Why bother with archers at all?

[unmerged(19220)]

Hello,

Picked the game up from the Steam sale and I have to admit its one fun game! Reminds me of King of Dragon Pass(text adventure game) and a TW game combined, very nice!

On to my question then. I briefly played the Orignial game then tried the Saxons which I am currently playing, however I noticed people on the forums making statements about archers and I found that not even buying them myself allows me to make heavy/medium infantry and cavalry stacks with enough armor on the front to render enemy archers useless and gives me the luxury of flanking and enveloping the enemy with my cavalry.

 

[unmerged(284289)]

Well, like you, I got King Arthur on the Steam sale. I've also played the demo a couple of months ago during which time I read the forums here, and it seems like there was a patch several years ago that came out that weakened archers. Also there is a command in the 'Options' menu to weaken archers.

Before these options, it seems that archers were so powerful, that they could kill heavy and medium and light infantry with ease.

 

[abadgaem]

They can still wipe out units if you let them. In castle sieges specifically, they can wreck havoc because the streets narrow and it's virtually impossible to get troops past a plugged street. You'd have to take other routes which gives more time for enemy archers to melt your dense packed up blobs.

Outside of castle battles there are plenty of reasons to use archers. I like to minimize casualties because recruits are costly (when I need that gold and food for research upgrades or diplomacy). Archers are amazingly cost-effective since individual morale doesn't exist and enemy units fight to the death.

Sometimes my archers are outclassed by the enemies, in which case my archers could still be used as cannon fodder to screen my movements. I'd rather my archers died than my precious elite troops engaged in melee.


Another situation where archers are absolutely necessary are for taking down freakishly high damage enemy melee troops like wyverns, ghosts, spirits, etc. Most of these types of units are virtually unchallengeable in melee; ghost knights for example have something like 2000 damage per swing and with an attack rate of 4. In my first encounter I completely surrounded each of those units with 3 shieldbreaker units of my own. My entire army was wiped to the man. Archers enabled me to kite them to death, which minimized my casualties and won me that battle.

 

[Noon]

I always play with 4 archers units in all my armies (or most of). They kill at least 2 enemy units before the close combats. Light infantry die very fast, light cavalry is a bit harder to kill since the patch, but 1 lone unit can't reach them, heavy cavalry with a good lightning before will die quite fast too. And sometime the AI let some units in hold position, letting them die stupidly without counter attack.
But contrary to the previous post, I prefer to limit casualties of archers, and let some elite infantry/cavalry soldiers die (as long as i don't loose any unit).
I only get difficulties against armies with a lot of cavalry units, because it's hard to protect the archers.

 

[Mithelemir]

Hello,

Picked the game up from the Steam sale and I have to admit its one fun game! Reminds me of King of Dragon Pass(text adventure game) and a TW game combined, very nice!

On to my question then. I briefly played the Orignial game then tried the Saxons which I am currently playing, however I noticed people on the forums making statements about archers and I found that not even buying them myself allows me to make heavy/medium infantry and cavalry stacks with enough armor on the front to render enemy archers useless and gives me the luxury of flanking and enveloping the enemy with my cavalry.

Tactics, tactics, tactics -- depending on the type of battlefield on which I engage my enemy, I use 4-7 archer units (with 5 being most common). It just depends on how you implement your tactics and in what context.

In general, I would say that archer units are very nicely balanced in the game at this time. If you misuse them, they can be a liability, but if you use them well, then they will win battles for you.

 

[ashbery76]

You can upgrade archers too.

 

[Kjeld]

Archers were overpowered once, but they are now much more balanced (good work with the patches, Neocore !).
That been said, they are still deadly.

Keep in mind however that :

- Basic archers (when fully upgraded) and Welsh archers are high damage, but glass canons, so use with caution - they can effectively be a liability if you can't protect them.

- Though archers like : brigands, deepwoods and sidhe (seelie/unseelie) archers, on the other hand, are real game winners (britons archers are technically in this category, but their range is too bad to be of any use imho)

That been said, the Saxon faction has stellar cavalry (so a "mass" tactics without archers is perfectly doable), and the Saxon DLC campaign allow you a much easier and quicker access to the excellent infantry/cavalry this faction has to offer (quick access to huscarls and saxon raiders in stronghold, lionhearts and sangreals via diplomacy ...) - making skipping archers altogether a very viable tactics and easier to implement than in the base game.