely limited by the number of available warhorses
• as far as I can tell, this is historically more accurate

but at the same time
2. Mounted units are equivalent to non-mounted units

• Unit limit and upkeep is the same as for regular units
• AI can create them for the same price as regular units and is not limited by available warhorses
• Some AI factions just field more mounted units without any apparent disadvantages to compensate, and are thus both faster and better in auto-resolve.

I feel like the mix of these philosophies results in a lot of back and forth in the form of "(cavalry unit)/(faction with cavalry units) is OP" "Yes but they are supposed to be". So might I propose that we go all the way into one of those directions?
Make mounted units the equivalent of 1.5 non-mounted units in both upkeep and unit limit.
You can e.g. have 60 infantry or 40 cavalry units.
I think in most respects, they already are, and this would solve a lot of problems in my eyes. Namely that your strength as a player indirectly depends on how close you are on the map to cheap warhorses, some weird exploits (have the AI auto-upgrade mounted units, then take the unit back), and most importantly army composition and faction balance.
What do you think? Are there downsides I am overlooking?

The old rock, paper scissors approach I grew tired of a long time ago. It is so hard to mimic real life, and we have grown accustomed to devs shoveling options 1 & 2 down our throats. We deserve better for our money I think.

Lets just agree for a minute that people aren't all stupid and horses aren't invincible tanks. Lets also agree that training a horse for war is intensive and expensive, the upkeep and reoccurring care was crazy expensive, they are still animals that want to live regardless of your boot spurs, and they die easy. Yes, knights had spurs.

I would be happy with option 1 if it was even more expensive, heavy cav is like 20 times the cost of infantry. Make it damn hard to maintain even 10 of them, which is proportionate to what any baron could field solely, 10 knights per 6000 acres. The amount could be adjusted as per your clan rank, and because I am too lazy right now to actually talk about including a proper feudal system in the game. Then give the footmen and archers a brain and have them target the horse like any sane and historic person would do. Also, allow us to use the terrain to our advantage, forcing swamp play, 2 foot snow, boulder ridden terrain, pike formations, Chevel de frise, ect. Lets make it real if we are going to do this. Horse were a prime target for archers and foot troops. A pike formation targeted the horses then the demounted rider, who has about 10 minutes of fighting before he is so tired he passes out from exhaustion and gets knifed in the throat, armpit or the back.

This will do a few things. We will be forced to not foolishly charge heavy cav in as it is expensive to train, longer to train and you don't want to go through it again. We might even do something historically correct like demount them. It will force us to rely on light cav, which is not as well trained, cost 6 times the cost infantry, is weaker, and arguably historical. This will give every army setup a chance to be equally useful just as it was. There are a many historical battles where horse heavy armies suffered terrible defeats to a foot army. Not because one is better than the other but because fear, tactics, smarts, TRAINING and sheer numbers save the day. Lets make fights worth think our way through.

Also, get rid of that terrible horse stops dead on a spear. Most heavy cav had armor that would not be effected by a hand held spear from the front. Braced spears would just impale it dead, and there would be a lot of moment to carry the dying horse forward further onto the braced spear until the spear finally broke and the horse dropped. They didn't charge into disciplined infantry as they knew there expensive horses were going to be gutted, see first The First Crusade for one of many reference. At Agincourt the knights fought on foot. French and English knights also fought dismounted at Crecy, some French knights reached the forward English divisions, where the men-at-arms hacked them down with axes and swords. Just some extra examples.

As you can see, I want a game that is not cookie cutter. It won't ever match real life, we just aren't there with gaming yet. All I want is something that holds things with the weight they deserve with reasons that make sense.

 

[Yertyl]

Those are good tests and they're very true for when you're essentially testing the ideal battleground for horse archers, which is open fields, steppe and desert environments. That's exactly what they're known for historically and it's their inherant advantage. They're supposed to be untouchable and overpowered.

Those same fights look very differently in a castle defence though.

I just played a couple of rounds with your same setup and confirmed what you said. I also did the same with Vlandian Crossbows defending a castle and a city and the numbers were basically reversed between 90 - 10 and 60 - 40 in favor of the defenders and the latter only because the archers made it up the walls.

Well yes, but that's mostly because defenders have an advantage in siege, as they should have -- not because mounted units actually do considerably worse on foot in a direct comparison.
Example: (all Khuzait, siege with no engines)
Archers (attackers) vs horse archers (defenders): 5 -- 87
Horse archers (attackers) vs archers (defenders): 3 -- 81

Spear infantry (attackers) vs lancers (defenders): 14 -- 99
Lancers (attackers) vs spear Infantry (defenders): 14 -- 86

Even dismounted, mounted units will generally be almost as good or sometimes even better than their infantry counterparts (same with ranged units in melee). Which means there is zero tactical reason to choose infantry units over mounted ones, and makes the power of your army largely dependent on how many cheap imperial chargers and other horses you manage to buy.
Which is just not a good way of balancing things in my book.

