Horse archers are too strong! They are not nuke troopers. More balance, please

[bigdaddy1204]

I love this mod. But I have a small suggestion for the battles. Horse archers are the cavalry who ride horses and shoot arrows at the enemy. But in this mod, these guys can mow down entire armies in seconds! Even heavy infantry.

We know that horse archers were very effective in battle, and the Turkish horse archers were successful against many enemies. I like the horse archer, it's one of my favourite units. But I think they are a bit too strong here. Yes, it is good to destroy enemy units with horse archers. But it's a bit too extreme! How fast it happens. And there is not much way to defeat them, except with more horse archers...

Any chance this can be looked at again? Overall, I rate this mod as one of my favourites, which is why I took the time to comment. Good work and respect to the mod team.


Thanks

[Darhan]

Yes, we need more balance!!! Horse archers = machine guns

[Rad]

The power of the horse archer came from wearing down the enemy... shooting at him with arrows, wounding him, disrupting formations and causing morale drop while the enemy couldn't react. The horse archer would just run away.
Here, archers are waaaaay too overpowered, and horse archers are even more powerful because they are fast.

Give units much more armor rating... some don't have any. Even thick clothes can count as armor.

[k/t]

Until the team does something about this, you can play with the numbers yourselves in export_descr_unit.txt.

[+Marius+]

Indeed, the horse archers are completely ahistorically overpowered, historically, they were just a skirmishing unit.
Not surprising though, considering it is a Turkish mod.


To fix this, go to the export_descr_unit.txt. and reduce the horse archer missile damage value to 1-2 for low end horse archers and 3 for high end horse archers.

[k/t]

Reminds me of TLK's Magyars...TLK being made (mostly) by a Hungarian.

[stevietheconquer]

ok the archers seems too be overpowered,but look out you seem too think like the byzantians and take their arrows as a joke;result they lost their lands....offcourse it was for more reasons but the arrows where surly one of them

edit:what does it matter,no one knowns.

[+Marius+]

think like the byzantians and take their arrows as a joke;result they lost their lands

Yes, because the Turks had amazing melee cavalry
Even at Manzikert, the most famous victory of the Seljuks, the horse archers just skirmished around with the Byznatines doing basically no significant damage, it was the amazing flanking charge of the Turkish heavy cavalry that smashed the Byzantines.

On top of that, the Byzantines recruited large amounts of light Turkic units(including horse archers) in their Achaean/Morean campaigns, look how that turned out when they met Western heavy knights in open battle;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Prinitza
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Neopatras

[Nebaki]

Indeed, the horse archers are completely ahistorically overpowered, historically, they were just a skirmishing unit.
Not surprising though, considering it is a Turkish mod.


To fix this, go to the export_descr_unit.txt. and reduce the horse archer missile damage value to 1-2 for low end horse archers and 3 for high end horse archers.

The Mongols has just the best Infantry to create the biggest Empire of World or not ? Hahaha ! Maybe in West-Europe but even Byzantinium uses Horse Archers.

[+Marius+]

The Mongols has just the best Infantry to create the biggest Empire of World or not ? Hahaha !

No, they had the best heavy cavalry.

Maybe in West-Europe but even Byzantinium uses Horse Archers.

Yes, they did use horse archers;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Prinitza
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Neopatras

gg horse archers

[lekseus]

No, they had the best heavy cavalry.

Ha. Did you see mongolian horses? How could they bear heavy warrior?

[+Marius+]

Ha. Did you see mongolian horses? How could they bear heavy warrior?

Well they could and they did.

Deal with it.

[k/t]

Mongol armies had a large component of heavy cavalry which was responsible for delivering the knock-out punch to the enemy once the light horsearchers had undermined his morale, disrupted his formation and gotten him to tire himself out chasing uncatchable skirmishers. I read 60% horsearchers, 40% melee.

[IAssassinII]

Can someone upload a more balanced exportdescrunit.txt please? I tried, but I couldn't tell which values needed changing.

[k/t]

http://medieval2.heavengames.com/m2t...de/index.shtml

[IAssassinII]

So just the first number in the stat_pri line for every unit? I did that and my units are still being slaughtered in seconds by horse archers. Maybe I should limit the damage of archers as well.

[k/t]

Well, it depends on what you changed the number to, and what the armour of units is. I have yet to play a mod that was well balanced in the unit stat department, with the exception of Thera, which for the most part had RC stats. That one had horrible recruitment balance, though, and the unit spam was awful.

Long distance horse archers should have an attack of 1 or 2. Ones that get close should have 3, and if they're really, really good, 4.

Take a look at what armour the units are wearing. If they're wearing heavy mail, they should have 6, maybe 7, even 8 if they're noble units.

