I was actually planning to post a comment about the bows in the game when I saw this post, so it should make a good segue into my comment. The gentleman in the video is correct in that a more powerful bow requires a stronger archer; however, he disregards the fact that different bow designs are more or less efficient. This efficiency is measured by comparing the arrow velocity of two arrows of equal weight fired from equal poundage bows and is often referred to as the speed of the bow. Longbows, and other stick bows (non-recurved) are "slow" or "medium" speed bows, while recurve bows (and particularly composite recurve bows) are very "fast" bows indeed.
Range and penetration/damage are both related to the energy of the arrow, which is in turn predominately dependent on velocity of the arrow (Kinetic Energy = .5*mass*velocity^2).
Your current projectile model is as follows:
Longbows - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 180m
Slings - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 160m
Normal Bows - - - - - - - - - - - - - 140m
Recurve Bows - - - - - - - - - - - -135m
Composite Bows - - - - - - - - - -130m
Any Bow Using Flame Arrows- - - 130m
Mounted Bows - - - - - - - - - 120m
Javelins - - - - - - - - 80m
While I understand that you have selected a missile range cap for balance reasons, the order of missile from greatest to least is not realistic. For example: a modern 56 pound wood longbow (english style) has a arrow speed of 186 feet per second, while a modern 56 pound wood/horn/sinew composite bow (assyrian style) has an arrow speed of 237 feet per second. Assuming a theoretical projectile motion problem with a firing angle of 45 degrees, the longbow will fire its arrow 328 meters while the composite bow will fire 531.9 meters.
I believe the correct order of range should be (using 180m as the normalized maximum, and 80m as the normalized minimum):
Composite Bows/Mounted bows- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 180m
Longbows- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 160m
Slings - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -150m
Recurve Bows - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -140m
Bows using Flaming Arrows - - - - - -130m
Normal Bows - - - - - - - - - - - -120m
Javelins- - - - - - - - -80m
Accuracy for bows should be related to the weight of the arrow fired by the bow (higher weight means higher inertia, which makes it harder for the wind to blow off course). By this metric, Longbows should have the highest accuracy, followed by Recurve bows, Composite bows, and then Normal Bows. Damage should be proportional to range, with perhaps a slightly higher than proportional damage for a longbow, due to the weight of the arrow used.
While I understand that you have selected the maximum range for balance reasons, the low penetration of projectiles in this mod seriously hobbles the horse-archery factions of the game (Parthia, Nomads, etc). If you do not intend to increase penetration, I would ask that you at least consider increasing bow ranges to more realistic values (though 532 meters for horse archers may be unbalancing
), as this will allow more arrows to be fired before the unit must withdraw.
Thank you for your consideration, and I wish you and the mod all the success you deserve. Please let me know if I can offer any assistance on this, or other historical matters.
TL;DR: Relative ranges between different types of missiles is historically inaccurate, and may be contributing to the difficulty that horse archery factions experience as the expand and come against heavy infantry factions.
References Edit:
Composite bow arrow speed:
http://www.grozerarchery.com/index_m.htm (well respected hungarian bowyer who makes historically accurate bows)
Longbow arrow speed:
http://www.greenmanlongbows.co.uk/SP...hronometer.htm (I used a different source in order to compare equal poundage, but this one provides more data points)