EDIT: I just did another test on a village + trees map, on which horse archers need to stop a lot. And they actually do worse -- by which I mean they are just much, much better instead of being godlike.
Horse archers vs archers (village+trees map): 74 -- 35

 

[AngryBaer]

Well yes, but that's mostly because defenders have an advantage in siege, as they should have -- not because mounted units actually do considerably worse on foot in a direct comparison.
Example: (all Khuzait, siege with no engines)
Archers (attackers) vs horse archers (defenders): 5 -- 87
Horse archers (attackers) vs archers (defenders): 3 -- 81

Spear infantry (attackers) vs lancers (defenders): 14 -- 99
Lancers (attackers) vs spear Infantry (defenders): 14 -- 86

Even dismounted, mounted units will generally be almost as good or sometimes even better than their infantry counterparts (same with ranged units in melee). Which means there is zero tactical reason to choose infantry units over mounted ones, and makes the power of your army largely dependent on how many cheap imperial chargers and other horses you manage to buy.
Which is just not a good way of balancing things in my book.

EDIT: I just did another test on a village + trees map, on which horse archers need to stop a lot. And they actually do worse -- by which I mean they are just much, much better instead of being godlike.
Horse archers vs archers (village+trees map): 74 -- 35

indeed, there isn't a really good reason not to chose the horse archers except cost. realistically mounted units are always going to be better but more expensive though. It's a good way to balance things if it's actually difficult to maintain economically. rather than just high initial buying costs for horses they should also consume more food. having food spoil like it did in Warband would also make driving huge armies with horses around much less attractive, forcing you to dismiss units after you needed them or consider promoting fewer units.

In any case it's still realistic since the Mongolian horse archers were such an effective force for such a long time in real life as well.

I also think arrow damage may be too high against armored targets in general. realistically heavily armored units should have arrows from anything but longbows and crossbows bouncing off without much effect while the somewhat less armored horse archers should be much more vulnerable to missiles. or perhaps at least the unarmored horses should drop much more quickly under fire... that would certainly balance things a bit. that or a better way to use the environment tactically.

there's still a situation for everything. personally I found even the highest tier horse archers dissapointing against any of the hideouts, nothing shreds through those like a squad with crossbows.

 

[Yertyl]

indeed, there isn't a really good reason not to chose the horse archers except cost. realistically mounted units are always going to be better but more expensive though. It's a good way to balance things if it's actually difficult to maintain economically. rather than just high initial buying costs for horses they should also consume more food. having food spoil like it did in Warband would also make driving huge armies with horses around much less attractive, forcing you to dismiss units after you needed them or consider promoting fewer units.

In any case it's still realistic since the Mongolian horse archers were such an effective force for such a long time in real life as well.

I also think arrow damage may be too high against armored targets in general. realistically heavily armored units should have arrows from anything but longbows and crossbows bouncing off without much effect while the somewhat less armored horse archers should be much more vulnerable to missiles. or perhaps at least the unarmored horses should drop much more quickly under fire... that would certainly balance things a bit. that or a better way to use the environment tactically.

there's still a situation for everything. personally I found even the highest tier horse archers dissapointing against any of the hideouts, nothing shreds through those like a squad with crossbows.

I don't think I will ever get the whole "horse archers are supposed to be OP because of Mongolians" argument. I mean

1. The historical veracity of this has I believe been debated pretty extensively (I have lately seen this short video by Lindybeige), but as far as I understood it, mongols did not only have horse archers, and their successes were not purely dependent on horse archers being unbeatable.
   I would add that lots and lots of other empires led extremely far-reaching and successful campaigns (say the greeks, persians, romans, later europeans in the crusades) without the use of horse archers. Just by that logic, legionaries and spear/shield infantry should be OP too, whereas in-game the opposite is true for basically all infantry units.
2. Even if horse archers were historically unbeatable, would you really want a game in which some factions, recruit types and troop lines are just objectively much better than others? Where no army composed of Sturgian or Battanian troops can ever be as good as Azerai or Khuzait horse archers no matter what? Because that does not seem very fun to me.

 

[Helstrom]

I don't think I will ever get the whole "horse archers are supposed to be OP because of Mongolians" argument. I mean

1. The historical veracity of this has I believe been debated pretty extensively (I have lately seen this short video by Lindybeige), but as far as I understood it, mongols did not only have horse archers, and their successes were not purely dependent on horse archers being unbeatable.
   I would add that lots and lots of other empires led extremely far-reaching and successful campaigns (say the greeks, persians, romans, later europeans in the crusades) without the use of horse archers. Just by that logic, legionaries and spear/shield infantry should be OP too, whereas in-game the opposite is true for basically all infantry units.
2. Even if horse archers were historically unbeatable, would you really want a game in which some factions, recruit types and troop lines are just objectively much better than others? Where no army composed of Sturgian or Battanian troops can ever be as good as Azerai or Khuzait horse archers no matter what? Because that does not seem very fun to me.

You, I like you. Historically correct and logical.