Also see what the accuracy of the missile units is set to in descr_projectile and what the missile hit rate is in battle_config.

[Mirni]

I fully agree with many others that arrows from various period bows were incapable of penetrating armour at range.

I'd say plate (1-1.5 mm over mail, or the thicker plate on it's own type) would not be in danger of being pentrated by long or composite bows, probably regardless of range.

I also tend to agree with the thought that needle nosed bodkins at range were more flight arrows, and an unhardened bodkin at range was not going to do much of anything to someone in mail. I'm not one of those that believes the "Longbow had a range of 240 yards, and no armor was protection against it" statement you'll see about the longbow in some books and I-net sites.

However we do know knights were from time to time killed or severely wounded through mail by Saracen arrows (i may use the term "Turkish" bow for these - meaning the Composite recurve), and being severely wounded by a crossbow was also not uncommon (Richard the Lion Hearted maybe the most recognizable example here).

As far as the Lonbow vs the Composite bow thing, I've found that a composite bow of similar draw weight could store energy better than a longbow. Even a Composite of somewhat lower draw weight should have similar qualities in stored energy to a longbow (another issue here, but to me that is another nail in the coffin about the alleged superiority of the Middle age "wonder weapon"). Some tests of the great longbow compared to tests of reconstructed turkish bows really point this way as well.

My thought here is mail was clearly capable of being penetrated, but at what range? I know there was a wide variance in quality of mail and plate, and variance in the hardness of arrowheads, two things that play a big role. There is a passage where european knights were advised to wear "Doubled Mail" to protect themsleves, because the Mongols were using hardened arrows

[+Marius+]

However we do know knights were from time to time killed or severely wounded through mail by Saracen arrows (i may use the term "Turkish" bow for these - meaning the Composite recurve)

Rarely.
Even the ordinary foot soldiers are reported as being "unimpressed by Saladin's Mameluke volleys.

and being severely wounded by a crossbow was also not uncommon (Richard the Lion Hearted maybe the most recognizable example here).

Actually, Richard the Lionheart was not wounded during an engagement, he was inspecting his troops, walking around in his regular clothes when a peasant boy with a crossbow saw him and the rest is history.
He was not wearing armor at the time.

As far as the Lonbow vs the Composite bow thing, I've found that a composite bow of similar draw weight could store energy better than a longbow.

Yes, but not that much.

Even a Composite of somewhat lower draw weight should have similar qualities in stored energy to a longbow (another issue here, but to me that is another nail in the coffin about the alleged superiority of the Middle age "wonder weapon"). Some tests of the great longbow compared to tests of reconstructed turkish bows really point this way as well.

Not really true.
Firstly, the English longbow is a composite bow by natural construction, the heartwood resists compression and the outer sapwood performs better in tension. This combination in a single piece of wood forms a natural "laminate", somewhat similar in effect to the construction of a composite bow. Not as effective as "proper" composite construction, but far more resilient to moisture, weather, climate etc.

Secondly, composite bows of even the most superior constructions only have a somewhat noticeable energy buff.

Thirdly, most composite bows weren't nearly as good in their construction as people tend to believe.

Fourthly, people overestimate the importance of stored energy and undermine the importance of kinetic delivered energy(which also is dependent on the weight of the arrow).

For instance, from the current estimates;

Scythian bows went as 18-36 J, Persian bows, 24-52 J and Turkish composite bows, 50-75 J.

The recent reconstruction tests cited by Robert Hardy's book "The Great Warbow" states a 150 lb longbow(shooting heavy English war arrows) as delivering 115-136 J of kinetic energy(them thick, heavy arrows)...which is a horrendous amount.

My thought here is mail was clearly capable of being penetrated, but at what range?

Close range

There is a passage where european knights were advised to wear "Doubled Mail" to protect themsleves, because the Mongols were using hardened arrows

No, the passage states that certain arrows are hardened and quenched and require double mail to be protected against, it does not state that it was a common occurance.
Currently, we have barely any evidence of any sort of arrowhead hardening and process quenching, the vast, vast, vast majority of found arrowheads everywhere are just low quality wrought iron.

The only arrowheads that I know of proven to be going through such a process are the English type 16 arrowheads, and even then it is a minority of them.

[EugCC]

I am an MTW2 fan since a long time. Played several mods always in VH VH (no fun otherwise for me). This mod is amazing but having a bridge battle in which your defending 2 (units of) archers + 1 bowmen (first) and 100 % of your army (heavy infantry + spearmen) get crashed by 5 horse archers standing (packed) in the middle of the bridge is really demoralizing.
Could somebody please upload an adjusted descr_stat? (I am playingPlay Venice and I have just invaded Anatolia - needless to say I have no horse archers)