Archers; Too heavily armed

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thesneakster

Grandmaster Knight
Ok, i'm feeling that, whenever i go into comabt vs some ranged units, that the melee combat of the Archers and crossbowmen is way to powerful. it is as good as, or somethimes even better, than the same tier of infantary troops.

Historically, archers only usually carried a light weapon, like a long dagger, or a small sword or axe, and had light amour. but in the game, I see swadian crossbowmen, wearing a scale amour  (forgot name) with a volgue and sheild. this is unrealistic, and i beleive that arechers should be easily killed, once they go into melee (of course the detection ranges for changeing to melee need to be tweaked too)
 
I agree that they're too well equipped for melee.
Problem with this sort of suggestion (as I discovered recently) is that so many ppl agree that there's no discussion. So it doesn't last long on the front page.
 
I made a post a couple of days ago (which was more or less ignored altogether) about the inconsistency of certain units. A lot of the units ingame needs a big revamp in loadout and skills IMO.
 
Yeah, I agree. Archers should have a bow, 2quivers of arrows, a shortsword/dagger/boarspear, no armour just plain peasant clothes.
 
Hræfn said:
Yeah, I agree. Archers should have a bow, 2quivers of arrows, a shortsword/dagger/boarspear, no armour just plain peasant clothes.

They could have some kind of leather, and some kind of hood.
 
Boar spear for archers? **** no. They're supposed to keep it in a sheath (not the one male horses have, the other) when not used, and I don't remember seeing any pictures of anyone having a spear in a sheath. Why? Because it's a polearm.

Daggers and shortswords all the way, and different kinds of leather armour. Vaegir archers are fine, though, with their hunter-style look.
 
i agree with archers and crossbowmen being to heavily armed, they should have a sword for mellee attacking but nothing else, however thier armour should be fair, not plate or scale, but stuff like the leather you start out with.
 
Its more of a problem with the AI - whoever gets the first hit in wins, since both will just swing at each other without "thinking" of blocking..
But I agree with the post regarding archers being overly-equipped with shields / glaives etc. ::\
A dagger or a short-sword is good enough, AND they shouldn't switch to it untill they absolutely have no choice ::\
Armor-wise, I'm actually ok with what they have - mostly leather with some chain - pretty much what happened AFAIK in reality... Definately no plate / scale however - although currently only companions and players are able to do that ::\
 
Papa Lazarou said:
I agree that they're too well equipped for melee.
Problem with this sort of suggestion (as I discovered recently) is that so many ppl agree that there's no discussion. So it doesn't last long on the front page.

But, Armagan is on often enough that he will see it.
 
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...pement.archer.png/200px-Equipement.archer.png

This is a woodcut of the middle to late medieval period quite clearly showing an archer with a helmet, an arming sword for close in combat, and wearing what looks to be a padded jack or aketon (gambeson). I think a leather jerkin would be appropriate, but not mail or scale, unless it was some kind of vest. The helmet is obviously not the great helm a mounted knight or heavy infantyman would wear, but a light segemented helm (Norman spangenhelm or something similar) would be appropriate. I agree that ranged infanty should not be carrying around heavy polearms (!). I've had squads of sharpshooters decimate the high-end Vaegirs units by themselves, without any assistance from the sergeants. Obviously this should not be the case.
 
Highend ranged troops should b pretty well armoured, such as Sharpshooters, Marksmen, Crossbowmen and Archers. But those below should carry Falchions or similar weapons and perhaps some padded armour and a hood or some of the other light armours.
None should carry twohanded weapons of course, but swords, even good swords should be open to them. And often archers did carry small target or buckler sheilds, so smaller round shields should be open to them too.

I suggest people look into the equipment regular crossbowmen had in the 1300s+ which is the approximate time we are dealing with here. It could get pretty heavy, some even had reinforced mail AND padded armour as well a bascinets.

But right now it really seems the problem lies in the weaponskills of the units, and that they carry big Voulges or Bardiches.
The Weaponskills are just about even for all styles for the ranged units. Clearly they should have no skills in polearms or thrown for instance, while their main skills should be pretty high and a fair skill in singlehanded (though not as good as now). A change of those two areas would have a significantly larger impact than going about and stripping them of armour, which they DID carry. Let them retain the armour, but change the skills (we all remember how 'fast' we were at 60-80 points).
 
Historically, if they could afford armor, they would wear it.  Archers tended to be relatively poor peasants, often criminals.  They couldn't afford much, but sure as hell wouldn't chose a dagger over a sword.  Removing polearms seems like a fine idea to me though.  One-handed swords of various quality, plus an occasional small shield, seems fine to me for weapons.
 
I don't have any problems with some of the better archers having decent armor, that's not really ahistorical. I think the problem comes from their stats. I loaded up .731 and looked at the stats of a Swadian Sharpshooter. He had 3 powerstrike, 1 ironflesh, and his two-handed skill was HIGHER than archery or crossbow. The one-handed skill was almost equal. A Vaegir Sharpshooter had 3 ironflesh, 1 powerstrike, and his melee skills were all higher than his archery and crossbow.

For comparison, a Swadian Sergeant had 3 powerstrike and 4 ironflesh and lower strength(by nearly ten points) than either archer unit. His skills are slightly better in the melee area(I'm talking 3-4 points) and his archery/crossbow skills were nearly the same! :eek:

Whipping a polearm out of nowhere bugs me to no end but I'd like to see that fixed for everyone(players included), not just archers..
 
Well, that was exactly my point.

The weaponskills are simply wrong. They should get fixed first, then the twohanded polearms... after that we can look into skillspoints and fianlly after that we could perhaps look at the armour and secondary equipment.
 
I believe it is just some minor balancing issues that can be dealt with in no time, cos I used to tweak the stat of troops everytime a new version is released.
 
Well, i'm glad people agree.

Also, as for amour, the way they are now is ok, but mabye the scale is mabye a bit to far. perhaps there should be a special archer amour for that area.
 
Well, scale and such armor are sort of what archers usually wore. Good enough of protection without hindering movement or agility too much.
 
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