 

[AngryBaer]

I don't think I will ever get the whole "horse archers are supposed to be OP because of Mongolians" argument. I mean

1. The historical veracity of this has I believe been debated pretty extensively (I have lately seen this short video by Lindybeige), but as far as I understood it, mongols did not only have horse archers, and their successes were not purely dependent on horse archers being unbeatable.
   I would add that lots and lots of other empires led extremely far-reaching and successful campaigns (say the greeks, persians, romans, later europeans in the crusades) without the use of horse archers. Just by that logic, legionaries and spear/shield infantry should be OP too, whereas in-game the opposite is true for basically all infantry units.
2. Even if horse archers were historically unbeatable, would you really want a game in which some factions, recruit types and troop lines are just objectively much better than others? Where no army composed of Sturgian or Battanian troops can ever be as good as Azerai or Khuzait horse archers no matter what? Because that does not seem very fun to me.

I never said unbeatable in all situations. The units you describe were all effective for a certain type of warfare on a certain type of terrain for a certain amount of time... until they weren't due to development. We don't have that development and adaptation in Bannerlord. We also don't have too many tactical options when it comes to terrain. This probably bothers me the more. Where are those ambushes they keep talking about in the dialog? Where are the spies and scouts allowing us to track our enemies' movements? I also doubt the AI is smart enough to apply that effectively either.

Looking at the historical accounts the reasons for effective armies were usually that they were backed by good logistics above having a unique secret weapon. True for Greeks/Romans/Persians/the crusades/WW2... and Mongolians. Moving and sustaining supplies is an important skill but also a tedious one. The point is though that it should be exceedingly more difficult to maintain 100 heavy horse archers (essentially each needing their own little army on foot backing them up) than 100 heavy spearmen. If you can manage doing that, then by all means it's fair to have a near-unstoppable force. And you could effectively counter them by cutting off the supply chain.

I wouldn't hate having camp follower units, each cavalry and horse archer unit requiring squires and such, one more for each level. Or in addition to consuming a war horse you also need to consume X recruits. It would also give an incentive to protect those units even if you have a huge advantage. I.e. you can't just constantly upgrade all your units, you need to keep some low level ones for maintenance and you need a guard so the enemy cavalry doesn't just plow through them.

Otherwise I completely agree that the Khuzait horser archers shouldn't be better on foot than their equivalents.

 

[Yertyl]

I never said unbeatable in all situations. The units you describe were all effective for a certain type of warfare on a certain type of terrain for a certain amount of time... until they weren't due to development. We don't have that development and adaptation in Bannerlord. We also don't have too many tactical options when it comes to terrain. This probably bothers me the more. Where are those ambushes they keep talking about in the dialog? Where are the spies and scouts allowing us to track our enemies' movements? I also doubt the AI is smart enough to apply that effectively either.

Looking at the historical accounts the reasons for effective armies were usually that they were backed by good logistics above having a unique secret weapon. True for Greeks/Romans/Persians/the crusades/WW2... and Mongolians. Moving and sustaining supplies is an important skill but also a tedious one. The point is though that it should be exceedingly more difficult to maintain 100 heavy horse archers (essentially each needing their own little army on foot backing them up) than 100 heavy spearmen. If you can manage doing that, then by all means it's fair to have a near-unstoppable force. And you could effectively counter them by cutting off the supply chain.

I wouldn't hate having camp follower units, each cavalry and horse archer unit requiring squires and such, one more for each level. Or in addition to consuming a war horse you also need to consume X recruits. It would also give an incentive to protect those units even if you have a huge advantage. I.e. you can't just constantly upgrade all your units, you need to keep some low level ones for maintenance and you need a guard so the enemy cavalry doesn't just plow through them.

Otherwise I completely agree that the Khuzait horser archers shouldn't be better on foot than their equivalents.

Hence my original idea: Cavalry units are better, but count as 1.5 units towards troop limit.
It's not completely clear-cut because of clan tier, but going from the steward/quartermaster perk descriptions, troop limit represents your ability to supply your troops. So yeah, the "exceedingly difficult" part of maintaining 100 horse archers would be having to have a very skilled steward as quartermaster to increase your troop limit enough.
I would still prefer it if they were not quite as unstoppable as they are now -- as long as horse archers decimate infantry and archers almost without losses, 1.5 units still seems too little.

 

[AngryBaer]

Hence my original idea: Cavalry units are better, but count as 1.5 units towards troop limit.
It's not completely clear-cut because of clan tier, but going from the steward/quartermaster perk descriptions, troop limit represents your ability to supply your troops. So yeah, the "exceedingly difficult" part of maintaining 100 horse archers would be having to have a very skilled steward as quartermaster to increase your troop limit enough.
I would still prefer it if they were not quite as unstoppable as they are now -- as long as horse archers decimate infantry and archers almost without losses, 1.5 units still seems too little.

Agreed on principle but I dislike troop limits. It doesn't seem natural to me. You go in a town an hire troops and they reply "no can do, you already got 76 and it's a tuesday..."? Or does the quartermaster say "nope, I can't count that high yet..."?

Troop sizes come naturally with how many resources they consume and how well you can command groups, it shouldn't be restricted by an arbitrary number and allow you to go over the limit at your own risk of bankrupting yourself or losing cohesion similar to larger armies and the escaping prisoners. Perhaps parties larger than the "limit" don't listen to your commands or have much lower moral.
This already happens to some degree but it's much too forgiving, too cheap and too easy to work around in my opinion. In Warband for example food used to spoil which adds to the urgency quite a bit. It's annoying but makes the supply chain a much larger componnent especially if the horses would consume significant amounts of grain (which they would in real life).

The compromise could be having a separate unit counter for troops and horses and the horse counter just being lower but upgradable with perks? Convert the trooper to a dismounted version if their horse gets killed in battle unless you have replacements in the inventory? I mean, not that any of this will likely get implemented but it's still an interesting thought experiment.

 

[Yertyl]

Agreed on principle but I dislike troop limits. It doesn't seem natural to me. You go in a town an hire troops and they reply "no can do, you already got 76 and it's a tuesday..."? Or does the quartermaster say "nope, I can't count that high yet..."?

Troop sizes come naturally with how many resources they consume and how well you can command groups, it shouldn't be restricted by an arbitrary number and allow you to go over the limit at your own risk of bankrupting yourself or losing cohesion similar to larger armies and the escaping prisoners. Perhaps parties larger than the "limit" don't listen to your commands or have much lower moral.
This already happens to some degree but it's much too forgiving, too cheap and too easy to work around in my opinion. In Warband for example food used to spoil which adds to the urgency quite a bit. It's annoying but makes the supply chain a much larger componnent especially if the horses would consume significant amounts of grain (which they would in real life).

The compromise could be having a separate unit counter for troops and horses and the horse counter just being lower but upgradable with perks? Convert the trooper to a dismounted version if their horse gets killed in battle unless you have replacements in the inventory? I mean, not that any of this will likely get implemented but it's still an interesting thought experiment.

Well I guess abolishing troop limits for everyone and making mounted units 1.5 times the cost in gold and food would be an equally fair solution...but then we would have a pretty different game (e.g. you would not need armies anymore).

Seperate troop counters, i.e. free horse units, would indirectly punish infantry only, so I do not see that as ideal.

 

[AngryBaer]

Armies would remain a way to spread the cost and moral/cohesion penalties over several commanders and they would still be available as captains of their divisions during the battle. It would make joining large armies more attractive if anything (I.e smaller parties benefit from the higher quartermaster/leader perks of another). You wouldn't get those perks if you just joined a battle. The idea is that in this variant armies would be cheaper and stronger but slower than each party individually.

I see your point about the seperate counters having different total maximum limits for sure but the horses would not be free at all in that scenario. The point of that system would be to make upgrading and maintaining units to mounted ones more expensive than just having pack horses in the inventory.
I.e. just having horses in the inventory gives you all the perks of horses that you lose if you use them for upgrading units. So someone can have 100 infantry and 10 inventory horses cheaply and someone going for 100 infantry and 50 cavalry units might have the bigger and stronger party but those horses will consume a good double or triple or more food than soldiers and the riders will consume 1.5 or double wage compared to their equivalents on foot. You can be strong but really there wouldn't be anything in the game providing you with that much money and food for long unless you own half the map.

This also means that you'll likely not be roaming aroung killing Looters with your elite troop constantly, garisoned cavalry could consume less and cost less while still being slightly more expensive than their dismounted equivalents.

As of now there isn't much incentive to dismiss units, in most games we can spam upgrade any units we get at after becoming rich and dump them into some garrison if not needed. That would change if we could only maintain them for a short time. To counter people blanket upgrading their units before important battles make dismissing them after cost a portion of their wage and make them take food and other random inventory items if you don't/can't pay.

 

[CrazyElf]

Make mounted units the equivalent of 1.5 non-mounted units in both upkeep and unit limit.
You can e.g. have 60 infantry or 40 cavalry units.
I think in most respects, they already are, and this would solve a lot of problems in my eyes. Namely that your strength as a player indirectly depends on how close you are on the map to cheap warhorses, some weird exploits (have the AI auto-upgrade mounted units, then take the unit back), and most importantly army composition and faction balance.
What do you think? Are there downsides I am overlooking?

Strictly speaking it should be a fixed cost. A tier 6 cavalry unit costing 1.5x over a tier 6 infantry (like the Fian) versus a tier 2 cavalry costing 1.5x doesn't make sense either.

A tier 6 horse isn't going to use that much more feed.

Horse archers seem fine to me, the problem is melee cavalry and spearmen under-performing.

Melee cavalry miss more hits and couched lances than they get right and spears have too low damage when they should be the main weapon of infantry troops in general (specially because troops love hugs to fight instead of keeping distance in formation).

Improve this and buffing armors a bit would make it, infantry needs to be able to hold their ground a bit more than now, they fall like flies against arrows and even on melee, 2-3 hits kills even the highest tier infantry which should tank a few more, low tier troops are fine droping in so few hits not elite/veteran soldiers armored to the teeth.

No need to go full realistic, just a bit more would make them stand better against missile weapons and in the melee, paired with increased spear damage would make them quite effective against melee cavalry and horse archers when the later gets out of arrows and decide to charge.

The main advantage of horse archers should be their ability to keep distance and still hit you, if they engage in melee a well coordinated shieldwall shouldn't have much trouble keeping them at bay (with medium-high tier troops).

Spears need a buff no doubt. I think they should be faster overall.

As far as archers vs horse archers - historically horse archers have done poorly against massed archers. Lansing squared and the density of arrows is not at all in their favor.

 

[Apocal]

As far as archers vs horse archers - historically horse archers have done poorly against massed archers. Lansing squared and the density of arrows is not at all in their favor.

Do you mean Lanchester's? His equations assume every unit has equal and unimpeded firing opportunities. That isn't true with archers en masse, they always have a some masking the others' lines of sight and packing together improves the accuracy of incoming arrows, effectively.

Historically, there isn't any real evidence of archers on foot doing well against horse archers. It comes up in games quite often though, because having the most mobile unit type also possess (more or less) equal ranged power as less mobile unit types is bonkers in terms of balancing for fun and interesting gameplay.

 

[Midnitewolf]

If you compared real troops from history the same way, do you not think you'd find horse-archers have such an advantage over spearmen?

How exactly do spearmen gain the opportunity to attack horse archers...?

Is this really not working as it should? Are we suggesting spearmen should for some reason be able to kill horse archers by means of teleportation?

Are we ignoring that this is why army composition matters? A horde of infantry needs to be protected, and if you expect to be slow-moving and heavy against horse-archers, well...do the math.

Really I think you hit the nail on the head here. There is a reason the Mongols were one of the most successful conquers in the medieval world and that was because of their horse archers. After the Mongol invasions, the Kievan Rus and the Norgorod Republic modeled their army organization after the Mongols and converted much if not most of their cavalry to horse archers (Which makes me disappointed in Sturgia since their armies don't reflect this fact). Even the Byzantine Cataphract in history was armed with bows which made them a horse archer, probably due to the same experiences Rus had with the Mongol invasions.

The thing of it is, Horse Archers were just that good in history. Infantry couldn't touch them and foot archers, while somewhat of a counter, would have a hard time hitting such fast moving targets effectively. Also if they were armored lightly, they could outrun heavy cavalry while still being able to at least match the speed of heavy cavalry even if they were heavily armored. Horse archers could basically completely dictate and dominate virtually any engagement as long as they had space to run. Additionally is there wasn't the space for them to operate freely from horseback, they could dismount and function as infantry, archer or both. Historically the only disadvantage you had with a horse archer was a logistical disadvantage. Horse archers had to have horses including lots of remounts to replace horse casualties. They also had to have lots and lots of feed to keep those horses feed.

So when you think about it, it pretty much makes sense that the Horse Archer is the dominant unit type in the game.

Which means you pretty much need each faction to have some type of horse archer unit. Sturgia's Kievan Rus/Norgorod flavor should absolutely have heavy horse archers as a troop type in their noble tree, I mean it is a historical fact that horse archers were one of the main components of their war machine. Then lets give Vlandia horse crossbowman. They wouldn't have the same rate of fire as horsebow users but should make up for it in damage output. Finally.....hmm don't know what to do about the Battanians. I don't think the terrain where the Celts lived favored cavalry much so I don't think there is a historical analog for a horse archer in their history. I guess maybe they should be able to hire mercenary horse archers at every town they own, maybe.

 

[Midnitewolf]

Do you mean Lanchester's? His equations assume every unit has equal and unimpeded firing opportunities. That isn't true with archers en masse, they always have a some masking the others' lines of sight and packing together improves the accuracy of incoming arrows, effectively.

Historically, there isn't any real evidence of archers on foot doing well against horse archers. It comes up in games quite often though, because having the most mobile unit type also possess (more or less) equal ranged power as less mobile unit types is bonkers in terms of balancing for fun and interesting gameplay.

I was reading that massed foot archers could actually do quite well against horse archers but I don't know if I believe this or rather I guess it would depend on tactics.

I mean when you consider the most common tactic of horse archers, the wheel formation, you have to consider that as the wheel turns only a very small amount of horse archers would actually be in your firing arc at any given time which means even if your volley firing to saturate the horse archers with arrows, your only going to catch a small amount of them with any one volley. Also they are a fast moving target and while you might think it would be easy to take out their horses, a horse is a big animal and unless you hit it just right, a horse would probably be able to take multiple arrows without falling, at least right away. Then add barding to that equation and you have a pretty hard to kill mount.

In contrast to the horse archers though, massed foot archers would be. well, in a stationary mass, basically big, immobile blobs of targets. You really wouldn't have to do much aiming, just point at the mass of foot archers and shoot and you would be bound to hit something.

On the other hand, not all horse archers were created equal. While the Mogols were experts at shooting on the run, The Russian Druzhina and other heavy horse archers would stand stationary and fire arrows at the enemy before charging. I would guess that if your firing into a massed, stationary formation of what might be more closely described as cavalry with bows rather than horse archers, then massed foot archers would probably be a real danger to them.

 

[AngryBaer]

I was reading that massed foot archers could actually do quite well against horse archers but I don't know if I believe this or rather I guess it would depend on tactics.

I mean when you consider the most common tactic of horse archers, the wheel formation, you have to consider that as the wheel turns only a very small amount of horse archers would actually be in your firing arc at any given time which means even if your volley firing to saturate the horse archers with arrows, your only going to catch a small amount of them with any one volley. Also they are a fast moving target and while you might think it would be easy to take out their horses, a horse is a big animal and unless you hit it just right, a horse would probably be able to take multiple arrows without falling, at least right away. Then add barding to that equation and you have a pretty hard to kill mount.

In contrast to the horse archers though, massed foot archers would be. well, in a stationary mass, basically big, immobile blobs of targets. You really wouldn't have to do much aiming, just point at the mass of foot archers and shoot and you would be bound to hit something.

On the other hand, not all horse archers were created equal. While the Mogols were experts at shooting on the run, The Russian Druzhina and other heavy horse archers would stand stationary and fire arrows at the enemy before charging. I would guess that if your firing into a massed, stationary formation of what might be more closely described as cavalry with bows rather than horse archers, then massed foot archers would probably be a real danger to them.

Agreed on this.

The archer vs. horse archer encounters feel like they should be very similar to spearmen vs. lancers, like Tanks facing off against each other. The one getting shot in the flank first loses. A troop of crossbows firing a volley should shred through a good portion of cavalry or at least drop a few horses each time. Bows should at least be a much larger annoyance for horse archers due to their higher firing rate. Both crossbows and longbows should have a range advantage. I remember playing Warband and dreading any encounter against the Rhodoks because they'd wreak havok with my cavalry. I feel like that was actually fairly accurate.

Moving target or not, horse archers are also bigger targets.

Mounted cavalry can't use longbows, I would assume they should be much less effective against heavily armored units. But as the game is now even the heaviest knights will get turned into porcupines.

Really I think you hit the nail on the head here. There is a reason the Mongols were one of the most successful conquers in the medieval world and that was because of their horse archers. After the Mongol invasions, the Kievan Rus and the Norgorod Republic modeled their army organization after the Mongols and converted much if not most of their cavalry to horse archers (Which makes me disappointed in Sturgia since their armies don't reflect this fact). Even the Byzantine Cataphract in history was armed with bows which made them a horse archer, probably due to the same experiences Rus had with the Mongol invasions.

The thing of it is, Horse Archers were just that good in history. Infantry couldn't touch them and foot archers, while somewhat of a counter, would have a hard time hitting such fast moving targets effectively. Also if they were armored lightly, they could outrun heavy cavalry while still being able to at least match the speed of heavy cavalry even if they were heavily armored. Horse archers could basically completely dictate and dominate virtually any engagement as long as they had space to run. Additionally is there wasn't the space for them to operate freely from horseback, they could dismount and function as infantry, archer or both. Historically the only disadvantage you had with a horse archer was a logistical disadvantage. Horse archers had to have horses including lots of remounts to replace horse casualties. They also had to have lots and lots of feed to keep those horses feed.

So when you think about it, it pretty much makes sense that the Horse Archer is the dominant unit type in the game.

Which means you pretty much need each faction to have some type of horse archer unit. Sturgia's Kievan Rus/Norgorod flavor should absolutely have heavy horse archers as a troop type in their noble tree, I mean it is a historical fact that horse archers were one of the main components of their war machine. Then lets give Vlandia horse crossbowman. They wouldn't have the same rate of fire as horsebow users but should make up for it in damage output. Finally.....hmm don't know what to do about the Battanians. I don't think the terrain where the Celts lived favored cavalry much so I don't think there is a historical analog for a horse archer in their history. I guess maybe they should be able to hire mercenary horse archers at every town they own, maybe.

I so wish there were a mounted crossbow unit. To be fair those sound even more overpowered unless they only came very lightly armored. Mounted Vlandian sharpshooters sound terrifying (which is why I very often play as those with all my ranged companions). I could see them as a way to move troops around the battlefield quickly but actually dismounting before firing from some vantage point.

The game is missing a good ambush/vantage point mechanic. The Battanians would shine with forest ambushes, just like the campaign dialog suggests.

 

[CrazyElf]

Do you mean Lanchester's? His equations assume every unit has equal and unimpeded firing opportunities. That isn't true with archers en masse, they always have a some masking the others' lines of sight and packing together improves the accuracy of incoming arrows, effectively.

Historically, there isn't any real evidence of archers on foot doing well against horse archers. It comes up in games quite often though, because having the most mobile unit type also possess (more or less) equal ranged power as less mobile unit types is bonkers in terms of balancing for fun and interesting gameplay.

Yes - phone autocorrect.

Horse archers do poorly because:

1. They are bigger targets and to maintain their mobility (ex: to skirmish) they aren't as heavily armored as say, melee cavalry (often the horse is less armored than even foot archers)
2. You can mass a lot more foot archers than horse archers in a given area - that's where Lanchester squared comes in - the fire density becomes a big issue against horse archers

This is the case in real life too - good use of terrain is critical for beating horse archers. Although computer games are often inaccurate, foot archers being lethal against horse archers is not one of them.

There's a reason why foot archers (crossbows) were used by the Crusaders against Turkoman, who employed horse archers.

A bit of reading:

What Tactics Would an Army Use to Defeat an Invading Mongol Force?

This question originally appeared on Quora.

slate.com

When the battle begins, you need troops who can defeat the Mongol horse archers and lancers. This is where the longbow and heavy crossbow come into their own.

Take two equally fit and equally well-trained archers. Have one of them bouncing around on the back of a moving horse; have the other standing with both feet firmly planted on the ground. Which of them will be most effective? The foot archer, of course. He can also use a larger and more powerful bow. He’s a smaller target than the combination of a man plus a horse. And he can carry a large shield or have someone else stand in front of him holding a shield. (That’s how the ancient Persians defeated horse archers back in their own day—regiments of archers with shield-bearers standing in front of them. Not very effective against Macedonian pikemen, but deadly against Central Asian cavalry.)

Horse archers should really be split between light skirmishers, which are extremely vulnerable to archers and the heavier variant (which tends to shoot in volleys and charge with lance afterwards). Foot archers are lethal to the light version. The heavier version is best countered by knights or cataphracts, as volleys require discipline. They are lethal versus heavy infantry, but can be counter-charged.


Another major and often overlooked consideration is the Mongols - a big part of their success was not the inherent superiority of their horse archers, but rather their leadership. Subudai, Batu and Baidar were some of the greatest generals in history.

 

[Midnitewolf]

I don't think I will ever get the whole "horse archers are supposed to be OP because of Mongolians" argument. I mean

1. The historical veracity of this has I believe been debated pretty extensively (I have lately seen this short video by Lindybeige), but as far as I understood it, mongols did not only have horse archers, and their successes were not purely dependent on horse archers being unbeatable.
   I would add that lots and lots of other empires led extremely far-reaching and successful campaigns (say the greeks, persians, romans, later europeans in the crusades) without the use of horse archers. Just by that logic, legionaries and spear/shield infantry should be OP too, whereas in-game the opposite is true for basically all infantry units.
2. Even if horse archers were historically unbeatable, would you really want a game in which some factions, recruit types and troop lines are just objectively much better than others? Where no army composed of Sturgian or Battanian troops can ever be as good as Azerai or Khuzait horse archers no matter what? Because that does not seem very fun to me.

To jump into the conversation here, of course Horse Archers weren't the only units the Mongols had or used nor another other culture that used Horse Archers extensively, however having horse archers is kind of like one side having MGs and the other not, that is almost how you have to look at it. That probably isn't the best analogy but it does get the point across that historically, in an open field battle, the difference between having horse archers and not was that profound and it does very much explain a lot of the Mongol Success. Still Horse Archers only work on open battlefields, not in closed terrain, sieges and the like so it is only natural you would need multiple troop types.

Additionally, I was reading accounts that Kingdoms like the Kievan Rus and other Slavic nations, after having squared off against the Mongol invasion, actually adopted many Mongol military tactics and organizations and the bulk of their trained and experienced military became mounted archers. You don't see this sort of dramatic alteration and adoption of military doctrine unless it was found to be superior to the existing doctrine. Also if I recall correction Byzantine Cataphracts were horse archers or converted to horse archers after their contact with Mongols. Heck now that I think of it, I think most if not all cultures that survived contact with the Mongols, adopted horse archers into their military organization to some degree or another.

As for the second part of your response. Your right. Unfortunately you sometimes have to give up historical accuracy to achieve fun and engaging gameplay but this leads to the question, "How do you do justice by horse archers, if you nerf them down to the point they don't feel like horse archers?" As to why no Sturgian or Battanian troops can be as good as the Azerai or Khuzait horse archers, well for Sturgia, I absolutely don't understand why they don't have a horse archer unit of their own. I mean as I mention above, for the Kievan Rus and other Slavic nations much of whom Sturgia is based off of, horse archers were damn near as iconic a unit for them as they were for Mongols. Because of this I am shocked Strugia didn't get a Heavy Horse Archer unitl through their noble line. Battanian though, I don't know what to do, historically the culture they were based on never had any contract with Mongols and the terrain they fought in wouldn't have favored horse archers even if they did have contact. Maybe just have their archers get a bonus against horse archers.

 

[Apocal]

Also if I recall correction Byzantine Cataphracts were horse archers or converted to horse archers after their contact with Mongols. Heck now that I think of it, I think most if not all cultures that survived contact with the Mongols, adopted horse archers into their military organization to some degree or another.

Cataphracts were expected to be horse archers as early as 6th century, due to contact and conflict against the Sassanids -- who also made use of horse archers. But most of the cultures that encountered Mongols had previous experience against steppe nomads and their style of fighting. It was pretty dominant across the Eurasian steppe and pretty much anyone who ventured or fought there either developed their own tradition of horseback archery, hired steppe nomads to bring one or both. But that pre-dates the Mongols -- in some cases by better than half a millennium.

Horse archers do poorly because:

1. They are bigger targets and to maintain their mobility (ex: to skirmish) they aren't as heavily armored as say, melee cavalry (often the horse is less armored than even foot archers)
2. You can mass a lot more foot archers than horse archers in a given area - that's where Lanchester squared comes in - the fire density becomes a big issue against horse archers

That's the thing though: if you pack more foot archers into an area, proportionally fewer of them can actually send arrows downrange. Horse archers in BL get around that particular problem by spreading out into a thin, but complete, circle. Their firing units (in Lanchester terms) measure the complete circumference of that circle, divided by the width of each man on horseback whereas the archers on foot measure only the spread of their formations perimeter, divided by the same width of a man. You have to go past Lanchester to adequately model the relationship there because Lanchester's square doesn't account for units being able to mask each other's fire -- or anything other than undifferentiated firing units that unfailingly kill one of their opposing number until dead.

(Also, packing archers together improves enemy accuracy because even arrows that miss their target still hit someone, somewhere in the formation.)

This is something you can pretty easily test in the game itself, the best anti-HA method for archers is a long ribbon (press F1 and drag, like in TW) + "Loose" formation. The first makes sure no one is masked, the second cuts down on the number of hits they take in return.

As for the first point, let's just leave it at historical horse archers could be equally as well-armored as shock cavalry of their era. But like Yertyl said, it is absolutely bonkers to give all those advantages to horse archers in a game.

There's a reason why foot archers (crossbows) were used by the Crusaders against Turkoman, who employed horse archers.

They used crossbowmen because they had crossbowmen. The Crusaders were initially unfamiliar with the Turkish style of fighting and once they were acquintated, made a point of recruiting Turcopoles, who fought in the same way.

 

[CrazyElf]

That's the thing though: if you pack more foot archers into an area, proportionally fewer of them can actually send arrows downrange. Horse archers in BL get around that particular problem by spreading out into a thin, but complete, circle. Their firing units (in Lanchester terms) measure the complete circumference of that circle, divided by the width of each man on horseback whereas the archers on foot measure only the spread of their formations perimeter, divided by the same width of a man. You have to go past Lanchester to adequately model the relationship there because Lanchester's square doesn't account for units being able to mask each other's fire -- or anything other than undifferentiated firing units that unfailingly kill one of their opposing number until dead.

(Also, packing archers together improves enemy accuracy because even arrows that miss their target still hit someone, somewhere in the formation.)

This is something you can pretty easily test in the game itself, the best anti-HA method for archers is a long ribbon (press F1 and drag, like in TW) + "Loose" formation. The first makes sure no one is masked, the second cuts down on the number of hits they take in return.

As for the first point, let's just leave it at historical horse archers could be equally as well-armored as shock cavalry of their era. But like Yertyl said, it is absolutely bonkers to give all those advantages to horse archers in a game.

Foot Archers in a loose formation are still going to be able to pack a much higher density of fire than Horse Archers.

In such a loose formation, they still have the firepower advantage, while the oppose mounted archers need room to manuver their horses, or the horses lose their greatest advantage, their mobility.

They used crossbowmen because they had crossbowmen. The Crusaders were initially unfamiliar with the Turkish style of fighting and once they were acquintated, made a point of recruiting Turcopoles, who fought in the same way.

They would not recruit Turcopoles unless it was advantageous to do so.

The point though is that foot archers had some advantages over their mounted counterparts.

I think that this should be reflected in game a bit more - horses have way too much hp.

In my opinion, the following needs to be done:

1. Make archers a bit more effective against cavalry (unarmored cavalry anyways - in regards to armor see 2)
2. Make arrows less effective against armor (both for humans and horses) and give armor as a whole a buff (especially vs arrows, but a modest buff vs weapons too - so it would resemble the Realistic Combat Mod).
3. Increase the speed and damage of spears (and accuracy a bit, which will make melee cavalry more dangerous)
4. There should be a somewhat higher penalty for carrying armor and same on horseback

Strategically I think horses need to eat more. It should be costly to feed horses. The only area where horses don't need food are steppes and grasslands where they can forage, but they can't remain in the same area for long (that was historically true) because of how much horses will eat, unless of course feed is provided for the horses.

 

[NamingIsHard]

1. Mounted units are straight up better than non-mounted units

• they are faster on both the battlefield and strategic map
• in battle, they seem to be straight up better than their non-mounted counterpart (both ranged and melee) in every situation
• They get an explicit advantage in auto-resolve
• Upgrading (to) a mounted unit is a lot more expensive for the player, and the player is severely limited by the number of available warhorses
• as far as I can tell, this is historically more accurate

"Yes but they are supposed to be".

Yes but they are supposed to be, more powerful on average on battlefield, or in another word, from perspective of tactic. This is the complete true statement. Disadvantages of mounted units are more closely related to overall strategy scale,
for example,

• it's harder to feed moutned units(horse also need supplies, and need even more than soldiers)
• it's harder to train mounted units(footman with a horse is far more inferior compare to trained cavalry)
• it's far more expensive to maintain mounted units(horse is expensive, longer training period means more expenditure for training, wages are higher, gears needs to be better)
• etc.

Problem here is that strategic scale is nearly empty in current version of Bannerlord, so disadvantages of maintaining mounted units are understated.